Favours marketisation - state cannot meet the needs
of the people & people are best left to meet their own
needs through the free market.
Similar to FUNCTIONALISTS
Believes that some people are naturally
more talented than others.
Favours an education system run on meritocratic principles
of open competition & one that serves the needs of the
economy by preparing young people to work.
Education should socialise pupils
into shared values such as
competition and instil a sense of
natural identity.
Argues that the power of the
state is used to impose their
views of what kind of schools we
should have.
Local consumers who use the schools have no say.
Schools =
unresponsive and
breed inefficiency.
= lower standards of achievement, less
qualified workforce and a less prosperous
economy.
Solution? Marketisation of
education, a education market.
Competition between schools and laws of supply and demand will empower
consumers = greater diversity, choice and efficiency & increasing ability to meet
the needs of the consumers.
CHUBB AND MOE: American state
education has failed & makes a case for
opening it up to market forces of supply
and demand.
State education failed to create equal
opportunities so now there are
disadvantaged groups.
State education = inefficient
because it fails to produce
pupils wiht the skills needed
by the economy.
Private schools deliver higher
quality education bc they are
answerable to paying consumers
(parents)
Base their arguments of 60k pupils from low-income
families in 1,015 state and public schools.
Evidence shows 5% of pupils from
low-income families do better in
private schools.
Propose a system in which each family would be
given a voucher to spend on education from a
school of their choice.
Forces schools to be more responsive to
parents' wishes as the vouchers would be
the school's main source of income.
2 roles for the state.
1. State imposes a framework on
schools within which they have to
compete.
Publication of League tables and OFSTED reports
= parents are more informed = more competition.
2. State ensures the schools
transmit a shared culture.
Single National Curriculum -
Guarantees that schools socialise
pupils into a single cultural heritage.
EVALUATION
Gewirtz and Ball: Competition benefits the m/c - uses
cultural and economic capital to gain access to more
desirable schools.
Critics: real cause of low educational standards is not
state control but social inequality & bad funding of state
schools.
Contradiction between NR's support for
parental choice & state imposing a
compulsory NC on its own schools.
MARXISTS: Education
imposes the culture of a
dominant minority ruling class.