Last Updated on November 8, 2026 by Karl Thompson
A model answer to a practice 10-mark ‘analyse’ question on globalisation and education, for AQA A-level Sociology Paper 1 (7192/1). This is a practice question I wrote in the AQA format: it isn’t from an AQA paper.
AQA has asked about globalisation and education twice, both times as a 4-mark outline question (June 2021 and June 2025). You’ll find both questions, with mark schemes and model answers, on my post on globalisation and education.
The question
| Item AGlobalisation, or the increasing interconnectedness of countries across the globe, creates both challenges and opportunities for the United Kingdom. For example, economic globalisation has resulted in both more opportunities abroad and more competition for jobs; and increasing migration has resulted in greater multiculturalism in the UK.Education has had to adapt to globalisation, and as a result, pupils today experience education very differently to previous generations. |
Applying material from Item A, analyse two ways in which globalisation may have changed pupils’ experience of education. [10 marks]
How to approach it
The item gives you two hooks, and each one becomes a point:
- Hook 1: “more competition for jobs” (economic globalisation)
- Hook 2: “greater multiculturalism” (migration)
The question asks about pupils’ experience of education, so every point has to end up in the classroom: what pupils actually do, study or go through differently. A paragraph about the global economy that never gets back to pupils won’t score well.
AQA’s 10-mark questions are marked on knowledge and understanding (AO1, 3 marks), application to the item and the question (AO2, 4 marks), and analysis and evaluation (AO3, 3 marks). Two developed points, each tied to the item, with some evaluation in each, is the structure that gets into the top band.
Model answer
Point 1: more competition for jobs means pupils stay in education longer and are tested more
Item A says that economic globalisation has resulted in “more competition for jobs”. Many low-skilled manufacturing jobs have moved abroad, so UK workers increasingly compete in a global labour market where qualifications matter more. Governments have responded by trying to raise the skills of the workforce, and this has changed pupils’ experience of education in two main ways.
First, pupils now spend longer in education. The Education and Skills Act 2008 raised the participation age, so that since 2015 young people in England have had to stay in education or training until 18. More young people also go on to university: New Labour’s target of 50% of young people entering higher education was passed in England in 2017/18. For pupils, this means education is a longer and more important part of their lives than it was for previous generations, many of whom left school at 16.
Second, competition between countries has increased the pressure on schools to raise standards. International tests such as PISA rank countries by their 15-year-olds’ scores in reading, maths and science, and governments use the results to justify reforms. Pupils experience this as more emphasis on core subjects such as English, maths and science, and more testing.
However, not all of these changes are caused by globalisation. The emphasis on testing in England also comes from the marketisation policies of the 1988 Education Reform Act, such as school league tables, which New Right thinkers supported for domestic reasons. And longer schooling may benefit middle-class pupils more than working-class ones, who are more likely to find the extra years a burden rather than a route to a better job.
Point 2: greater multiculturalism means a more diverse school experience
Item A also says that increasing migration “has resulted in greater multiculturalism in the UK”. Many UK classrooms are now ethnically, religiously and linguistically diverse, and schools have adapted with multicultural education.
For pupils, this means a more diverse curriculum: most schools teach about the major world religions in RE, and many mark events such as Black History Month. Pupils who speak English as an additional language may receive extra language support, and pupils from all backgrounds are more likely to learn alongside peers from a wide range of cultures than previous generations were. Functionalists might see this as helping to create social solidarity in a diverse society.
However, pupils don’t all experience these changes in the same way. Critical race theorists and others argue that multicultural education can be tokenistic, celebrating festivals and food while leaving an ethnocentric curriculum largely unchanged. Some policies may also make some pupils feel targeted rather than included. Since 2015, schools have had a legal duty under the Prevent strategy to help stop young people being drawn into terrorism, and critics argue that this has led some Muslim pupils to feel under suspicion in school. So globalisation may have made pupils’ experience more diverse without making it more equal.
KT’s Commentary
Notice how each point starts by quoting the item. That’s your AO2: the examiner can see straight away that you’ve used the hook. Then each point does three things: explains the link to globalisation, gets back to what pupils actually experience, and finishes with a “However” that evaluates. The weak answers I marked on questions like this wrote two paragraphs about globalisation in general and only mentioned pupils in the last line. Don’t write an introduction or a conclusion: there are no marks for either in a 10-marker.
Using globalisation in a 30-mark essay
AQA hasn’t set a 30-mark essay on globalisation and education, but globalisation is useful evidence in essays on education policy. In an essay on marketisation, for example, you can argue that governments introduced competition partly to raise standards for a global economy, and that global education companies such as Pearson are part of the privatisation of education. See my model answer to education policies since 1988 and equality of opportunity and the June 2022 essay on marketisation, diversity and choice [LINK NEEDED].
Sociology of Education Revision Bundle
If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my sociology of education revision notes bundle, written by Karl Thompson, who taught A-level sociology for eighteen years and spent twelve as an AQA examiner, marking all three papers on the current specification.
Signposting and Related Posts
- Globalisation and education, with the two real AQA 4-mark questions
- The globalisation of education
- The PISA global education tests
- Education and social control, including Prevent
- How to answer 4 and 6 mark outline questions
For more advice and examples of questions and answers, see my exams, essays and short answer questions page. For an overview of the education module, see my sociology of education page.
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