Richard Bowe

School choice, social class and distinction: the realization of social advantage in education

Parental choice is one of the keystones of current education policy in the UK. A combination of open enrolment, per‐capita funding and deregulated admission procedures is encouraging competition between schools for student enrolments (at least in areas where there are surplus places). Parents are encouraged to see themselves as consumers of education, and ‘good parenting’ is defined, at least in part, in relation to the ‘responsibilities’ of choice (The Parents Charter, Department of Education 1992). Within education policy choice is taken to be both neutral and individualistic. In this paper, we attempt to challenge that neutrality and to argue that choice in education is systematically related to social class differences and the reproduction of class inequalities.

Captured by the Discourse? Issues and concerns in researching ‘parental choice‘

Abstract In this paper we look at the relationship between political, cultural and economic change, the ‘position’ of parental choice in the various policy texts (in particular, its centrality to The Parents Charter) and what we have termed the context of practice (Bowe et al., 1992). In particular, we raise some issues and concerns that arise from research to date, in terms of their methodologies, their analysis and their representations of choice. It is the failure, in all these respects, to consider the complexity and inter‐relatedness of choice‐making and political and economic change that gives rise to our concerns. We tentatively suggest a heuristic device, the metaphor of landscapes of choice, that we think might help us to explore the relationships between the various policy contexts, whilst recognising the embeddedness of the research process in precisely these contexts.

'PARENTAL CHOICE', CONSUMPTION AND SOCIAL THEORY: THE OPERATION OF MICRO-MARKETS IN EDUCATION

Abstract Using key writings in the sociology of consumption and consumerism and analyses of the nature of postmodern society, this paper considers how parents decide upon a secondary school and the nature of their engagement with the education market.

Parents, privilege and the education market‐place

Abstract According to advocates of ‘marketization’ in education, market systems of school provision are fairer than those organized around catchment areas. Whereas catchment areas are said to privilege the wealthy and deny choice to the poor because they lead to a system of ‘selection by mortgage’, market systems are held to give all parents ‐‐ rich and poor alike ‐‐ the opportunity to choose a school for their children. This paper builds on existing research that points to the ways in which market systems privilege certain groups or classes of parents and children. It draws on data collected as part of an ongoing ESRC study into markets in secondary education to illustrate how class bias operates in a market system of provision and how immigrant families with middle‐class backgrounds may also be disadvantaged in the market‐place. Three broad categories of families are identified ‐‐ the Privileged, the Frustrated and the Disconnected ‐‐ defined in terms of their position in relation to the education marke...

Values and Ethics in the Education Market Place: the case of Northwark Park [1]

ABSTRACT The 1988 Education Reform Act introduced into England and Wales a market structure of secondary school provision. It is argued here that the education market functions as a system of rewards and punishments, a disciplinary mechanism, fostering particular cultural forms and socio‐psychological dispositions and marginalising others. The paper considers the case of one school in particular, Northwark Park, an undersubscribed, predominantly working‐class school, whose staff and governors find themselves having to confront the issue of institutional survival in the market context. The value conflicts and ethical dilemmas in which the staff and governors are becoming enmeshed are discussed, and the implications of the education market for patterns of educational opportunity considered. [1] For those who would like to see more of our data, a longer version of this paper is available from CES, Kings College London, price £3.00. (See ‘correspondence’ address above.)

The Reopening of the GCSE ‘Settlement’: recent developments in the politics of school examinations

Abstract In this paper, the authors review various criticisms of their published work on the sociology of school examinations at 16‐plus and consider how far the subsequent development and implementation of the GCSE examination necessitates a revision of their early position. Using a case study of integrated humanities, they argue that the more recent developments reflect an attempt to reopen the ‘settlement’ that their earlier work had described and to reach a new ‘compromise’. They then consider the broader economic and political context in which these developments have taken place, paying particular attention to the changing nature of the political right under Thatcherism. In conclusion, they suggest that their earlier characterisation of the politics of school examinations in terms of struggles between old humanists, industrial trainers, public educators and state bureaucrats requires some refinement if it is to remain useful in the current context. *A previous version of this paper was first presente...