Critical Approaches to Understanding the English Education System

3191 Words13 Pages
This essay will look at social class as a case study and examine the English education system to see how inclusive or exclusive it is in terms of an individual’s class. I will look at how social class can affect the quality of education, what they can achieve and their future prospects. In social political perspectives, I will be looking at the consequences of neo liberalism in relation to social class as my case study. I will be framing this essay in the theories of Erickson, Bandura, Bourdieu and other philosophers to understand the causes of inclusion and exclusion in relation to this study. Social class is defined as how much financial wealth an individual has achieved in terms of, their economic success putting them in a hierarchy different from others Scott (1994). Social class can be grouped into four different stages such as the upper class, middle class, working and lower class. According to Woodward (2004) a person’s class determines his wealth, occupation and education. This can also be grouped into three dimensions such as cultural, social and economic. According to a research by Jowell et al (1995) 69 % of people viewed an individual’s social class as threatening to the opportunities one can receive. This research goes further to show how people in the upper class are mainly possessive and always try to attain their class to become rulers in their society. Due to the power and the rule of belonging to a social class, England as a country is seen to be following the class system. During the late 1970s, England adopted a drastic right of educational policies allowing neo-liberal and free market principles which resulted in change of powers away from local education authorities to schools Hill and Cole (2004). The Idea of neoliberalism was widely introduced in Britain in the 1970s by the then prime minister. The idea was believed to support economic
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