Outline and Assess the View That Changes to Educational Policy Since 1988 Have Resulted in Greater Equality of Opportunity for All Students/ Recent Policies/ 1988 Have Resulted in Inequality.

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Since the 1944 Butler Act which introduced the tripartite system and 11+, the key purpose of educational policy has focused on equality of opportunity and meritocratic ideals. However, many sociologists would argue that rather than promoting meritocracy the tripartite system and 11+ has reproduced class inequality by providing unequal opportunities. Also some policies introduced since then have been effective at achieving greater equality of opportunity whereas some have resulted in more inequality. In 1979, the New Conservative government who had strong influence from the New Right, brought in the idea of marketisation of education; however it was not until the 1988 Education Reform Act that this idea was fully put into practice. The whole idea behind marketisation was that by introducing the ideas of big business into schools the education system would improve. Consumer/parental choice and competition between schools would inevitably lead to better standards and would improve equality of opportunity. Parents were given the right to send their children to a school of their choice. Schools now had to publish league tables which would help parents make an informed decision. This led to parents having more power as consumers. Miriam Davies describes this parental choice agenda as ‘parentocracy’ because power has been moved away from the producers (teachers/school) to the consumers (parents). She claimed that this encourages diversity among schools, gives parents more choice and drives up standards. Parents were now able to influence the education of their children. Not only were league tables published, but formula funding was introduced. This meant that schools would receive funding based on the number of pupils they were able to attract. The idea behind all these measures was to force schools to improve by creating a competitive marketplace similar to that of

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