Tag: education

Analysis of The Government’s 2014 Report on White Working Class Underachievement

White working class underachievement is persistent and real, but contemporary government reports are potentially biased in that they might fail to take seriously critical (left wing) analysis of issues such as this. Students might like to read the summary below, and check out the actual full report and consider whether or not this report provides a full picture of the causes of white working class underachievement, or whether its agenda is limited by ideological (neoliberal) bias…

A summary and sociological analysis of a recent government report on white working class underachievement….

Summary of the Government Report on White Working Class Underachievement

The summary below is taken from the House of Commons
Education Committee on Underachievement in Education by White Working Class Children, First Report of Session 2014-15

educational underachievement sociology government reportThe possible causes and contributors to white working class underachievement are many and various, and include matters in home life, school practices, and wider social policies. We received evidence on a broad range of policy areas and relevant factors, many of which fell outside education policy. Our report holds a mirror up to the situation—it does not attempt to solve the problem on its own—but it is clear that schools can and do make a dramatic difference to the educational outcomes of poor children. Twice the proportion of poor children attending an outstanding school will leave with five good GCSEs when compared with the lowest rated schools, whereas the proportion of non-FSM children achieving this benchmark in outstanding schools is only 1.5 times greater than in those rated as inadequate. Ofsted’s inspection focus on performance gaps for deprived groups will encourage schools to concentrate on this issue, including those that aspire to an “outstanding” rating.

Our inquiry focused on pupils who are eligible for free school meals, but there are many pupils just outside this group whose performance is low, and it is known that economic deprivation has an impact on educational performance at all levels. Data from a range of Departments could be combined in future to develop a more rounded indicator of a child’s socio-economic status and used to allocate funding for disadvantaged groups. The improvement in outcomes for other ethnic groups over time gives us cause for optimism that improvements can be made, but not through a national strategy or a prescribed set of sub-regional challenges. Schools need to work together to tackle problems in their local context, and need to be encouraged to share good practice in relevant areas, such as providing space to complete homework and reducing absence from school.

Policies such as the pupil premium and the introduction of the Progress 8 metric are to be welcomed as measures that could improve the performance of white working class children and increase attention on this group. Alongside the EEF “toolkit”, our recommendation for an annual report from Ofsted on how the pupil premium is being used will ensure that suitable information on how this extra funding is being used.

An updated good practice report from Ofsted on tackling white working class underachievement would also help schools to focus their efforts. Meanwhile, further work is needed on the role of parental engagement, particularly in the context of early years.

The Government should also maintain its focus on getting the best teachers to the areas that need them most, and should give more thought to the incentives that drive where teachers choose to work. Within a school, the best teachers should be deployed where they can make most difference. Schools face a battle for resources and talent, and those serving poor white communities need a better chance of winning. White working class children can achieve in education, and the Government must take these steps to ensure that that they do.

Analysis

While the summary recognises that a number of factors contribute to white working class underachievement, including policy and home based factors it basically (obviously?) ends up concluding that the problem can be fixed by individual teachers and schools within the existing system, without making any major changes to the current system.

The evidence cited to support this view is that ethnic minorities from poor backgrounds do not significantly underachieve compared to their richer peers (the message being ‘if they can do it, so can poor white kids); and the fact that ‘schools can and do make a difference’.

The suggested strategies to improve the standards of white working class kids include:

  • Schools dealing with the issues in their local contexts (fair enough I guess)
  • Schools ‘sharing best practice’
  • Getting the best teachers to where they are needed the most – which mainly means coastal areas (although there is no mention of how to do this)
  • Yet more monitoring by OFSTED (into how the Pupil Premium is being used)
  • Doing more research on how to engage parents, implying that they are somehow to blame.

What is NOT considered is the broader social and cultural inequalities in the UK and the possibility (some may say FACT) that the education system is actually run by and for the middle classes and white working class kids just see it as ‘not for them’, as this research by Garth Sthal suggests:

(source: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/neoliberal-prerogatives-and-contextualizing-white-working-class-underachievement/)

Garth Stahl worked as an educator in predominantly white working-class and boy heavy schools in London for nine years and recently spent one year researching the educational experiences and aspirations of 23 white working-class boys in order to better understand how they came to understand the educational provision provided to them.

He argues that white working-class underachievement is symptomatic of a much larger social, cultural and economic inequality, which plagues the British education system, in which pupils’ performance has an extraordinarily strong positive association with social class.

A summary of his research is as follows:

  1. Schools negatively label white working class boys as ‘lacking in aspiration’ and write many of them off before the enter the school building, putting them in lowest sets and paying less attention to them, as they believe they have no chance of achieving 5 A-Cs.
  2. White working class boys are well aware of how they are negatively labelled in educational environments, and the poor quality of education they are receiving, and also the constraints of their social class position.
  3. In response, they often excluded themselves from the school’s neoliberal “aspirations” agenda of university entrance and social mobility
  4. They preferred employment that was ‘respectable working-class’ such as trade work which they considered for “the likes of them” and where they would feel comfortable.
  5. The boys were also haunted by a fear of academic failure – they realised that they would be blamed for their failure and thus be made to feel a sense of shame because it (Even though deep down they knew they had less chance of succeeding than their middle class peers).
  6. On the other hand, they also feared academic success. Good exam results would mean pressure to further their education, and to enter into areas that felt foreign, such as university, where they potentially would be made to feel uncomfortable.

Application and Relevance

Taken together these two items show how research which implies that we need system-level change will not be considered in government education policy – and serves to show up the bias and limitations of government reports which feed into social policy.

The Effects of Poverty on Life Chances in the UK

From lower educational attainment to poor mental health, poverty negatively affects life chances in several ways.

Being in poverty has a negative effect on an individual’s life chances. Being poor means you are more likely to…

  • struggle to pay the bills and be financially vulnerable.
  • have to rent rather than buying your own house, which is correlated with poverty.
  • have to rely on Free School Meals for your children, which is correlated with lower educational achievement.
  • suffer poor health throughout your life and lower life expectancy.
  • suffer mental health problems throughout your life.
  • end up getting stuck in a debt-cycle, where you pay more to service the debt.

This post explores some of the statistical evidence on the relationship between poverty and life chances, looking at a range of evidence collected by the office for national statistics and other agencies such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The point of this post is simply to provide an overview of the statistics, and offer a critique of the limitations of these statistics. I’ll also provide some links to useful sources which students can then use to explore the data further.

What is Poverty?

There are different definitions and measurements of poverty, but one of the most widely used in the UK is relative poverty after housing costs (AHC). If household income is below 60% of the median household’s income, adjusted for family size and composition, they are in relative poverty.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation uses this measure along with two other thresholds, tracking relative poverty using a total of three poverty thresholds.

  • Poverty threshold: 60% of median income
  • Deep poverty threshold: 50% of median income
  • Very deep poverty threshold: 40% of median income. 

Relative poverty thresholds for 2020/2021

These are adjusted for household composition to reflect the different costs of living alone, compared to living in a couple, and with children. 

Weekly median income
2020/2021		Poverty threshold (60% of median)Deep poverty threshold (50% of median)Very deep poverty threshold (40% of median)
Single adult, no children £274£164£137£109
Couple two children £472£283£236£189
Lone parent, two children*£566£340£283£226
Couple two children*£764£458£382£306

*Assumes one child is aged under 14 and one 14 years or older. 

According to this measurement there were 13.5 million people, or 20% of the U.K. population living in low-income households in 2020 /21.

Life chances

Life chances are your chances of achieving positive outcomes and avoiding negative outcomes throughout the course of your life – such as succeeding in education, being happy, or avoiding divorce, poor health and an early death.

Five ways poverty affects life chances

Poverty negatively affects people’s life chances. Being poor means…

  1. You struggle to pay the bills (having to choose between heating or eating).
  2. You have to pay rent rather than owning your own home.
  3. You’re kids are more likely to fail their GCSEs.
  4. You were more likely to die from Covid.
  5. You’re more likely to suffer from poor mental health.

Poverty means you can’t pay the bills

Those earning lower incomes are more likely to struggle to pay their bills and suffer from other forms of financial vulnerability. 

Someone earning £10 000 a year is twice as likely to report not being able to save or struggling to pay the energy bills compared to someone earning £50 000 a year, and four times more likely to report not being able to afford unexpected expenses. 

56% of adults earning less than £10 000 a year reported that they found it difficult to afford energy bills compared to only 26% of adults earning more than £50 000 a year. 

38% said they were unable to afford hidden expenses compared to 10% of the richest quintile.

Office for National Statistics (ONS), released 20 February 2023, ONS website, article, Impact of increased cost of living on adults across Great Britain: September 2022 to January 2023

Being poor means you have to pay rent

Social renters are 4 times more likely to be in poverty than owner-occupiers

42% of social renters are in poverty after housing costs compared to just 10% of those who own their houses outright, without a mortgage 


Source: Joseph Rowntree Foundation: poverty rates and housing tenure.

Poverty leads to educational underachievement

Poor children are almost twice as likely to fail their GCSEs. 

In 2021 only 29.9% of Free School Meal Pupils (FSM) achieved grade 5 or above English and Maths compared to 57% of non FSM pupils.

Source: Department for Education: GSCE English and Maths Results.

Poverty and Covid Deaths

The Covid mortality rate for the poorest quintile of regions in the UK was double that of the richest quintile. 


Source: Joseph Rowntree Foundation: covid mortality rates and deprivation.

Poverty leads to poor mental health

Those with lower incomes are almost three times as likely to report being depressed compared to those with higher incomes. 

6% of people in the lowest quintile of earners report being depressed compared to 2% of those in the highest quintile of earners. 

Those in the lowest quintile are also more likely to report ‘lacking energy’ or ‘feeling worthless’, and more likely to report a number of conditions which correlate with poor mental health. 

Source: Joseph Rowntree Foundation:  Symptoms of anxiety in relation to household income.

Signposting

A closely related topic is wealth and income inequalities in the UK.

I usually teach this material as part of my introduction to sociology module.

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Longitudinal Studies

Longitudinal Studies are studies in which data is collected at specific intervals over a long period of time in order to measure changes over time. This post provides one example of a longitudinal study and explores some the strengths and limitations of this research method.

With a longitudinal study you might start with an original sample of respondents in one particular year (say the year 2000) and then go back to them every year, every five years, or every ten years, aiming to collect data from the same people. One of the biggest problems with Longitudinal Studies is the attrition rate, or the subject dropout rate over time.

The Millennium Cohort Study

One recent example of a Longitudinal study is the Millennium Cohort Study, which stretched from 2000 to 2011, with an initial sample of 19 000 children.

The study tracked children until the age of 11 and has provide an insight into how differences in early socialisation affect child development in terms of health and educational outcomes.

The study also allowed researchers to make comparisons in rates of development between children of different sexes and from different economic backgrounds.

Led by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the Institute of Education, it was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and government departments. The results below come from between 2006 and 2007, when the children were aged five.

Selected Findings

  • The survey found that children whose parents read to them every day at the age of three were more likely to flourish in their first year in primary school, getting more than two months ahead not just in language and literacy but also in maths
  • Children who were read to on a daily basis were 2.4 months ahead of those whose parents never read to them in maths, and 2.8 months ahead in communication, language and literacy.
  • Girls were consistently outperforming boys at the age of five, when they were nine months ahead in creative development – activities like drama, singing and dancing, and 4.2 months ahead in literacy.
  • Children from lower-income families with parents who were less highly educated were less advanced in their development at age five. Living in social housing put them 3.2 months behind in maths and 3.5 months behind in literacy.

The strengths of longitudinal studies

  • They allow researchers to trace developments over time, rather than just taking a one-off ‘snapshot’ of one moment.
  • By making comparisons over time, they can identify causes. The Millennium Cohort study, for example suggests a clear correlation between poverty and its early impact on low educational achievement

The limitations of longitudinal studies

  • Sample attrition – people dropping out of the study, and the people who remain in the study may not end up being representative of the starting sample.
  • People may start to act differently because they know they are part of the study
  • Because they take a long time, they are costly and time consuming.
  • Continuity over many years may be a problem – if a lead researcher retires, for example, her replacement might not have the same rapport with respondents.

Related Posts

Explaining Social Class Differences in Educational Through Longitudinal Studies

The Education System in England and Wales

An introduction to the key features of the UK education system, including details of the Department for Education, OFSTED, key stages, exams, the National Curriculum, and some straightforward definitions of the different types of school in the UK.

I wrote this post to give students studying A-level sociology a more focused intro the topic than the Wikipedia entry on education in the UK, which IMO is a bit too formal, and not focused enough on the things people actually want to know about!

This post mainly deals with education in England, I’ll update with a focus on Wales and Scotland as and when I can…

Education in the United Kingdom is overseen by the Department for Education (DfE), which oversees the delivery of education to almost 12 million pupils aged 5-18 in 21 000 state primary schools, 4100 state secondary schools, as well as hundreds of further education colleges, with a total budget of £84 billion in 2015-16.

The DFE works with a further 17 agencies or public bodies, the most well-known of which is probably OFSTED, which has the responsibility for inspecting schools on a regular basis.

Local government authorities (LEAs) are responsible for state-funded schools and colleges at a local level, but in recent years most LEA schools have converted to Academy status which means they are free from local education control and receive their funding directly from central government and do not have to follow the National Curriculum.

There are five stages of education

  • Early Years Foundation Stage (ages 3–5)
  • Primary education (ages 5 to 11)
  • Secondary education (ages 11 to 16)
  • Further education (ages 16 to 18)
  • Tertiary education (for ages 18+).

School Leaving Age

Full-time education is compulsory for all children aged 5 to 18, either at school or otherwise. Children between the ages of 3 and 5 are entitled to 600 hours per year of optional, state-funded, pre-school education. This can be provided in “playgroups”, nurseries, community childcare centres or nursery classes in schools.

Students can leave school at 16 but must then do one of the following until they are 18:

  • stay in full-time education, for example at a college
  • start an apprenticeship or traineeship
  • spend 20 hours or more a week working or volunteering, while in part-time education or training

The National Curriculum

The national curriculum is a set of subjects and standards used by primary and secondary schools so children learn the same things. It covers what subjects are taught and the standards children should reach in each subject.

Academies and private schools don’t have to follow the national curriculum. Academies must teach a broad and balanced curriculum including English, maths and science. They must also teach religious education.

Key Stages, and National Assessments/ Exams

The national curriculum is organized into blocks of years called ‘key stages’ (KS). At the end of each key stage, there are formal assessments of how children have progressed:

Key Stages of UK Education

The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE)

GCSEs are the main type of exam taken by pupils at the end of secondary education, aged 16, although they may be taken at any age. From 2017, GCSEs will be graded from 9 to 1 with 9 being the highest grade, replacing the old A* to G grading system)

BTECs can also be taken. The difference between BTECs and GCSEs is that the BTEC course is heavily coursework-based.

Most students will sit 8-10 GCSEs or BTEC equivalents.

There are a number of GCSEs available to students – English and Maths are both compulsory, but besides those students can choose from a range of science and humanities subjects, including sociology!

Achieving five or more A*–C grades, including English and Maths, is often a requirement for taking A-levels and BTEC Level 3 at a sixth form college or at a further education college after leaving secondary school.

Types of State-Funded School in England and Wales

The main types of state school include:

Local Education Authority Maintained schools

A local education authority maintained school is one in which the governing body (the head teacher, and governors) are responsible for the day to day running of the school, but the Local Education authority controls the following:

  • It owns the land and buildings, and is responsible for funding and the school.
  • It employs the staff and provides support services, for example, psychological services and special educational needs services.
  • It determines the admissions policies of the school
  • The pupils have to follow the national curriculum

(Voluntary aided) Faith Schools

Voluntary aided faith schools still follow the national curriculum, but they are free to teach what they want in terms of religious education. There are two important differences with regular LEA schools.

  • The land and buildings are usually owned by the religious organisation.
  • The religious organization, through the governing body, has more of a say in employing the staff and setting admissions criteria.

Academies

Academies receive their funding directly from the government, rather than through local authorities. In contrast to Local Education Authorities:

  • Funding goes directly to the governing body of the school from central government.
  • The governing body employs staff directly and can vary pay and conditions from staff member to staff member.
  • The governing body can select its own admissions criteria (in line with national guidelines)
  • The pupils do not have to follow the national curriculum

There are two types of academy: Converter academies – those deemed to be performing well that have converted to academy status; Sponsored academies – mostly underperforming schools changing to academy status and run by sponsors).

Free Schools:

Free schools are essentially a type of academy, but ‘any willing provider’ can set up a free school, including groups of parents.

Grammar Schools:

Grammar Schools are selective schools – they select pupils on the basis of academic ability, typically testing at the age of 10 or 11.

Independent schools

93% of schools in England are funded by state (ultimately paid for by the taxpayer), the remaining 7% are Independent, or private schools, funded privately by individuals, mainly by fees paid by the parents of the pupils who attend them.

Independent schools have more freedoms from government control than state schools.

Somewhat confusingly, some independent schools call themselves ‘grammar schools’ and ‘faith schools’.

Signposting

This was a brief post designed to provide some introductory material on the education system of the United Kingdom, for students studying A-level sociology.

I teach this material as part of an introduction to education, right at the beginning of the sociology of education (SCLY1) module, typically taught in the first year of study.

A related post to be studied alongside this is Education in the U.K. – Key statistics

Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com

Sources/ Find out More

Citizens Advice – Types of School

Full Fact – Academies – what do we know?

Government Web Site – Faith Schools.

Bowles and Gintis: The Correspondence Principle

School corresponds to work: both are hierarchical, both require passive pupils/ workers and both are motivated by external rewards.

Marxists sociologists Bowles and Gintis (1976) argue that the main function of education in capitalist societies is the reproduction of labour power.

They see the education system as being subservient to and performing functions for the Bourgeoisie, the capitalist class who own the means of production: the Bourgeoisie require a workforce that is hardworking, accepts authority, and who won’t kick up a fuss if they are exploited, and the main function of school in capitalist societies is to indoctrinate children into these norms and values.

The education system does this through the hidden curriculum – which consists of the things pupils learn through the experience of attending school, rather than the stated education objectives in the ‘formal curriculum’.

Bowles and Gintis: the correspondence principle

The correspondence theory is the idea that the norms and values pupils learn in school correspond to the norms and values which will make it easy for future capitalist employers to exploit them at work.

Correspondence Principle

Bowles and Gintis say that ‘work casts a long shadow over school’.

There are four ways in which the norms and values of school correspond to the required norms and values of work in capitalist society:

Schools produce a subservient workforce

School produces a mass of uncritical, passive and docile workers, perfectly suited to drudge labour in factories.

In a study based on 237 members of the senior year of a New York high school, Bowles and Gintis found that the grades awarded related more to personality traits rather than academic ability: low grades were related to creativity, aggressiveness and independence, while higher grades were related to perseverance, consistency and punctuality.

The education system was creating an unimaginative and unquestioning workforce through rewarding such traits.

Schools encourage acceptance of hierarchy and authority

Schools are hierarchical organisations – pupils have little say over what they learn, or how the school day is organised, and in day to day life, pupils are expected to obey the authority of the teachers. Later on at work, workers are expected to obey the authority of managers.

Motivation by External Rewards

This is where pupils are taught to be motivated by the qualifications they will receive at the end of school, rather than the ‘joy of learning’ itself, while at work, workers are motivated by the wage packet at the end of the month rather than ‘the joy of working’ itself.

This is probably the most important aspect of the correspondence principle:

In Marxist theory, if people have control over it,  work is actually enjoyable: many people engage in ‘work’ as part of their hobbies: if left to their own devices, people will naturally engage in work because it gives them a sense of satisfaction: as an example think of a car-fanatic who will happily spend hours putting together a car engine, or the whole car itself in his garage, or an allotment owner who will do the same when ‘growing their own’ – if people control the whole process of work, and can ‘see themselves’ in it, they will happily work, even for no pay.

However, work in capitalists societies becomes alienating and exploitative – Capitalists require workers to be like machines, working as part of a ‘production line’ for example, because this means production is more efficient and their profits are thus greater – so rather than individuals or small groups of individuals each setting up their own garages to make cars, or small scale farms growing food for a few dozen people, work becomes larger scale, organised into massive factories, and workers become part of the ‘machine’ of production, where the worker has no control, and work is repetitive and dull. In this industrial-capitalist system of work, workers have no intrinsic motivation to work, they need to be motivated externally, by wages.

Because this is such an unnatural and miserable situation, there needs to be a long process of convincing people this is normal – which is where school comes in – school is about learning to put up with boring lessons, and the motivation for this is at the end – through the qualifications.

Thus capitalism requires school to teach people to not be inquisitive, to just ‘learn what I tell you to learn’ and put up with boredom, to work hard now (study) in order to achieve the grades at the end of the year… there is no reward in education for those ‘doing their own thing’, because this is not what future employers require.

The fragmentation of subjects at school

Learning at school is fragmented into different subjects, split up into maths, English, history, sciences, with lessons lasting only 45 minutes to an hour. Knowledge is thus fragmented into different academic subjects, rather than being holistic’.

This corresponds to the fragmentation of the workforce in later life – workers specialise in particular tasks in the office or the factory, without having an appreciation of the whole.

This fragmentation makes workers easier to control because they are divided, which makes it more difficult for them to unite and challenge their exploitative conditions.

Evaluations of Bowles and Gintis Correspondence Principle

The Correspondence Principle has been criticised for viewing students as passive sponges who just soak up the atmosphere of the school without thinking about it.

Paul Willis’ 1977 study Learning to Labour suggested that students were not passive. In his study of 12 working class lads he demonstrated that they actively rejected school rather than passively believing in authority. They actively resisted authority while at school by forming a counter school culture.

The theory is very much of its time, and almost 50 years old. It may have been relevant to an industrial society but today there are many fewer factory jobs and schools have changed hugely, so it may no longer be relevant to today’s more child-centred and entrepreneurial society.

Having said that, Ken Robinson’s TED talk about schools killing creativity seems to offer broad support for the idea that schools still don’t reward creative thinking even today!

Personally I think the idea of ‘motivation by external rewards’ has some relevance today. It does help to explain why so many people are prepared to put up with soul destroying jobs simply in return for the way, school maybe does help to prepare us for that?!?

Signposting and relevance to sociology

This material is mainly relevant to the compulsory education aspect of first year A-level sociology,

Education in the UK – Key Facts and Stats

Official Statistics on schools, teachers and educational achievement provided by the United Kingdom government provide an overview of the education system. They are useful for providing an ‘introduction to the state of education in the U.K’, before embarking on the core content of any sociology of education course and providing a basis for comparing the U.K. education system to the education systems of other countries, which would be relevant to the module on global development.

I will also provide a brief discussion of the validity and representativeness of the official statistics below, tying this into research methods.

I only deal with state-schools in this post, I’ll do a separate post in future on private, or independent schools in comparison to state schools.

Also, the post below deals primarily with England and Wales, I will add in details for Wales and Scotland when I can.

Education and Training Statistics UK 2020-21

Government spending on Education 2021-2

The government spent a total of £94.9 billion on education in 2020-21, equivalent to 4.5% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Education and Training Statistics UK 2020-21

For 2020-21 expenditure per education sector broke down as follows:

  • Primary education expenditure – £27.3 billion
  • Secondary education expenditure – £40.0 billion
  • Tertiary education expenditure – £4.9 billion

Spending Per Pupil was £6500 in 2019-2020

The above chart, from the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows us education spending in real terms at 2019-2020 places. We can see that in real terms expenditure per pupil has decreased slightly since 2010, when New Labour left office and the Tories came to power.

There are 32, 163 schools in the U.K.

Education and Training Statistics UK 2020-21
  • There are almost 21000 primary schools
  • There are almost 4100 secondary schools

This means primary schools are lot smaller in scale in that each of them has, on average, fewer pupils in them, and should be more ‘locally based’ for most parents.

Secondary schools are a lot larger, will have many more pupils in them, have more of an ‘education factory’ feel to them and be more widely dispersed, meaning children will have to travel further to them.

This is despite the fact that there are more secondary school aged pupils compared to primary school aged pupils.

There were 10.5 million school pupils in England and Wales in 2020-2021

Education and Training Statistics UK 2020-21
  • There were 5.5 million secondary school pupils
  • There were 4.1 million primary aged pupils
  • This reflects recent demographic trends in the United Kingdom – a baby boom which started in the mid 2000s has seen an increase of 400 000 pupils in the school system as a whole (primary and secondary).

There were 11 600 pupils in Pupil Referral Units in 2021

The number of pupils in PRUs fell from over 15000 in 2015/16 to just just 11 000 by 2020/21

A total of 12.6% of pupils have Special Education Needs in 2021-2022

And four percent of these have a formal statement.

SEN Statistics, gov UK 2022

There has been a slight increase in the number of Special Education Needs pupils since 2015/ 16 – a 1% increase in all SEN pupils and a 1.2% increase in SEN pupils with statements.

I’ve left the following historical data in place following a recent update of this post (updated October 2022) as I think it demonstrates how such statistics in particular are socially constructed…

Between 2010 to 2015 the number of pupils with special educational needs fell from 21% to 15%

NB – if you read this in conjunction with the ‘types of school chart’ above, then it suggests that special educational needs (SEN) students are becoming increasingly segregated into special schools and/ or pupil referral units, rather than being dealt with in mainstream secondary schools.

You might also want to think about the extent to which ‘Special Educational Needs’ and ‘Special Educational Needs with statements’ are socially constructed.

Looking back at 2007, 20% of pupils were officially characterised as SEN, but by 2021 this had fallen to 12.6%.

According to labelling theory this is more likely to be because the formal criteria and processes according to which pupils are given the SEN label have changed over the past 15 years, rather than any underlying changes in the actual number of pupils with Special Educational needs.

At the end of 2020 the proportion of 16-18 year olds in education and work-based learning was 81.2%

Education and Training Statistics

This proportion has been stable (around the 80% mark) since at least 2015.

  • At age 17 the rate was 90.5%.
  • At age 18 it was 62.3% (almost 30% are in work with just under 10% being classified as NEET )
  • Overall only 6.4% of 16-18 year olds are classified as NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training.

11% of 16-24 year olds classify as NEET

Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training.

NEET stands for ‘Not in Education, Employment or Training’ and the government keeps records of the proportion of 16-14 year olds which fit into this category.

The medium term trend in NEETs is that the proportion has fallen from 16% of 16-24 year olds in 2013 down to 11% in 2017.

The NEET figure has been relatively stable for the last five years, holding at around 11% up until today in 2022.

There were 2.4 million students in UK Higher Education Institutions in 2019-2020

Higher Education Facts and Figures

The number of full time equivalent students studying their first degrees or post graduate degrees has been increasing steadily over the past few years.

Around 1.9 million students are studying undergraduate degrees or equivalent while 0.5 million are studying towards a Postgraduate degree.

The vast majority of students studying towards their first degree are British, almost 80% in fact, but around 40% of students studying PostGraduate degrees in UK institutions are from abroad, and most of those from outside the UK!

There were 465000 Teachers (FTE) in the UK in 2021/22

  • There were 465 000 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) teachers employed in England and Wales in 2021/22.
  • There were 503 000 Full Time Equivalent support staff
  • The total FTE number of staff employed in schools in 2021/22 was 968 000.

30% of teachers drop out after 5 years of qualifying

  • 12.5% of teachers drop out after just one year of qualifying
  • Just over 30% drop out within five years.

How useful are these education statistics?

Such statistics are a useful starting point if we wish to make cross-national comparisons between the U.K. education system and the rest of the world, which would be useful for students of global development, given that education plays a key role in development. Indeed if we wish to compare the relationship between education and development in several countries, statistical rather than qualitative comparisons may be the only way of doing so.

From an arrogant, modernisation theory perspective, these statistics provide an indication of the level of investment required in terms of expenditure and teachers, and the types of outcome that less developed countries should be aiming for.

Most of the education statistics above count as ‘hard statistics’, i.e. there’s little room for disagreement over the ‘social facts’ which they show – for example, it’s hard to argue with the stats on ‘number of schools’ and ‘number of qualified teachers’.

However, others are much softer, and have more validity problems, and can be criticised for being social constructions rather than reflecting underlying reality: the statistics on special educational needs clearly come under this category – there is simply no way the underlying numbers of students with ‘SEN’ have decline from 21 to 15% in 5 years while the number of certificated SEN kids have increased – what’s really happened is that the number of kids which schools categorise as having Special Education Needs has decreased in the last 5 years, probably because the Tory’s cut previously existing funding for this category of student in 2010 (ish).

Signposting and Related Posts

As mentioned above this is introductory material for the education topic. For more posts covering theories of education, education policies and educational inequalities by class, gender and ethnicity, please see my sociology of education page.

Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com

Links to statistics on education in the United Kingdom:

Most of the statistical sets below are updated yearly, or more frequently.

Education and Training Statistics for the U.K. – published by the department for education. In this source you’ll find data on the number of schools, teachers, and teacher-pupil ratios as well as basic educational achievement data by Free School Meals, gender and ethnicity. Published annually in November.

Schools, Pupils and their Characteristics – includes data on pupils in England by PRU, FSM and Ethnicity status.

School Workforce in England – covers teacher numbers and pupil-teacher ratios in primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. The latest figures from November 2021.

Special Education Needs in England – details of children with special education needs, by type of need, and broken down by school type and gender (statistics derived from the ‘schools census’).

Participation in Education, Training and Employment by 16-18 year olds in England: End 2015 – produced by the DFS focusing on 16-18 education and training.

Young People Not in Education or Training – published in August 2022.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency – or HESA for short – collects data on university figures and publishes them online in a very accessible way!

The Institute for Fiscal Studies – section on trends in government expenditure on education

The Association of Colleges produces a useful document of infographics focusing on colleges – ‘Key Further Education Statistics’

Evaluating the Usefulness of Official Statistics

Official Statistics are numerical data collected by governments and their agencies. This post examines a ranges of official statistics collected by the United Kingdom government and evaluates their usefulness.

Click the image to search 13, 848 official statistics produced by the U.K. government

The aim of this post is to demonstrate one of the main strengths of official statistics – they give us a ‘snap shot’ of life in the U.K. and they enable us to easily identify trends over time.

Of course the validity and thus the usefulness of official statistics data varies enormously between different types of official statistic, and this post also looks at the relative strengths and limitations of these different types of official statistic: some of these statistics are ‘hard statistics’, they are objective, and there is little disagreement over how to measure what is being measured (the number of schools in the U.K. for example), whereas others are ‘softer statistics’ because there is more disagreement over the definitions of the concepts which are being measured (the number of pupils with Special Educational Needs, for example).

If you’re a student working through this, there are two aims accompanied with this post:

  1. Before reading the material below, play this ‘U.K. official statistics matching game’, you can also do it afterwards to check yer knowledge.
  2. After you’ve read through this material, do the ‘U.K. official statistics validity ranking exercise’.

Please click on the images below to explore the data further using the relevant ONS data sets and analysis pages.

Ethnic Identity in the United Kingdom According the U.K. 2011 Census

U.K. Census 2011 data showed us that 86% of people in the United Kingdom identified themselves as ‘white’ in 2011.

How valid are these statistics?

To an extent, ethnic identity is an objective matter – for example, I was kind of ‘born white’ in that both my parents are/ were white, all of my grandparents were white, and all of my great-grandparents were white, so I can’t really claim I belong to any other ethnic group. However, although I ticked ‘white’ box when I did the U.K. Census, this personally means very little to me, whereas to others (probably the kind of people I wouldn’t get along with very well) their ‘whiteness’ is a very important part of their identity, so there’s a whole range of different subjective meanings that go along with whatever ethnic identity box people ticked. Census data tells us nothing about this.

Religion according to the U.K. 2011 Census

In the 2011 Census, 59% of people identified as ‘Christian’ in 2011, the second largest ‘religious group’ was ‘no religion’, which 25% of the U.K. population identified with.

Statistics on religious affiliation may also lack validity – are 59% of people really Christian? And if they really are, then what does this actually mean? Church attendance is significantly lower than 59% of the population, so the ‘Christian’ box covers everything from devout fundamentalists to people that are just covering their bases (‘I’d better tick yes, just in case there is a God, or gods?’)

The British Humanist Society present a nice summary of why statistics on religious belief may lack validity…basically based on the ‘harder’ statistics such as church attendance which show a much lower rate of committed religious practice.

The United Kingdom Employment Rate

The employment rate is the proportion of people aged from 16 to 64 in work.

The lowest employment rate for people was 65.6% in 1983, during the economic downturn of the early 1980s. The employment rates for people, men and women have been generally increasing since early 2012.As of December 2016, the employment rate for all people was 74.6%, the highest since records began in 1971

Critics of the above data point to the existence of an informal or shadow economy in the United Kingdom which is worth an estimated £150 billion a year – people who are working and earning an income, but not declaring it. In reality, the actual paid-employment rate is higher.

Household Income Distribution in the United Kingdom

Household income statistics are broken down into the following three broad categories:

  • original income is income before government intervention (benefits)
  • gross income is income after benefits but before tax
  • disposable income is income after benefits and tax (income tax, National Insurance and council tax).

In the year ending 2016, after cash benefits were taken into account, the richest fifth had an average income that was roughly 6 times the poorest fifth (gross incomes of £87,600 per year compared with £14,800, respectively)

Reasons why household income data may lack validity

While measuring income does appear to be purely objective (you just add and minus the pounds), the income data above may lack validity because some people might not declare some of the income they are earning. Cash in hand work, for example, would not be included in the above statistics, and some money earned via the ‘gig economy’ might not be declared either – how many people actually pay tax on their YouTube revenue for example, or from the goods they sell on Ebay?

The United Kingdom Crime Rate

Below I discuss data from the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW), which is a victim-survey conducted by structured interview with 35 000 households. It seems pointless discussing the crime rate according to police recorded crime because it’s such an obviously invalid measurement of crime (and the police know it), simply because so many crimes go unreported and hence unrecorded by the police.

Latest figures from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) show there were an estimated 6.1 million incidents of crime experienced by adults aged 16 and over based on interviews in the survey year ending December 2016.

The green dot shows the figure if we include computer based crimes and online fraud, a new type of crime only recently introduced to the survey (so it wouldn’t be fair to make comparisons over time!) – if we include these the number of incidents of crime experienced jumps up to 11.5 million.

Reasons why even the CSEW might lack validity

Even though its almost certainly more valid than police recorded crime – there are still reasons why the CSEW may not report all crimes – domestic crimes may go under-reported because the perpetrator might be in close proximity to the victim during the survey (it’s a household survey), or people might mis-remember crimes, and there are certain crimes that the CSEW does not ask about – such as whether you’ve been a victim of Corporate Crime.

The U.K. Prison Population


 

 

The average prison population has increased from just over 17,400 in 1900 to just over 85,300 in 2016 (a five-fold increase). Since 2010, the average prison population has again remained relatively stable.

Prison Population Statistics – Probably have Good Validity?

I’ve included this as it’s hard to argue with the validity of prison population stats. Someone is either held in custody or they or not at the time of the population survey (which are done weekly!) – A good example of a truly ‘hard’ statistic! This does of course assume we have open and due process where the law and courts are concerned.

Of course you could argue for the sake of it that they lack validity – what about hidden prisoners, or people under false imprisonment? I’m sure in other countries (North Korea?) – their prison stats are totally invalid, if they keep any!

United Kingdom Population and Migration Data


 

 

Net migration to the U.K. stood at 248 000 in 2016, lower than the previous year, but still historically high compared to the 1980s-1990s.

There are a number of reasons why UK immigration statistics may lack validity

According to this migration statistics methodology document only about 1/30 people are screened (asked detailed questions about whether they are long term migrants or not), on entering the United Kingdom, and only a very small sample of people (around 4000) are subjected to the more detailed International Passenger Survey.

Then of course there is the issue of people who enter Britain legally but lie about their intentions to remain permanently, as well as people who are smuggled in. In short the above statistics are just based on the people the authorities know about, so while I’m one to go all ‘moral panic’ on the issue of immigration, there is sufficient reason to be sceptical about the validity of the official figures!

Ranking Exercise:

You might like to rank the following ‘official statistics’ in terms of validity – which of these statistics is closest to actual reality?

  • Immigration statistics – Net migration in 2016 was 248 000
  • Prison statistics – There are just over 85 000 people in prison
  • Crime statistics – There were around 6 million incidents of crime in 2016
  • The richest 20% of households had an average income of around £85 000 in 2016
  • The U.K. employment rate is 75% in 2016.
  • 59% of the population were Christina in 2011
  • 86% of the population was white in 2011

Related Posts

Official Statistics in Sociology

Education Statistics – 12 things Department for Education data tell us about the state of education in England and Wales today (forthcoming)

Family and Household Statistics – seven interesting statistics about family life in the U.K.

Sources

Please click the pictures above to follow links to sources…

The United Kingdom Census is a survey of every person in the United Kingdom, carried out every 10 years, the last one being in March 2011. It asks a series of ‘basic’ questions about sex, ethnicity, religion and occupation. It is the only survey which is based on a ‘total sample’ of all U.K. households. You might also like this summary – What is a Census?

U.K. Prison Population Statistics – House of Commons Research Briefing

Education in America

Key statistics on education in America, and the key features of the American education system including primary, secondary and tertiary education, the national curriculum and the examinations system.

This is part of a new set of posts designed to help students assess how developed countries are in terms of some of the key indicators of development such as economics, inequality, education, health, gender equality, peacefulness and so on…

America is an interesting case study because it is the wealthiest nation on earth in terms of total GDP, and very wealthy in terms of GNI per capita, but these high levels of wealth and income do not translate into social development for all.

This is a summary post at first, to be expanded on later…

America: Key Education Statistics

Core education statistics taken from World Bank data 

  • Pre-primary net enrollment rate – 63.8%
  • Primary enrollment rate – 93.1%
  • Secondary enrollment rate -90.5%
  • Tertiary enrollment rate – 86.7%
  • Out of school children – 1.5 million !
  • Government expenditure on education as percentage of GDP – 5.2%.

Education stats taken from other sources

Pisa Rankings (2015)

  • Science – 24th
  • Maths – 25th
  • Reading – 39th

Key Features of the American Education System 

Kindergarten, Primary, and Secondary Education in America

Schooling is compulsory for all children in the United States, with every child being entitled to a minimum of 12 years publicly funded education. Some states add on an additional year of pre-primary ‘Kindergarten) education, and the school leaving age also varies from state to state: some states allow students to leave school between 14–17 with parental permission, other states require students to stay in school until age 18.

American education

Children attend primary school from the ages of 6-11 where they are taught basic subjects, typically in a diverse, mixed ability class, with one teacher.

Children attend secondary school from the ages of 12-17, which is subdivided into junior high-school and senior high school. Here students are typically taught in different classes for different subjects and are allowed some degree of freedom to choose ‘elective subjects’.

While there is no overarching national curriculum, education in secondary school generally consists of 2–4 years of each of science, Mathematics, English, Social sciences, Physical education; some years of a foreign language and some form of art education, as well as the usual PSHE.

Many high schools provide ‘Honors classes’ for the more academically able during the 11th or 12th grade of high school and/ or offer the International Baccalaureate (IB).

The National (And Hidden) Curriculum

While there isn’t a national curriculum in America, there are some very detailed national common core standards in subject areas such as English and Maths – so why schools aren’t told what books they should actually get students to read, or how to teach maths, the standards dictate that they must spend a certain amount of time teaching these and other subjects…. When I say detailed, they really are – the standards on English stretch to over 60 pages.

In terms of the Hidden Curriculum – 50% of schools require their students to pledge allegiance as part of their daily routine, which I guess is an attempt to enforce a sense of national identity.

If you’re American I imagine this gives you a warm glowing feeling, if you’re not you’re probably fluctuating between an uncomfortable feeling of nausea and wondering WTF this has got to do with ‘liberty’. NB note the doting parents looking on, and that YouTube is full of this sort of thing.  

 

Differential Educational Achievement in America

The education system clearly doesn’t work for everyone equally – around 3 million students between the ages of 16 and 24 drop out of high school each year, a rate of 6.6 percent as of 2012.

Unsurprisingly, there are considerable ethnic differences in educational achievement in America, as this data from 2009 suggests:

ethnicity education America

 

Sources (those not included in links above!)

Wikipedia entry – Education in the United States

An overview of American education

How I would’ve answered the AQA A level sociology of education exam, June 2017

Answers to the AQA’s A-level sociology education with theory and methods exam, June 2017… Just a few thoughts to put students out of their misery. (Ideas my own, not endorsed by the AQA – NB – there is a certain level of subjectivity and irrationality within the AQA, and so they may interpret how you answer questions  to my (rational) interpretation below… )

Sociology A-level Paper 1: Education with Theory and Methods, 2017 

Q01 – Outline two cultural factors that may effect ethnic differences in educational achievement (2 marks)

Difficulty – very easy

Simply pick any two cultural factors and explain how….

  • language barriers
  • parental attitudes towards education (values)
  • parental educational levels
  • family structure

And then ideally explain how they differentially effect at least two ethnic groups. 

Q02 – Outline three ways in which factors within schools may shape gender differences in education (6 marks)

Difficulty – if you’ve just wrote-learnt the ancient Anne Colley etc. stuff then easy, if you didn’t then it’s medium because it’s quite a narrow subject (NB I did anticipate this narrowness!)

Select three in-school factors then explain how…

  • subject counsellors/ teachers labels about typical boys and girls subjects
  • male and female peer groups – peer pressure
  • male dominance ‘physical subjects’
  • Gendered subject images/ resources

Then talk it through with ideally three example of different subjects, discussing both boys and girls.

Q03 – Applying material from Item A, analyse two effects of increased parental choice on pupils’ experience of education

Difficulty – it appears hard, because you think ‘WTF’ but if you think about it, and use the item, it’s easy, because you can talk about pretty much anything from across class, gender and/ or ethnicity. So I’m going to call this ‘medium’ level of difficulty, as it’s half way between the two!

NB – There are really only two hooks here – in bold below…

Point one – ‘parental choice has led to a range of school types’ this means a greater diversity of experience….. contrast different experience of school types – succeeding schools/ sink schools, you could contrast and discuss ethos/ hidden curriculum, you could bring in faith schools and ethnicity, you could bring in specialist schools, free schools, no national curriculum, link all this to postmodernism. Criticse by saying there are still general similarities – e.g. testing/ pressure/ narrowing of curriculum.

Point two parents use league tables to choose – schools want to attract pupils this means more emphasis on results, teaching to the test, the school-parent alliance, cream skimming, working class covert exclusion – selection by mortgage.. just be careful to relate all of this to ‘experience of education’.

Q04 Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate sociological explanations of the role of education in transmitting ideas and values (30)

Difficulty – medium – this is basically a perspectives question, but the item demands that you address Feminism and PM

Intro – acknowledge the item

P1 – Functionalism (recognise it’s old) and evaluate with P/M.

P2 – Marxism – the stuff about ideology (‘ideas’) – evaluate using P/M

P3 – Feminism – evaluate with ‘girls are improving’, NB – the subject choice stuff from Q2 could be lifted in here to support the view in the item. (Actually quite bad exam design here , mr AQA!)

p4 – Postmodernism – fragmentation, diversity – evaluate with maybe NC/ teaching to the test (which also overlaps with Q3)

Conclusion – something like, oh my lord yes those old perspectives are really dated and we need to recognise education is diverse and complex…

Q05 – Using material from item C and your knowledge of research methods, evaluate the strengths and limitations of using field experiments to investigate the effects of teachers’ labelling of pupils

Difficulty – Medium, because it’s a fairly obscure method, but then again it’s applied to a very obvious topic – you can use R and J’s 1968 labelling experiment throughout (and the item!)

An obvious ‘easy in’ is that you have to be in the school in some way to conduct a field experiment. Lots of level 4 marks available right here.

I’d start with the Theoretical, practical and ethical strengths of the method, always applying to the topic, then do the limitations, the hooks in the item are asking you look at truancy and misbehaviour… you could also address performance… I’d pick up on the fact that truancy is easier to measure than misbehaviour…

The last point in the item is about people refusing to participate, which is just begging you discuss covert research to avoid this, then a whole load of practical and ethical problems which come from doing this IN SCHOOLS.

06 – Outline and explain two practical advantages of using documents in sociological research

Difficulty – Hard, because your average teenager just couldn’t care less about it!

The strategy I’d use here is to pick two different practical disadvantages and then discuss why they’re problematic for different types of public and private documents…

Practical factors include..

  • Access (the obvious one)
  • Time/ money
  • Funding
  • Personal skills of the researcher

Access should be easy – why you might find it difficult to access private documents – diaries/ letters, emails, link to ethics of using them, contrast to public documents.

Time/ money – there’s so many of them, such a diversity – it’s a never ending (time consuming) process to analyse (for example) newspapers, media reports in any depth – then I’d link to problems of sampling/ length of time it take to analyse and so on…

Not an easy question to discuss through – For both points I’d also bang on about interpretivism and positivism as much as possible, talking about how practical problems can undermine validity, representativness, reliability, and use as many examples as possible…

Anyway, just a few thoughts, the last question is probably the most difficult on reflection…

A-Level Sociology Revision Bundle

Education Revision Bundle CoverIf you like this sort of thing, then you might like my sociology of education revision notes bundle – which contains the following:

  1. 34 pages of revision notes
  2. mind maps in pdf and png format – 9 in total, covering various topics within the sociology of education
  3. short answer exam practice questions and exemplar answers
  4. how to write sociology essays, including 7 specific templates and model answers on the sociology of education

A Level Sociology AQA Paper 1: Education with Theory and Methods

Hints and tips for answering the AQA’s Sociology A Level Paper 1 Education with Theory and Methods (7192/1).

This information is derived from 3 separate training course I’ve been on run by the AQA’s representatives, my interpretation of how you should answer these questions is not endorsed by the AQA. I have endeavoured to be as accurate as possible in this advice, and it’s the same advice I use with my own students.

AQA A Level Sociology Paper 1 – An Overview

AQA A Level Sociology Paper 1

  • Paper 1 is a  2 hour paper, out of a total of 80 marks.
  • It is a ‘write in’ paper – you get a gapped booklet, and you write your answers after each question.
  • There are a total of 6 questions and you must answer all of them.
    You have 1.5 minutes per mark.

Exam Technique for Paper 1

Some of the exemplar questions on the next few slides are taken from the AQA’s A Level Sociology Specimen Paper 1, 2015.

4 and 6 Mark ‘Outline’ Questions

  • A four mark question will ask you to ‘Outline’ two ways in which/ reasons why/ criticisms of….
  • A six mark question will ask you to outline three ways/ reasons/ criticisms.
  • Think of these as ‘1+1’ question/ answers –  you need to give a reason and explain how.

Example of a 4 mark question

‘Outline two material factors that may affect social class differences in educational achievement.’ (4)

Mark Scheme

  • Two marks for each of two appropriate factors clearly outlined
  • One mark for appropriate factors partially outlined.

Example of an answer which would get full marks:

  • Overcrowding at home (1 mark) means not having private space in which to study (+1 mark).
  • High family income (1 mark) means parents can pay for private tuition to help with schoolwork (+1 mark).

Example of a 6 mark question

‘Outline three reasons why government education policies aimed at raising educational achievement among disadvantaged groups may not always succeed’. (6)

Example of an answer which would get full marks:

  • It is difficult to implement policies (1 mark), for example if they involve intervening in pupils’ home life to change how parents socialise/motivate children (+1 mark).
  • Educational policies alone cannot overcome poverty as a cause of underachievement (1 mark). This requires far-reaching redistributive economic policies to tackle it (+1 mark).
  • Means tested educational policies such as free school meals may have low uptake by targeted groups (1 mark) because of the stigma attached to them (+1 mark).

10 Mark ‘Applying from the Item and Analyse’ Questions

  • A ten mark question (on papers 1 and 3) will ask you to analyse two reasons (applying material from a very short item).
  • You need to give a reason, develop it and analyse it, and then repeat for the next reason.
  • You should spend about 15 minutes on this question. Each reason MUST come from the item!

Example of a 10 Mark Question

Read item A then answer the question below

Item A

According to the Marxist sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, middle class parents possess more cultural capital, than working class children.

Bourdieu argues that the skills and knowledge middle class parents possess, such as themselves having benefited from education, and the fact that they are more comfortable dealing with middle class institutions such as schools, is passed down to their children, which explains why they do better in school.

Applying material from Item A, analyse two ways in which cultural capital might give some children an advantage in education (10)

Hooks in the item:

  • Skills – might be research skills)
  • Knowledge (might be linked to tastes)
  • Better education
  • More comfortable dealing with middle class institutions

Any of these hooks can form the basis of ‘one way’ for each ‘way’…

  • Make a point about cultural capital from the item
  • Explain how it gives children an advantage
  • Develop it once, ideally by using a research study, linking to other sub-topics within education
  • Develop it at least one more time, using perspectives if possible.

30 Mark Essays

Possible 30 Mark Essays on Education

  • Evaluate the contribution of Functionalism to our understanding of the role of education ins society (30).
  • Evaluate the view that differential achievement across social groups is mainly due to in-school factors (30).
  • Evaluate the view that educational policies since 1988 have both raised standards and improved equality of educational opportunity (30).

Writing 30 Mark Essays

  • Allow yourself enough time – 1.5 minutes per mark = 45 minutes.
  • Read the Question and the item, what is it asking you to do?
  • Do a rough plan (5-10 mins) – initially this should be ‘arguments and evidence’ for and ‘against’ the views in the question, and a few thoughts on overall evaluations/ a conclusion. If you are being asked to look at two things, you’ll have to do this twice/ your conclusion should bring the two aspects of the essay together.
  • Write the essay (35 mins)– aim to make 3-5 points in total (depending on the essay, either 3 deep points, or 5 (or more) shallower points). Try to make one point at least stem from the item, ideally the first point.
  • Overall evaluations – don’t repeat yourself, and don’t overdo this, but it’s useful t tag this in before a conclusion.
  • Conclusion (allow 2 mins minimum) – an easy way to do this is to refer to the item – do you agree with the view or not, or say which of the points you’ve made is the strongest/ weakest and on balance is the view in the question sensible or not?

General Structure for Any Sociology Essay

  • Introduction
  • Point (relate to question)
  • Explain
  • Expand
  • Criticise
  • (repeat 3-5 times)
  • Overall Evaluations
  • Conclusion (refer to item)

20 Mark Methods in Context Questions

  • A ‘methods in context’ (MIC) essay question will ask you to apply a method to a topic within education
  • The easiest way to explain how to write MIC essays by using an example…

Example of a Methods in Context Question

Read item B then answer the question below

Item B

Investigating unauthorised absences from school

There is a close correlation between frequent unauthorised absence from school and educational underachievement. Those pupils who are not doing well at school are more likely to truant. Similarly, those who truant regularly are likely to finish their school career with poor qualifications. Pupils may be absent without authorisation for many reasons, from caring responsibilities at home or dislike of school, to parents arranging family holidays in term time.

Sociologists may use self-completion written questionnaires to study unauthorised absences. These can be distributed easily to large numbers of pupils, parents or teachers. The findings of the questionnaires can also be used to establish patterns and trends in relation to unauthorised absences. However, self-completion questionnaires often have very low response rates, especially when they ask about sensitive issues.

Applying material from Item B and your knowledge of research methods, evaluate the strengths and limitations of using self-completion written questionnaires to investigate unauthorised absences from school (20 marks)

A ‘Safe’ Strategy for Answering Methods in Context (‘MIC’) Questions

Planning:

  • Spend about five minutes planning the essay first:
  • Highlight the ‘hooks’ in the question.
  • Jot down the theoretical, ethical and practical strengths/ limitations of the method.

Essay section 1:

  • Write a ‘safe’ three paragraphs on the method, covering the theoretical, practical and ethical strengths and limitations of the method.
  • As you do this, try to discuss the general strengths and limitations of the method relating to researching education in general (pupils, parents, teachers, in schools and classrooms, maybe in pupils’ homes).

Essay section 2:

  • Use the hooks in the item to discuss why this method might be a particular problem, or particularly useful for the topic you are.
  • Just doing this two or three times should be enough to lift you into the top mark band (17-20).

Essay section 3:

  • Write a brief conclusion – state whether this is a sensible method for researching this topic!

Paper 1: Theory and Methods Section

‘Outline and Explain’ something to do with theory and/ or methods (10) marks)

  • There won’t be an item for this question
  • Pick two reasons/ ways which are as different from each other as possible.
  • Try to develop each using different parts of the course – making links….
  • There will probably be two bits to the question – make sure you make the links.
  • There may only be one ‘little’ 10 mark question, but it could be on any aspect of theory and/ or methods:

Examples of possible theory and methods ten markers

  • Theory: ‘Outline and explain two criticisms of the Marxist view of society (10).
    Methods: Outline and explain two practical problems of using Participant Observation in social research’ (10).
  • Theory and Methods: Outline and explain two reasons why Postmodernists are generally critical of quantitative research methods (10).

Video Version of the above advice (for ‘visual’ learners)

Good luck – And don’t panic… Everyone’s in the same boat.

 

A Level Sociology of Education Revision Bundle

Education Revision Bundle CoverIf you like this sort of thing, then you might like my sociology of education revision notes bundle – which contains the following:

  1. 34 pages of revision notes
  2. mind maps in pdf and png format – 9 in total, covering various topics within the sociology of education
  3. short answer exam practice questions and exemplar answers
  4. how to write sociology essays, including 7 specific templates and model answers on the sociology of education

Theory and Methods Bundle also available at the same link above!