NEW RIGHT PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION

NEW RIGHT PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION

1. new right

   • negative view of the state and its education policies
   • state can't meet the individual peoples needs
   • better off if they can meet their own needs through the free market
   • free market: privatisation state controlled: nationalisation (NHS)

2. similarities with functionalism

   • believe some people are naturally more intelligent than others
   • education is meritocratic
   • designed to serve the needs to the economy by preparing pupils for work
   • gives students a national identity

3. differences with functionalism

   • state run so can't meet individual needs
   • "one size fits all" schooling which degrades local needs so state schools are unresponsive and inefficient
   • schools can't answer to the consumers as they are state run, producing a less qualified workforce and a poor economy

4. education market

   • making education private
   • increases competition which allows the laws of supply and demand empower the consumer
   • creates a greater diversity, choice and efficiency as it meets the needs of the consumer

5. chubb and moe

   • american state education has failed and believe it should be free market
   • disadvantaged groups are mistreated by the state so it fails to promote meritocracy
   • privatisation gives a higher quality of education as they are answerable to the paying parents
   • parents given a voucher to allow them to pay for their school of choice
   • main source of income so schools are treated like businesses

6. evaluation

   • contradiction between support for parental choice then imposing a compulsory national curriculum on all schools
   • marxists say that it doesn't impose a shared national culture but they want them to have the same culture of capitalism
   • free market education only benefits the M/C as there's a cultural and economic capital to get the best schools
   • under achievements in state schools isn't due to state but wider inequalities in society
   • post modernists believe schools are constantly changing

7. role of the state

   • gives basic framework in which schools have to operate
   • produces a shared culture so they're socialised into single heritage
   • national identity must show british history positively, eg. christian worship

8. influence on government policy

   • 1988 education reform act
   • new labour (1997) creating academy schools
   • parental choice with national curriculum, league tables and ofsted
   • puts pupils into competition with eachother