Unequal Parental Choice

Last Updated on November 6, 2026 by Karl Thompson

Marketisation policies were supposed to give every parent a choice of school. Research by Sharon Gewirtz, Stephen Ball and Richard Bowe found that in practice choice was unequal. Middle-class parents had far more effective choice than working-class parents, because they had more cultural, social and economic capital. This post explains their research, the three types of parent they identified, why choice is unequal, and how to answer the real AQA exam question on it.

What is marketisation? Marketisation means bringing market forces into education, so that schools compete for pupils as businesses compete for customers, and parents choose between schools as consumers. In England it was introduced mainly by the 1988 Education Reform Act, through open enrolment (parents’ right to choose) and formula funding (money following pupils). See Marketisation of Education for the concept and every marketisation policy.

The research: Ball, Bowe and Gewirtz

Ball, Bowe and Gewirtz carried out an ESRC-funded study of secondary school ‘markets’ in the years after the 1988 Act introduced parental choice. They studied schools in neighbouring local education authorities in England, using a range of methods: visiting schools, attending meetings, interviewing teachers and parents, and examining documents. Central to the research was a series of interviews with parents whose children were in the last year of primary school, and so were in the middle of choosing a secondary school. Some areas were mainly middle class, some mainly working class, and some had large ethnic minority populations, so the researchers could compare how different groups chose.

They published their findings in two main places: a journal article, ‘Parents, privilege and the education market-place’ (Ball, Bowe and Gewirtz, 1994), and a book, Markets, Choice and Equity in Education (Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe, 1995). That’s why you’ll see the study referred to as both ‘Ball, Bowe and Gewirtz’ and ‘Gewirtz et al.’. Either is fine in the exam.

Their starting point was a claim made by supporters of marketisation. The old system of catchment areas was said to favour wealthy families, who could buy houses near good schools, while a market would give everyone a choice. Ball, Bowe and Gewirtz argued the opposite: market systems also privilege certain groups or classes of parents and children.

Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe: skilled, semi-skilled and disconnected choosers

The study’s best-known finding is that parents fell into three groups, according to how able they were to use the market. In the 1994 article they called the groups ‘privileged’, ‘frustrated’ and ‘disconnected’. In the 1995 book, and in most textbooks, they’re called ‘privileged/skilled’, ‘semi-skilled’ and ‘disconnected’ choosers. They are the same three groups, so use whichever names your teacher uses.

Type of chooser	Who they were	How they chose	Typical outcome
Privileged/skilled choosers	Mainly middle class; some had inside knowledge of the system, for example as teachers	Strongly motivated, and able to research schools, compare them and work the admissions system. Had the money to move into a catchment area or pay for transport	Got their children into the most successful schools
Semi-skilled (frustrated) choosers	Less likely to be middle class	Just as keen to get their children into a good school, but lacked the cultural capital and contacts to make their choice stick. Less comfortable at open evenings and asking difficult questions; less likely to appeal	Often settled for a local school rather than the one they wanted
Disconnected choosers	Mainly working class	Just as concerned about their children, but didn’t get involved in the market, partly because they saw little difference between schools. Usually considered only the two nearest schools, and put their child’s happiness and friends first	Children most likely to go to undersubscribed, lower-performing schools

Why choice is unequal: cultural, social and economic capital

The researchers drew on the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to explain why middle-class parents had more effective choice. Because they had more cultural and social capital, middle-class parents were better able to play the system:

• they made a better impression on headteachers at open days
• they were more likely to arrange private meetings to discuss school choice
• they were more likely to appeal if their application was turned down
• in some cases, they actually knew staff at the school
• they had more time to research and visit schools

They also had more economic capital, which helped with:

• moving into the catchment areas of the best schools (‘selection by mortgage’)
• paying for tuition to get their children into grammar schools
• paying for transport, or driving their children to schools several miles away

Working-class parents, by contrast, were more likely to want their children to go to a local school. That meant no long and possibly expensive journeys, and the support of the local community.

In Bourdieu’s terms, both groups made choices based on their habitus: the outlook and dispositions that come from their different lived experiences. Middle-class parents saw themselves as choosing from a wide area; working-class parents saw choosing the local school as normal and sensible. The result was that the middle classes had real choice and the working classes, in practice, had very little.

Ball, Bowe and Gewirtz also warned that marketisation might bring back ‘blame-the-victim’ explanations of educational inequality. If every parent supposedly has a choice, then working-class children ending up in worse schools can be blamed on their parents’ choices, rather than on the unequal resources the market rewards.

The effects of marketisation on schools

The research also looked at how schools changed once they had to compete. The overall effect, the researchers argued, was a shift in schools’ values from comprehensive values to market values:

• league tables made schools keener to attract the more able pupils who would raise their position, so there was more focus on what pupils could do for the school than on what the school could do for them
• some schools introduced setting and streaming to focus resources on pupils judged likely to succeed
• schools put more money and staff time into marketing, such as glossy brochures and open evenings, to promote a positive image
• neighbouring schools stopped co-operating, and in some cases became suspicious and hostile towards each other
• schools lower down the league tables became preoccupied with attracting pupils, while the most successful schools could afford to be selective
• budgets and cost-cutting became more important than educational and social concerns

For how marketisation turned schools into something more like businesses, see my post on the 1988 Education Reform Act and on Gillborn and Youdell’s educational triage.

Evaluating the research

• Strength: it challenges the market’s central claim. The New Right argued that choice would empower all parents. This research shows that the market rewards those who already have most, which supports Marxist and social democratic criticisms of marketisation. See the New Right’s view of education.
• Strength: rich qualitative data. Interviews with parents show how class shapes choice, not just that it does, which suits a study of meanings and decisions.
• Limitation: representativeness. The study covered a few neighbouring areas of England in the years after 1988, so it may not apply to rural areas, where there are fewer schools to choose between anyway, or to the very different system of academies and free schools today.
• Limitation: the categories are ideal types. Real parents may not fit neatly into one group, and the labels risk making working-class parents sound passive, when the research itself stresses that disconnected choosers care just as much about their children.
• New Right response: supporters of choice argue that the solution is more choice and more information, not less, and that before 1988 working-class families had no choice at all.

This study is also a useful example for Methods in Context: a qualitative, interview-based study of parents, with the strengths and limitations that come with that.

Exam question: AQA June 2024, Question 02

This is a real AQA question.

AQA A-level Sociology 7192/1, June 2024, Question 02

Outline three reasons why parental choice may be limited when selecting a school for their child. [6 marks]

Model answer

1. Unequal cultural capital. Middle-class parents have the knowledge and confidence to research schools, understand admissions criteria and appeal if they’re turned down, which Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe described as being ‘skilled choosers’. Working-class parents with less cultural capital are more likely to be ‘disconnected choosers’ who only consider the nearest schools, so their choice is limited in practice.

2. Lack of money. The most popular schools usually give priority to children living nearby, and house prices near them are higher (‘selection by mortgage’). Parents who can’t afford to move, or to pay for transport to a school further away, are effectively limited to the schools close to where they already live.

3. Oversubscribed schools choose pupils. Popular schools have more applicants than places, so it is the school’s admissions criteria, not the parents, that decide who gets in. Parents can express a preference, but they may be allocated a school they didn’t choose, and some schools may cream-skim the pupils most likely to boost their results.

Each reason is a different kind of limit: cultural, economic, and the school itself. That makes it obvious to the examiner that you’ve given three separate reasons rather than one reason three ways. Each one names the reason in the first sentence and explains it in the second, which is what earns the second mark. Another valid reason is lack of local diversity: in rural areas there may be only one school within reach.

Related exam questions

• June 2023, Q02: “Outline three criticisms of marketisation policies in education.” [6 marks]: see the 1988 Education Reform Act.
• June 2017, Q03: “Applying material from Item A, analyse two effects of increased parental choice on pupils’ experience of education.” [10 marks]: see this exam post.
• Every marketisation question on Paper 1: see [LINK NEEDED: Marketisation of Education].

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This material is part of the sociology of education. It is especially relevant to showing how social and cultural capital give the middle classes an advantage in education, and to evaluating neoliberal and New Right education policy.

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Sources

• AQA (2024) A-level Sociology 7192/1, June 2024: mark scheme.
• Ball, S. J., Bowe, R. and Gewirtz, S. (1994) ‘Parents, privilege and the education market-place’, Research Papers in Education, 9(1), pp. 3–29.
• Gewirtz, S., Ball, S. J. and Bowe, R. (1995) Markets, Choice and Equity in Education, Open University Press.