Social Policies in Education

This episode offers a comprehensive overview of UK educational policy and its impact on social inequality since 1944, particularly focusing on social class, gender, and ethnicity. It explains key historical periods, including the Tripartite System, the Comprehensive System, and the era of Marketisation following the 1988 Education Reform Act. The text also analyses policies introduced by New Labour and subsequent Coalition/Conservative governments, assessing their aims and actual effects on reducing or reproducing existing inequalities. Finally, it addresses policies specifically designed to reduce achievement gaps, discusses the privatisation and globalisation of education, and provides a framework for analysing how policies have predominantly reproduced social class inequality.