Education

• Selection policies

  • faith schools
  • specialist schools
  • tripartite system
  • grammar schools
• Marketisation policies

  • Education Reform Act
  • introduction of Ofsted
  • league tables
  • formula fundings
  • standardises testing
  • greater parental choice
  • open enrolment
• Privatisation policies

  • Expansion of academies
  • independent schools
  • privatisation of the education system
• Equality of opportunity or outcome policies

  • Compensatory education
  • sure start
  • free school meals
  • Pupil Premium
  • education action zones
  • City centre academies
  • expansion of universities
• Impact of globalisation on educational policy

  • PISA and TIMMS testing
  • funding of literacy and maths skills
  • expansion of educational provision
  • import of new teaching ideas
  • free schools and academies
  • teaching skills for global economy
  • multiculturalism in schools
• 1944 Education Act- Butler Act
• 1965 Comprehensivisation
• Conservative educational policy 1979-1997
• New Labour and educational policy 1997-2010
• Coalition goverment and educational policy 2010-2015
• Conservative government and educational policy 2015-
• Factors outside the school that contribute to working class underachievement


  • Material deprivation (inability to afford basic resources)
  • Cultural deprivation (deficiencies in home and family backgrounds)
• Cultural capital


  Knowledge, language, attitudes and values, and lifestyle that gives the middle-class an inbuilt advantage in a middle-class controlled education system
• Bernstein's speech codes theory


  • Differences in speech codes put working-class children at a disadvantage because the elaborated code is used by teachers, textbooks and exams
  • Early socialisation into the elaborated code means that middle-class pupils are already at an advantage
• Douglas' theory on parents' education


  • Working-class parents place less value on education
  • They are less ambitious for their children
  • They give them less encouragement to participate in educational activities, such as homework
  • Many working-class parents do not attend parents evening
• Sugarmann's theory on working-class subcultures


  • Fatalism - there's nothing you can do to change your status
  • Collectivism - valuing being part of a group more than being an individual
  • Immediate gratification - seeking pleasure now rather than making sacrifices in order to get rewards in the future
  • Present time orientation - seeing the present as more important than the future, therefore having no long-term goals
• How poor housing can affect pupil achievement

  • Overcrowding means there is no room for educational activities, such as homework and reading
  • Disturbed sleep from sharing bedrooms
  • Families living in temp accommodation may find themselves having to move frequently, leading to disturbed education
  • Overcrowded homes mean greater risk of accidents and a higher risk of getting ill, leading to more absences from school
• How poor diet and health can affect pupil achievement


  • Young people from poorer homes have lower intakes of energy, vitamins and minerals
  • Poor nutrition affects health, for example, by weakening the child's immune system, leading to more absences from school
• Bourdieu's theory on cultural capital


  • Middle-class children with cultural capital are better equipped to meet the demands on the school curriculum
  • Parents can convert the cultural capital into economic capital, for example, they can send their children to private schools
• Factors inside the school environment that hinder pupil achievement


  • Labelling
  • Streaming
  • Pupil subcultures
  • Pupil identities
  • Development of a self-fulfilling prophecy
• Becker's theory on teacher labelling


  • Teachers judge and label pupils according to how closely they fit the "ideal pupil"
  • This would therefore dampen the motivation of students who did not suit the ideal pupil, due to how teachers deferred their time away from them and were unwilling to help
• Self-fulfilling prophecy


  • When students are given a positive label, they react to it by creating a positive self-concept, which means they are motivated to work hard and improve their grades
  • This also works in reverse, with negative labels leading to negative self-concepts and less motivation
• Rosenthal and Jacobson's study on self-fulfilling prophecy


  • Teachers treated those who were falsely identified as 'spurts' differently
  • 47% of those who were identified to 'spurt' had made significant improvement due to how teachers paid more attention to them by giving them more feedback
• Gillborn and Youdell's findings on streaming


  • Teachers labelled working-class students as unintelligent, resulting in them being placed in lower streams and sets
• Lacey's findings on pupil subcultures


  • Polarisation - pupils respond to streaming by either moving to a pro-school subculture or an anti-school subculture
  • Differentiation - a form of streaming, those who are placed in higher streams gain a higher status
• Hargreaves' findings on pupil subcultures


  • Boys in lower streams were triple failures: they failed their 11+ exam; had been placed in lower streams; and then labelled as "worthless louts"
  • Their solution was to form a group which provided status to those who flouted the school rules and guaranteed their educational failure
• Archer et al's findings on pupil identities


  • Working-class pupils invest in 'nike' identities, leading to self-exclusion from education because it does not fit their identity and way of life
  • They see it as unrealistic (it is for richer and cleverer people) and they also see it as undesirable (it does not suit their habitus)
• Trends in statistics have shown Chinese pupils to achieve the best in education, whereas black Caribbean and Gypsy Roma pupils have fallen behind
• Factors outside the school that place minority ethnic groups at a disadvantage


  • Language skills
  • Family structure
  • Attitudes and values
  • Material deprivation
• Factors inside the school environment that lead to ethnic differences in achievement


  • Ethnocentric curriculum
  • Labelling
  • Pupil subcultures
  • Institutional racism
• Linguistic skills


  Some pupils speak a different language and some pupils speak an informal version of English
• Bereiter and Engelmann state that the black Caribbean language is ungrammatical and disjointed, which means they cannot convey abstract ideas
• Family structure


  There are higher rates of lone-parent families in black ethnicities
• Moynihan found that many black families are headed by a lone mother, leading to lower achievement of black boys due to how they do not have a male role model
• Attitudes and values


  Some black pupils have a fatalistic outlook on life, meaning they want immediate gratification and have limited motivation to achieve in the long term
• Material deprivation


  Many minority ethnic groups are victims of racism in wider society, subsequently they face direct or indirect discrimination at work or in the housing market, and in turn, they may be in low paid jobs or unemployed. This impacts upon the children's educational opportunities
• Labelling of black pupils


  • Teachers had racialised expectations of black pupils and expected more discipline problems and saw their behaviour as threatening
  • Black pupils were more likely than others to be punished for the same behaviour as white pupils
• High achieving black girls maintained a positive self-image by rejecting teachers' stereotypes. They did not seek teacher approval, but valued education
• Mirza found that black girls' strategies for dealing with teacher racism still disadvantaged them. For instance, they would not ask for help
• Labelling of Asian pupils

  Teachers used simple language because they assumed they would speak poor English and became frustrated when pupils pronounced their names incorrectly