Education Key Humans 💙
PROCESSES
Gilbourn and Youdell
- 5 A* - C Economy: result of league tables, schools are judged based on how many students get 5 GCSEs at A*-C
- Educational Triage: splitting students into three groups 1) those who will pass anyway, 2) C/D borderline (main focus of teachers) 3) hopeless cases
Lacey
- Setting: putting students in sets depending on ability (exam tiers reflect this)
- Streaming: separating groups of students, often based on previous results, it means the students remain in the same groups for all lessons taught (year 7)
- Polarisation and Differentiation: students will polarise into opposing subcultures as a result of setting/streaming – anti-school subculture and the pro-school subculture
Becker
- Labelling theory: teachers label students based on pre-existing ideals – link to ideal pupil (middle class, girl, white etc)
Bartlett
- Cream skimming: taking the best students to create the best league tables THOSE WHO WILL PASS ANYWAY // PRO-SCHOOL SUBCULTURE // IDEAL PUPIL
- Silt shifting: remove the bad students who will reflect negatively on the school HOPELESS CASES // ANTI-SCHOOL SUBCULTURES
SOCIAL POLICIES
1944 Tripartite System
- 11+ exams (conservative government): split students into three different schools depending on their results.
1. Grammar (upper classes, more academically driven)
2. Comprehensive (both upper and middle, sometimes lower)
3. Technical (lower class, vocational skills – i.e engineering, cooking and carpentry)
1970 Comprehensivisation
- Eradicated the 11+ exam (in the most part) and moved to selection by catchment (labour government)
Leech and Campos - Selection by mortgage: nicer areas have the nicer schools, house prices in these areas are expensive therefore the upper classes/middle classes are more able to move to attend the better school.
Sink schools: schools that cannot get the students, the staff or the funding, results decline and therefore reputation does also.
1988 Education Reform Act
- Thatcher (conservatives)
Key components:
1. OFSTED – introduction of ofsted as a regulatory body to judge schools.
2. National Curriculum – all students learning the same things.
3. Marketisation – schools competed against each other for students.
Ball – parentocracy: parents as consumers of education
4. League tables
Two drivers: competition and consumer choice
Gerwitz – parental school choosers: 1) privileged school chooser (M/U), 2) Semi-skilled chooser (M/L), 3) Disconnected local choosers (LC)
Section 28: banned the ‘promotion of homosexuality as a pretended family type’ – was not removed until 2003 – left a lasting impact on education.
1997- 2010 New Labour
- Kept elements of the 1988 Education Reform Act
- New Labour – is closer to the conservatives but not as traditional – Tony Blair and Gordon Brown
- 2004 uni fees were introduced (£2000, gently increased ever since)
- Academies as a school type were first introduced
- Specialist schools
Old labour-esque: Education Action Zones, Sure Start Centres (compensatory education), EMA (education maintenance allowance £30 per week to attend college)
2010 – 2015 Coalition Government
- Combination of Conservatives (Cameron) and Liberal Democrat’s (Clegg)
- Increased uni fees to £9000: the intention was only certain uni’s went to £9000 and the rest would remain at £4,500
- Linear examS: exams at the end of the second year of a-levels, previously you would sit an AS and this would contribute towards your final grade.
- Curriculum: made more difficult
- 9-1 grading, removal of A* - U
- Forced academisation of ‘failing’ school
- British Values 2014
Coronavirus Act 2020
- Online teaching, centre assessed grades and teacher assessed grades.
- Advanced information given for exams.
- Additional funding for catch up sessions.
PERSPECTIVES
Functionalism
Durkheim
- Meritocracy: get out what you put in.
- Specialist skills: education provides you with the right skill set for future careers.
- Society in Miniature: norms and values reinforced; this is a form of secondary socialisation.
- Moral Education: education is one of the most important places we learn right and wrong.
- Anomie: normlessness leads to crime
Parsons
- The bridge: particularistic values (in the family) and then education bridges the gap between these and universalistic values (wider society)
- Socialisation: secondary socialisation happens within education
- Social Control: informal and formal social control (formal would be the education system i.e detentions, informal would be peer groups)
Davis and Moore
- Role Allocation: education sifts and sorts you into future job roles.
Merton
- Strain Theory: American dream is our goal and the means are the education system, the education system helps us achieve this goal. If we cannot achieve it we experience STRAIN – 5 adaptations (responses) to strain:
1. Retreatism – withdraw entirely
2. Rebellion – go against the laws of the society
3. Ritualism – going through the motions, understanding you won’t achieve the goal but continuing anyway
4. Innovation – gambling and finding alternative means of success
5. Conformity – working towards the goal in a legitimate way.
Marxism
Marx
- False class consciousness: working class unaware of their position ins society
- Alienation: where individuals feel detached or excluded (workers – from product, other workers, themselves and society) Education system – peers, their learning
- Bourgeoisie (UPPER CLASS, MORE VALUED IN ED) and Proletariat (LOWER CLASS, LESS VALUED IN ED)
- Base-superstructure: education system is part of the superstructure, these maintain and legitimise each other
- Commodity Fetishism: schools become a site of consumerism and reinforces capitalist ideals iPads, google chromebooks etc as part of the equipment
- Polarisation: rich get richer, poor get poorer didn’t predict the emergence of the middle class
Bowles and Gintis
- Correspondence principle: school mirrors the workplace so future workers learn how to behave
1) Hierarchy (teachers – pupils vs. Workers – managers)
2) Uniform (students wear a uniform to show where they go to school but also for similarity, much the same for companies)
3) Timetables (schools have timetabled subjects, breaks etc vs. Work – shifts)
4) Alienation (students alienated from their learning vs. Workers from their products)
5) Rewards (students get grades, merits vs. Workers getting promotions, pay)
6) Punishments (students get detentions, warnings vs. Workers getting warnings, fired)
- Hidden Curriculum: unconscious learning that happens in the education system that normalises class/gender/ethnicity differences
Everyone’s Invited – list of schools that have had reports of sexual assault/harassment
- The myth of meritocracy: they do not believe it is a fair system, not everyone can achieved based on hard work but more factors in play
Gramsci
- Neo-Marxism: humanistic Marxist, combination of social action and Marxism
- Hegemony: idea of ruling/dominant ideologies (usually that of the ruling class)
- Education will reinforce and reproduce this hegemony
- Counter Hegemony: reject the mainstream hegemonic ideals and develop/adopt their own
Archer: Nike Identities (Nike was adopted by the lower classes)
- Organic Intellectuals: reference to subcultures (link back to Cohen and Alternative Status Hierarchy)
- Dual class consciousness: aware of exploitation but use it to your advantage
Bourdieu
- Three types of capital: upper classes are more likely to have these therefore succeed
1) Economic
2) Educational
3) Cultural
- Habitus (social space i.e education system) and Doxa: rules of the space, often the upper class have access and learn these at an early age
Althusser
- Structural Marxism: believes that capitalism will not be overthrown but rather needs to collapse
- Three main elements to our society: 1) economic, 2) political and 3) ideological – these all work together to maintain capitalism
- Ideological State Apparatus: ruling class ideology that reinforced throughout the structures
- Repressive State Apparatus: physical force, army/police etc
Postmodernism
Usher and Edwards
- The national curriculum at present, is outdated and does not reflect the changing nature of society
- LGBTQ+ education is severely lacking
Birmingham: parents protesting against same sex relationships being taught to primary school students
Giroux
- National curriculum is white focused and therefore ignores other cultures: now society is multicultural and high elements of hyridity (combo of cultures)
Baudrillard
- Pick and Mix Identities: often education is an important part of the identity forming process
- Focus on consumerism
Ritzer – McDonaldisation, standardisation of education & cut copy paste element
1. Standardisation
2. Efficiency
3. Control
4. Calculability
Rikowski – business takeover, increased business presence in schools i.e coca cola vending machines, iPads, google chrome, coop and costa.
SOCIAL CLASS
External:
Howard: diet and health, lower classes don‘t eat the healthiest food and therefore lack nutrients, vitamins and this can lead to illness and absences
Douglas: Housing – LC more likely to rent, lack of space means no quiet place to study and the housing conditions may not be up to standard also overcrowding
Tanner: School items and trips place a heavy burden on the lower classes
Bull: There is no such thing as a free education
Ridge: How lower class young people often have to contribute to the cost of the house, therefore more likely to have to take on employment which impacts their learning
Bernstein: Elaborated speech codes (often spoken by the UC and involves a large vocab), restricted speech codes (LC)
Douglas: Working class parents are less likely to read to their children BUT this is because they are overworked and have less time to do so
Bernstein and Young: MC parents are more likely to purchase educational toys for their children
Wilkinson: LC young people more likely to have behaviour problems such as a ADHD and anxiety
Murray; Perverse Incentives, single parents being unable to socialise children successfully
Sugarman
Working class subcultures reinforce certain norms and values that act as a barrier to success;
1) Present Time Orientation
2) Immediate Gratification
3) Collectivism
4) Fatalism
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