What has been done to achieve fairer and more efficient education systems, and what more can be done in the future?
Stephen Gorard provides a comprehensive examination of crucial policy areas for education, such as differential outcomes, the poverty gradient, and the allocation of resources to education, to identify likely causes of educational disadvantage among students and lifelong learners. This analysis is supported by 20 years of extensive research, based in the home countries of the UK and on work in all EU28 countries, USA, Pakistan and Japan.
This approachable, rich text brings invaluable insights into the underlying problems within education policy, and proposes practical solutions for a brighter future.
Education is in a state of continual change and schools ever more diverse. People want more participation and meaning in their lives; organisations want more creativity and flexibility. Building on these trends, this timely book argues that a new paradigm is emerging in education, sowing the seeds of a self-organising system that values holistic democracy. It is an essential read for anyone (academics, policy-makers, practitioners, students, parents, school sponsors and partners) who is interested in how education can broaden its horizons.
Neoliberalism has been widely criticised because of its role in prioritising ‘free markets’ as the optimum way of solving problems and organising society. In the field of education, this leads to an emphasis on the knowledge economy that can reduce both persons and education to economic actors and be detrimental to wider social and ethical goals.
Drawing on a range of international contexts across informal, adult, school and university settings, this book provides innovative examples that show how neoliberalism in education can be challenged and changed at the local, national and transnational levels in order to foster a more democratic culture.
At a time when public education and reform agendas are changing the way we approach education, this book critically examines the key issues facing the public with implications for education policy makers, professionals and researchers.
Drawing on empirical evidence gathered over 20 years, Helen Gunter confronts current issues about social justice and segregation. She uses Arendtian ideas to help the reader to ‘think politically’ about education and how and why public services education can be reimagined for the future.
55 FIVE Education Education indicators can be divided into three types: input indicators, process indicators and output indicators. What interests us most about an education system is really its output, what people come out of school knowing, and how they are able to apply this knowledge. But output indicators which are consistent over time are notoriously difficult to find, and measures valid across countries with different examination systems are next to impossible to put together1. Most studies are therefore restricted to looking at input measures – the
We cannot in our kind of society call an educational system adequate if it leaves any large number of people at a level of general knowledge and culture below that required by a participating democracy. ( Williams, 1961 : 174) Introduction Historically, education sought to pass on the best that had been thought and said and there was the belief that that there was educational value in inherited ideas and culture ( Paterson, 2015 ). Education aimed to develop the intellect of all children; the ‘freedom to learn for its own sake’ was considered a
173 8 Education The elements of and changes in the social structure are linked to developments in the educational system in myriad ways. For this reason, it is unsurprising that one of the central themes of research and debate on inequality and social stratification is the unequal distribution of education in modern societies. The sociological debates on education ‘are debates about the direction of society itself ’ (Giddens, 2009: 834). Current discussion in educational sociology can be divided into two schools of research. The first tradition, inspired
149 SIX Education Antonia Keung Key statistics • Eighty-nine per cent of Key Stage 2 pupils achieved the attainment targets in Reading and 86% in Maths in 2014/15. • Seventy-eight per cent of Key Stage 4 pupils achieved the attainment target of five good GCSEs in 2014/15. • Over 70% of the pupils from London achieved five good GCSEs or equivalent in 2013/14 compared to only around 63% of the pupils in Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands and North East. • The proportions of young people aged 19 achieving Level 2 and 3 in 2014 were 87% and 60% respectively
