This document includes revision notes on educational policies for the education topic in sociology paper 1. It covers 1944 policies, the education reform act, New Labour, coalition policies, policies on social class, gender and ethnicity and globalisation and education.
1944 POLICIES
Educational Policy - key dates
- 1880 Forster Education Act: School is compulsory for all children from 5 to 10.
- 1944 Butler Education Act: School is compulsory to age 15.
1944 The Tripartite System
● Conservative Government. Created 3 types of state-funded secondary schools.
● The results of the 11+ exam determine which school a pupil attended.
○ Grammar school (academic pupils)
○ Technical schools (skills-based education)
○ Secondary Modern schools (non-academic pupils).
Few technical schools were built so there was only a two-tier system.
- Reproduced class inequality: w/c & m/c went to different schools with different
opportunities. 11+ is unfair, those who could afford tuition would pass.
- Gender inequality: girls had to do better than boys in 11+ to get into a grammar
school.
- Legitimised inequality through the ideology that ability is inborn rather than a
product of upbringing & environment.
- Damaged the self-esteem of w/c students who rarely got places at grammar
schools. Talent and ability of those in Secondary Modern schools was being wasted.
EVALUATION OF THE TRIPARTITE SYSTEM
FOR AGAINST
• Children were selected and allocated to a school • Pupils in secondary modern schools didn’t take
and so students were getting an appropriate public exams and couldn’t get qualifications.
education for them. • All the best teachers wanted to work in the
• Shaped by the principle of meritocracy. Status grammar schools.
should be achieved and not ascribed. • 11+ test measured how good people were at 11,
• 11+ was fair - everyone took the same test on not 16 or 18.
the same day. • No opportunity to move from a secondary
• Grammar schools maintained academic modern to a grammar school if you did well.
excellence and high standards of behaviour. • The 11+ test was not a good test of intelligence.
• Many thought there was no point wasting • M/c can pay for their child to be tutored to help
money trying to teach children who would never them pass the 11+. Unfair on w/c children.
use that education. • Few technical schools were built - little
• W/c children gained places at grammar schools alternative to a secondary modern for pupils.
and used it to advance themselves in later life. • Some areas had more grammar schools so it was
• Many believed intelligence was fixed and did not easier for children in those areas to get a place
change. They thought you could not teach at grammar school. There were places for 40%
people to be more intelligent. of children at grammar schools in Barnet,
• O/A Level exams were only meant to be for the London. In Newcastle it was 5%.
brightest students. • Most saw grammar schools as higher status.
, 1965 Comprehensive System - To overcome inequality of tripartite (Labour)
● Grammars, secondary moderns & 11+ abolished and replaced with comprehensive
schools.
● School catchment areas introduced rather than selection.
● If all children go to the same type of school, inequality will be reduced. HOWEVER…
○ Streaming within schools → m/c advantage
○ Labelling
○ Comprehensives legitimise inequality through ‘myth of meritocracy’.
○ Some Conservative LEAs decided to keep grammar schools.
FUNCTIONALIST
- Social integration – all students together.
- Meritocratic – not selected at an early age, can develop through school.
MARXISM:
- Not meritocratic.
- Reproduce class inequality – labelling/streaming.
- Myth of meritocracy – failure to achieve is blamed on individuals.
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