Educational policy in Britain before 1988

• Industrialisation


  Increased the need for education, as previous this was only offered for the very rich who could afford to pay the fees
• Tripartite system


  Brought in by the 1944 Education Act, children were allocated to different schools depending on their skills and abilities - this was done through the 11+ test
• Grammar school


  • Offered an academic curriculum and access to non-manual jobs and higher education, only for pupils with academic ability who passed the 11+, tended to be from middle-class background
• Secondary modern schools


  • Offered a non-academic practical curriculum and access to manual labour for those who had not passed the 11+, tended to be from working-class background
• Technical schools


  • Existed in a few areas, made the system more bipartite than tripartite
• The tripartite system reproduced class-inequality and legitimated this inequality by promoting meritocracy
• Comprehensive school system


  Introduced in many areas from 1965 onwards, aimed to overcome the divide caused by the tripartite system and make it more meritocratic, the 11+ was abolished alongside grammar schools and replaced by comprehensive schools where pupils from an area could all attend
• Marxist view on comprehensive system


  • Not meritocratic, reproduced class inequality, working-class pupils do not get the same opportunities, meritocracy legitimates class inequality by making unequal achievements seem fair and just, as the failure is placed on the individual rather than the system
• Functionalist view on comprehensive system


  • Promotes social integration by bringing children of different social classes together in one school, more meritocratic as it gives pupils a longer period in which they can develop their own abilities, unlike the tripartite system which sought to select the most able children at the age of 11
• Ford's study found that little social mixing took place between the two social classes in comprehensive schools