John Fitz

The More Things Change ... The Missing Impact of Marketisation

Abstract This paper uses longitudinal data from the secondary schools in six of the new unitary authorities in South Wales—Cardiff, Swansea, Merthyr Tydfil, Dridgend, Caerphilfy and Rhondda Cynon Taff local education authorities—to provide an empirical test of the academic debate concerning the likely effects of school choice on the social composition of differing schools. Using several measures of segregation between schools, including a new one calculated from eligibility for free meals, the study concludes that the introduction of choice reforms for England and Wales in 1988 may have had a small but significant positive effect on the pre‐existing social stratification between schools. In coming to this conclusion, the study inevitably raises questions about the findings generated by some previous qualitative studies of markets and choice in education.

Investigating the Determinants of Segregation between Schools.

This paper confirms two characteristics of socio-economic segregation between schools since 1988 in England and Wales. First, using figures from all schools in England and Wales relating to family income and special educational needs, it is made clear that overall segregation between schools has been declining since 1988 so that schools are generally becoming more mixed in their intakes over time. This is true of special educational needs and eligibility for, and takeup of, free school meals in both England and Wales, and at primary as well as secondary level. Second, there are variations in segregation, and in the changes to that segregation, between different regions. Although most LEAs show a marked decline in between-school segregation, some show no change and a few show a marked increase. One possible explanation for these differences is tested here, using figures relating to the growing number of parental appeals against school placement, and the diversity of schooling available in different regions. The intriguing result suggests that whatever is driving the ongoing desegregation in England and Wales the changes are not primarily due to market forces. They are more likely to be due to social and demographic changes, coupled with local authority reorganization and other more specifically local factors. It is also clear that, for some regions at least, the greater equality is an ‘equality of poverty’. These findings are therefore a double challenge to observers who feel that segregation is increasing and that this is a market phenomenon.

School Choice Impacts: What Do We Know?

We present here a summary of the findings of what so far is the largest study of school choice in publicly funded schools, and the first analysis of changes over time in the characteristics and performance of students in an entire national school system (that of England and Wales). Our finding, in contradiction to some smaller studies reported previously, is that the socio-economic stratification of school students declined after the introduction of choice policies. We also show that standards in publicly funded schools rose relative to those of private schools over the same period. The extent to which these changes can be attributed to the impact of market forces in education is the subject of our discussion.

Grant Maintainted Schools: Education in the Market Place

Grant-maintained schools and the great reform of education the grant-maintained schools policy the uptake of the policy local education authorities and opting out going grant-maintained experiencing grant-maintained schools - pupils and parents opting out and the education marketplace - two case studies self-governance, diversity and developments.

Implementation research and education policy: Practice and prospects

Abstract This paper offers a brief guide to implementation research and some of the conceptual and methodological issues it raises. In the course of reviewing investigations of the import of aspects of the 1988 Education Reform Act, it also considers the issues posed for education policy studies in a context where the ‘centre’ is connected to a dispersed and differentiated periphery.

Does School Choice Lead to "Spirals of Decline"?.

This paper considers the notion of schools in a spiral of decline, in which less popular schools within a market system lose numbers and increase their proportion of socially disadvantaged pupils over time. In an era of raw-score performance indicators such a decline could quickly become a spiral, with disadvantage leading to poorer aggregated results, leading to less popularity and so on. Using data derived all secondary schools in England from 1989 to 1999, we find little evidence for any increase in the existence of such schools. Whether we consider falling rolls, closing schools, or special measures we find only one school, among 30 LEAs considered in detail, that has both consistently falling rolls and increased social disadvantage. This one example may be due to market pressure, but we also present the suggestion that such irregular events happened prior to 1998 anyway. It is the case that the greatest increase in relative disadvantage in this school was from 1998 to 1999 (i.e. ten years after the Education Reform Act 1988), while its level of disadvantage as late as 1992 was only marginally higher than in 1989. Whatever potential arguments there are against the notion of allowing families to state their preferences for schools, the evidence here suggests that an increased danger of sending schools into spirals of decline is not one of them.

Markets and Stratification: A View from England and Wales

In 1988, the Education Reform Act enabled all parents in England and Wales to express a preference for any school for their child. This created a market-like situation within which school survival depended on a regular supply of students. Previous studies in the United Kingdom have suggested that this would lead to increasing socioeconomic segregation between schools. In contrast, the investigation reported here found that segregation has declined in several respects since 1988. The study uses school-level data relating to free school meals (FSM), ethnicity, first language, and special needs for every school in England and Wales. All indicators at each level of aggregation are in agreement. Student segregation between schools has decreased over time. There is little evidence that this powerful social movement is related to market forces, and some indications are presented here that although markets have not caused segregation, they do not seem to be causing the desegregation either

Reflections on the Field of Educational Management Studies.

This article is concerned to explore educational management studies as an intellectual field. It draws on Bernstein and on Bourdieus theorization of fields to identify its specialized discourse, the fieldv positions and their objective relations and, the location of occupants in the field. The article suggests EMS is characterized by three categories of field occupants, the academic, the practitioner and the entrepreneur. It goes on to suggest that this configuration shapes the discursive features of the field. The nature of the discourse is further explored via a survey of recent articles in EMA.

Under starters orders: The established market, the Cardiff study and the Smithfield project

The early results of a recent, as yet unfunded, study of the impact of markets on schools suggest that schools in Wales have become less stratified since 1988 in terms of indicators of poverty and educational need (Gorard & Fitz, 1998). The Smithfield study in New Zealand, on the other hand, concluded that market-like systems of choice had made segregation worse by advantaging the already advantaged (Waslander & Thrupp, 1997). Commentators in England, impressed by the range of existing secondary evidence from England, as well as from the Smithfield project, showing a relationship between school choice and class, have suggested that the picture for Wales is entirely a Welsh phenomenon. This article shows that this is not so, and that early results from a similar analysis in England confirm that between-school segregation has declined since 1998. It goes on to suggest that a fuller consideration of the interaction of poverty, markets and public monopoly schooling can help to resolve the dispute. The finding...

Regional and Local Differences in Admission Arrangements for Schools

This paper describes the results of an analysis of the secondary school admissions arrangements, current and past, published by 40 Local Education Authorities in England and Wales. Arrangements are separated here into application procedures and school allocation criteria, and explored through an examination of specific examples of each type. The potential impacts of these arrangements for school admissions and for the changing social composition of schools are discussed. Perhaps the most significant finding is the scale of variation, even between apparently similar regions, in the nature of the admissions process, given that all procedures are presented as being in accordance with national legislation. Because the local implementation of national policy gives authorities this leeway in interpretation, many areas have not changed their procedures much, either in response to the Education Reform Act 1988, or the subsequent School Standards and Framework Act 1998.