Last Updated on November 7, 2026 by Karl Thompson
This post gives a model answer to a 10-mark ‘analyse’ question with an item, on marketisation and inequality of educational opportunity. It’s the format of Question 03 on AQA A-level Sociology Paper 1 (7192/1). The post also covers a real AQA 4-mark question on the same topic, from June 2018.
Practice question. The 10-mark question below is written in the style of Paper 1. It isn’t from an AQA 7192 paper: it doesn’t appear on any paper from 2017 to 2025 or on the specimen paper.
If you’re looking for the real AQA 10-mark question on marketisation (June 2020, sat November 2020: “analyse two ways in which marketisation policies have led to schools being run like businesses”), it’s answered in my post on the Marketisation of Education.
Question
Applying material from item A and elsewhere analyse two reasons why marketization policies may have increased inequality of educational opportunities for some students (10)
- Hooks
- What you need to apply the hooks to
| Item A Since the 1980s, a major aim of government policy has been to increase parental choice in education. In order to increase choice, the government introduced Open Enrolement, allowing parents to choose more than one school and league tables on school performance were also made publicly available.However, critics of marketization argue that such polices have increased inequality of educational opportunity. |
How to approach it
Item A gives you two ‘hooks’: open enrolment and league tables. Use one for each of your two ways. That’s what earns the application marks, because the examiner can see you building on the item rather than writing a general answer. Then, for each way:
- explain how the policy works
- analyse how it leads to inequality of opportunity, step by step
- add a sociologist or piece of evidence
- evaluate: how far, for whom, or what the other side would say
Two developed ways score far more than four thin ones. For more on this question type, see my guidance on 10-mark questions with an item.
Model answer
The first way is that open enrolment gave middle-class parents more effective choice than working-class parents.
Item A says that open enrolment let parents express a preference for any school. In theory, this gave every parent the chance to get their child into the best schools. In practice, choice depends on resources. Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe (1995) found that middle-class parents were ‘privileged/skilled choosers’. They had the cultural capital to research schools, read school literature, make a good impression at open evenings and appeal if they were turned down. Working-class parents were more often ‘disconnected choosers’, who considered only the nearest schools.
Economic capital matters too. Popular schools are usually oversubscribed and give priority to children who live nearby, and house prices near them are higher. This is ‘selection by mortgage’: only families who can afford to live in the catchment area get a realistic chance of a place.
As a result, working-class children are less likely to get into the most successful schools. This isn’t because of their own ability, but because their parents have less cultural and economic capital, which is inequality of opportunity. HOWEVER, the New Right would argue that before open enrolment working-class families had no choice at all, so marketisation gave them more choice than they had before, even if not as much as middle-class families.
The second way is that league tables have led schools to focus their resources on some pupils at the expense of others.
Item A says league tables of school performance were published. Because a school’s league table position affects how many pupils it attracts, and so how much funding it gets, schools have a strong incentive to improve their headline results.
This can lead schools to narrow the curriculum, putting more time and resources into English, maths and the other subjects that count in the league tables. That disadvantages pupils whose strengths are in creative, practical or sporting subjects. Gillborn and Youdell also found schools concentrating their efforts on pupils at the borderline of a grade C, who could lift the school’s results, while pupils seen as unlikely to reach it got less attention. They called this ‘educational triage’, or the ‘A-to-C economy’. Popular schools can also cream-skim the most able pupils, leaving less popular schools with those nobody else selected.
Postmodernists would argue this is especially problematic in a society that is supposed to be more individualised: if schools were really offering equal opportunity, they would spread their resources across pupils’ diverse talents rather than concentrating them for the sake of league tables. HOWEVER, league tables have changed. Since 2016 they have measured the progress pupils make (Progress 8), not just raw grades, which gives schools less reason to ignore lower-attaining pupils. And students with creative or vocational strengths can increasingly find opportunities outside school, such as online courses and apprenticeships.
KT’s Commentary…
Each way starts from a word in the item: open enrolment and league tables. That’s application. Each one then goes through a chain of analysis (policy → what schools or parents do → who loses out) and ends with a ‘however’. That’s the structure the 8–10 band rewards: two developed applications of the item, with analysis and evaluation. Notice there’s no introduction and no conclusion: you don’t have time for them in a 10-marker.
Exam question: AQA June 2018, Question 01
This is a real AQA question on the same topic. It’s an ‘outline’ question, so it asks for less development than the 10-marker.
AQA A-level Sociology 7192/1, June 2018, Question 01
Outline two reasons why marketisation policies may produce inequality of educational achievement between social classes. [4 marks]
The mark scheme
For a 4-mark outline question it gives two marks for each of two reasons that are clearly outlined, one mark for a partial outline, and a list of possible answers.
Model answer
1. Middle-class parents can use choice more effectively. Middle-class parents have more cultural and economic capital, so they’re better able to research schools, work the admissions system and move into the catchment areas of the best schools. Their children are therefore more likely to attend higher-achieving schools.
2. Competition leads schools to cream-skim. League tables push popular schools to admit the pupils most likely to get good results, who are disproportionately middle class. Working-class pupils are more likely to end up in less popular schools with fewer resources, which widens the class gap in achievement.
KT’s Commentary
Two marks each: one for naming the reason, one for explaining how it leads to a class difference in achievement. Note the question says achievement, not opportunity, so each reason should end with what happens to results.
Related posts
- Marketisation of Education, including every marketisation question on Paper 1
- Unequal parental choice (Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe)
- The 1988 Education Reform Act
- Gillborn and Youdell: Rationing Education
- Analyse two effects of increased parental choice on pupils’ experience of education (AQA June 2017, Q03)
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
This post is part of the education module. For every Paper 1 question type, see AQA A-level Sociology Paper 1: Education with Theory and Methods.
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