EMA are paid weekly to students that come from low income background. This move was invented in order to give equal opportunities to materially and culturally deprived family back grounds so that their achievement levels improve within the academic. Other policy such as Compensatory education policies (CEP’s) was introduced by Tony Blair in 1997 and was aimed to extend the academic period among school children from the age of 16 to the age of 18. This policy was aimed to reduce the socio-economic disadvantages which could include restricting equal educational opportunities from students from culturally deprived background originally focusing on working class children in UK. There are two arguments within the educational system;
This policy was introduced by New Labour, carried out later by the conservatives, with the main aim to reduce inequality. This will reduce inequality because its making it compulsory for low income household students to stay in schools and able to get the same qualifications as students with a higher income household. Another policy introduced by New Labour to reduce inequality was the EMA. The EMA paid lower income household students to go to further education such as college and sixth form. However
Source 16 supports the statement by saying ‘In 1870, the Government made elementary education up to the age of 13 compulsory for all children.’ This shows that by opening education to all children aged 13 and below, they had approached the problem of uneducated children especially boys from falling into lower classes. Source 17 also agrees, ‘Before 1870, education was not compulsory and it was not free.’ The government had then opened a branch for the lower classes to become educated and somehow improve their quality of life. By opening up school board and creating new schools, it meant that fees were eventually to be taken off, when after the 1902 education act, schools that were receiving state funding had to offer 25% of all places without fees. Gladstone the prime minister at the time believed in equality of opportunity, so over the coming years, showed open support about children receiving open education for all ages. He openly says about passing the political power to an uneducated nation and improving people’s quality of life, therefore showing support.
The study found that the counsellor judged pupils largely on their social class; this therefore put them at a disadvantage as middle-class students were placed on higher level courses. The self-fulfilling prophecy is another internal factor that can be linked to social class differences in achievement. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true simply by virtue of it being made. Some sociologists argue that labelling can effect pupil’s achievement by creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. This can be seen in a study of a primary school by Rosenthal and Jacobson.
Some schools, like the grammar schools, require a good result on the 11+. This leads to cream skimming, but also off-loading of ‘bad’ students, that for example will refuse children with learning difficulties good education, because they are “those students who won’t do well anyways”. The top students often seem to be from the middle class. They don’t suffer from material or cultural deprivation and often use the elaborated code, which makes education easier for them. This makes the schools trying to appeal to the middle class parents, to make the middle class parents choose their school and help them get their own results better.
Publishing schools exams results in league tables ensure that the school has to achieve phenomenal results if they want to attract likes of the consumers. With good league tables in allows the schools to be selective in those pupils they give a confirmed place to with recuiting the high achieving middle class pupils. As a result of this middle class pupils get the best education because of the social class inequality with the education system. So for those with poor league tables they are not in the position to be selective with their pupils and have to offer places to the less able, mainly working class. So their results being unattractive to the middle class parents,
Marxists would also say that the National Curriculum does not ensure a standard education throughout the education system because the education system places more value on middle class knowledge than on working class knowledge and so they are disadvantaged and receive a different education to other classes. Bernstein would also argue that due to the elaborated code used by the middle class, the education received by middle class children is different and more fluid because they are more likely to understand everything the teacher says. Nationwide exams (SATs, GCSEs, and A Levels) and literary tests also support the
However, schools are the place for students to lead their potential power and institutes that help them to be learned as much as they can, and under the condition of separating of boys and girls, their potential can be maximized. Boys and girls could be helper to each other, but the first priority for student to do is studying and learning knowledge which might be driving force for them to manage their future lives. There are five reasons why boys and girls should attend separate schools. First of all, as mentioned on the above, boys and girls can maximize their scholarly potential when they attend separate schools. Some schools that are already taking only boys or girls such as boarding or private schools have proved that their achievements are way high when they are separate.
Also, because the teachers have middle class values as well, the cultural deprivation theorists believe that they will have a bias against the working class kids and therefore they will not be able to teach them properly since their values and cultures conflict. Compensatory education is a policy that was designed to deal with the problem of cultural deprivation, by providing extra resources to schools and communities in deprived areas. Compensatory education programmes were introduced to intervene early in the socialisation process to compensate children for deprivation they experience at home. The most comprehensive programme was Head Start. It involved health care, social services, and education.
He believed that schools acted as a mini-society, people need to cooperate with other people who are neither family nor friends - teachers and pupils at school, colleagues and customers at work. In today's society, industrial economies have a complex division of labour, where production usually involves the cooperation of many different specialists. This cooperation promotes social solidarity but for it to be successful, each person must perform their role. Durkheim argued that education teaches individuals the specialist knowledge and skills that they need to play their part in the social division of labour. In the USA, Talcott Parsons (1902 - 1979) developed Durkheim's ideas.