Sample 1 - Educational Studies

Assignment brief Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria 2020-21 Educational Studies Standardisation event – 18 January 2021 Sample number: 1 Unit Title: Sociology – EE2/3/AA/09G

Assignment brief

Learning Outcomes and

Assessment Criteria 2020-21

Educational Studies Standardisation event – 18 January 2021

Sample number: 1

Unit Title: Sociology – EE2/3/AA/09G

Overview of assessment task

For this assignment, you will need to complete an essay with the following title:

“Evaluate the contribution of two ideological perspectives, chosen from the Social

Democratic, New Right Market Liberal and/or New Labour perspectives, in understanding

contemporary society.”

In completing this essay, you will need to identify the strengths and limitations of these

perspectives in understanding both the role and development of the British education

system

The word count for this essay is approximately 1500 words

Accurate and appropriate Harvard referencing and a bibliography that identifies all reading carried out for this assignment is required for this essay in accordance with the Diploma

referencing guide

Learning outcomes and assessment criteria

Learning Outcomes Assessment Criteria

4 Be able to construct a social science

argument using appropriate

concepts, theories and evidence.

4.1 Evaluate two different ideological perspectives on one public policy area from:

(a) Health and Illness (b) Education

(c) Deviance, Crime and Punishment (d) Housing

(e) Media and Globalisation

Grading Descriptors and

Components 2020-21

Sample number: 1

Unit title: Sociology – EE2/3/AA/09G

GD 2: Application of knowledge

The student, student’s work or

performance:

a makes use of relevant

• perspectives

and

c very good levels of

• accuracy

• analysis

The student, student’s work or performance:

a makes use of relevant

• perspectives and

c excellent levels of

• accuracy

• analysis

GD 7: Quality

The student, student’s work or

performance:

b puts forward arguments or ideas

which are generally unambiguous

but which are in a minor way limited

or incomplete

The student, student’s work or performance:

b puts forward arguments or ideas which are consistently unambiguous

and cogent

Essay on ideological perspectives of education 3/3

This essay will include different perspectives of education from political parties and detail the

changes throughout education over the years The main Ideological perspectives I will discuss today are from The New Right and Social Democrats

The New Right Market Liberal is a political party that believe education should aim to instil drive

into students and be more enterprise based which would entail regular competition between

students and teachers, this includes believing in policies that encourage a higher pay for teachers who produce higher grades Essentially they feel if schools/colleges had competition between one another it would motive students and teachers to improve standards and attain higher grades

Although in 2001 'David Gilborn' found that competition leads to marginalisation of working class and ethnic minority groups The New Right believe schools need to be more about winning and

losing and less about collaboration and fairness Ideally they want christian/traditional values to be taught within education as they argue this will influence educational standards and help encourage and achieve high grades along with installing social expectations onto students

The New Right theorists E.Chubb and T.M.Moe (1990) argue that the reason private schools, which tend to hold high achievement and grade levels, perform better than schools in the more public

sector is because the schools have a responsibility to paying parents and have access to more

resources than the average school, private schools also tend to have more pressure to uphold

attainment grades due to the paying parents and may have a strict religious base that influences their outcome They believe that public education students and parents are disadvantaged as its

provided by a system [government] that has a lack of motivation and too much choice in regards to the educational standards A main aspect of The New Right theory, is that they believe traditional values should be imposed on society to keep social order and prevent social disorder They think this should be done by reducing choice throughout society This belief relates to their view on education

as their aims are the same for education, as a whole The New Right essentially believe that society should be ranked and filtered based on capability and achievement Although, New Right theorist, C

N Trueman "The New Right And Education" believes reducing social inequality is not a high priority

as he argues these issues are the responsibility of the government

The New Right insist marketisation should be the main focus of education Marketisation is a term used to describe competition between schools, the concept sees schools/colleges act more like private businesses than institutions under local government control Throughout Britain schools tend

to compete for funding from the government every year, calculated on the level of attainment

grades the school achieves The basis for this is, the higher/excellence of the average grades the

more money the school receives Sociologist, Craig Gelling, believes this concept has remained

'dominant within education throughout the 30 years despite criticism from teachers and

academics’ due to the 'associated policies inspired by the New Right and with the Education Reform Act of 1988'[New Right on Education-tutor2u]

The Education Reform Act 1988 encourages schools' standards by introducing many different

institutions for example league tables, this is algorithm which shows where each school is ranked based on their performance, essentially this relates back to the view of marketisation and

competition The act also saw all schools required to teach core subjects at GCSE level such as

Science, English and Maths, this meant a fair understanding of grades were produced from each

school and shown legitimately to the public The idea behind league tables was for parents to easily assess which schools would be a better fit for their child, although some criticise this by arguing, to much focus on league tables may result in less attention on the pupils' needs Another feature of

the education reform act 1988 which explains the reason behind its lengthy duration, is 'OFSTED'

Ofsted is a government-run organisation that inspects schools to ensure they are providing

education at a high standard and assisting in raising standards This allows a sense of relief

throughout british public as it shows a sense of interest and a thorough observation and

management of education

In relation to marketisation, The New Right Market Liberal now believe in parentocracy This is a

huge factor in education as it's meaning, is to promote choice between parents Their view is based

on, each parent choosing where their child goes to be educated which means more money for the

the chosen school However before the comprehensive act and education act 1988 was introduced,

the New Right believed in a tripartite system, a system which filtered students into different schools

based on their intelligence The types of schools were Grammar, which tended to stream more

upper-class children, Technical, which was populated mostly by working-class background children

along with Secondary Modern

Each child approaching secondary school would take a 11+ exam which would determine what type

school they were eligible for [with Grammar schools receiving a lot more valuable resources than

Technical and Secondary Modern schools] The New Right argued, this allowed advanced children to

reach their full potential as being academically challenged at a strategic level with peers, also

attaining the same average, would strengthen the students abilities This was heavily criticised by

many political parties such new labour and social democrats, both parties argued the New Right

were legitimising the clear disadvantage of less competent students by limiting their options

Theorists opposed to this policy stated an exam at the age of 11 is without a doubt too labelling and

divisive, and could quite possibly have disastrous effects on a child

Social Democrats are a political party that are opposed to most policies that the New Right believe

in Social Democrats argue that education shouldn't be competitive, they believe all

students/teachers and schools should be working together collectively with a mutual aim and

providing equal opportunities to all students Rather than separation and segregation, which they

believe may have deeper issues for a child, such as affecting their self-worth which might limit a

persons expectations of themselves and sabotage their advantages throughout life A key aspect of

the social democrats is the comprehensive act, they produced this policy and advocated for it to be

brought into action, this act established a new type of school called comprehensive, this meant the

mandatory 11+ exam was abolished along the Tripartite system The Comprehensive act introduced

schools know as comprehensive which promoted mixed ability teaching Mixed ability teaching

means all students at different capability levels are taught together, Social Democrats believe this allows all children to access the same opportunities Overall social democrats say this change had to

happen to encourage economic growth and equality opportunity thought out society

Social democratic theorists strongly believe in the welfare system, the welfare system is usually a

system put in place by your country's government which promotes/helps members of society with

economic expenses and their well-being They argue the wealth produced in society should be

reallocated to the "progressive taxation" and an "extensive welfare state program" this is so both

public and private sectors can develop positively This relates to education as they believe a large

part should be shared equally between public schools to give the same advantages to pupils, they

think giving all students, no matter what their competent level is, shared possibilities and choice

will promote a fair society

New Labour theory was based on Anthony Giddens third way, his philosophy attempted to provide a

understanding/'synthesis' between capitalism and socialism This is seen as a middle ground

between social democrats and the New Right as it nor fully agrees or disagrees with either Anthony Giddens theory believes in raising standards, this is in regards to the New Right approach New Labour believed that policies and procedures provided by the New Right needed to be kept and further developed to raise the standards of education such as league tables etc

To conclude The New Right believe schools shouldn't be about equal opportunities, they endorse filtering students to find the best and most capable as they believe mixed ability teaching would result in advanced students doing mediocre work which won't allow them to reach their full · potential Where as social democrats believe every student should have the same opportunities and advantages regardless of their average grades

Accessed on 29/ 03/ 20: no author listed -

Accessed on 30/03/20: no author listed -

publication date