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Sociology Factsheet

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Topic 1 Quantitative Research Methods Key Questions

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Topic 2 Qualitative Research Methods Key Questions

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Key questions for note taking Topics 3-7

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Key questions for note taking Topics 3-7

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Sociology Factsheet

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Learning to Labour by Paul Willis analysis of RM PO

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Unstructured interviews: model MIC answer

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Unstructured interviews: model MIC answer

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Pupil aspirations

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MIC questionnaires and pupil aspiration Q

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Sociology Factsheet

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Topic sheet 2: Education - the research context

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Topic sheet 2: Education - the research context

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Topic sheet 1: Choosing a research method

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Topic sheet 1: Choosing a research method

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Methods in Context Planning Sheet and Sentence Starters 

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Methods in Context Planning Sheet and Sentence Starters 

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Pupil aspirations

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MIC questionnaires and pupil aspiration Q

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Parental role in achievement

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Planning sheet and model answer

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Education Flip Pack 1a Class and External Factors

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Education Flip Pack 1 Class differences External

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Education Flip Pack 1b Class and Internal Factors

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Education Flip Pack 1b Class and Internal Factors

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Education Flip Pack 1b Class differences (Internal)

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Government policy

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A handful of grammar schools are to receive a £50m boost to expand their pupil numbers. To qualify for the funding, schools had to submit plans on how they would try and increase the number of poorer pupils.

In total, 16 grammar schools are to be given a share of the £50m selective school expansion fund to create 4,000 additional places for pupils from the poorest backgrounds, according to The Times.

But the move has come under fire after it was revealed that just 2% of their pupils admitted to the grammar schools awarded the funding classify as disadvantaged. Headteachers at cash-strapped comprehensive schools also spoke out in protest - given that in real terms, per-pupil spending is in significant decline. This has led to many headteachers increasingly asking parents for cash donations, with some schools forced to cut staff.

The announcement has reignited a heated debate over the merits of selection at 11+ in the English schools system. Those in favour of grammar schools say they are a positive influence on the quality of education and the standards achieved by children who attend schools in selective areas. Those against say they are socially divisive and remnants of an outdated system that disproportionately benefits middle class children.

'Unjust' and 'unfair'

Stories of working class children whose life chances have been transformed by attending a grammar school may be aplenty, but anecdotes supporting social mobility arguments don't make for good policy.

There would also be something wrong if high performing grammar schools couldn't get good results for very able children - which indeed they do - even if those children come from disadvantaged backgrounds. But research shows that children who attend grammars do not perform any better than they would in a high performing comprehensive school.

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Working with research assistant, Ella Jakeway, I analysed some of the issues around areas that fall under the grammar school system - using data from the Department for Education. And the data demonstrates the potentially damaging impact grammar schools can have on a local area.

In many selective local authority areas the gap between rich and poor only gets wider. The worst case is Buckinghamshire, a wholly selective authority, where the progress made across eight subjects by disadvantaged children is on average three quarters of a grade less than that of the more affluent children. This would suggest a selective system is not benefiting all children, and may in fact be harming the prospects of some.

Working the system

When analysing the data, we looked carefully at the characteristics of children attending school in selective authorities, and discovered a phenomenon that appears to challenge the social mobility argument for grammar schools.

We looked at the numbers of disadvantaged children in a given local authority at the end of primary school, and measured how that had changed by the time those children reach the age of 16. We found children crossed borders to neighbouring authorities to a much higher degree than expected. The number of disadvantaged children in Buckinghamshire, for example, drops by more than a third by the end of secondary school even though the total number of children increases. This is because the net movement into selective areas is driven by the middle classes.

The county seems to have a huge influx of middle class secondary aged children coming in, while some disadvantaged pupils attend non-selective schools in neighbouring authorities. By way of contrast, some of the lowest performing local authorities show a significant increase in numbers of deprived children.

A measure of privilege

The latest government statistics show the number of children in selective grammar schools has risen steadily since an all-time low in 1986 (3%) to 5.2% today. And the new £50m cash boost to a handful of schools could increase that number to more than 6%.

But it is by no means clear how the expansion could be limited to the most disadvantaged children nor how this could be maintained over time. The danger is that the extra places will simply encourage more children to travel further to school - the travel time for pupils at grammar schools is already double that of those at non-selective schools.

That said, my own research and that of others suggests the biggest factor that determines a child's outcomes at 16 is not whether they attend a comprehensive or grammar school, but their family's socioeconomic status. And this introduces educational differences even before children begin formal schooling. Ultimately then it would seem that grammar schools risk making what is already an unbalanced and uneven situation simply more unjust and unfair.

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Grammars receive £50m boost, while primary and secondary schools rely on cash donations from parents

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A handful of grammar schools are to receive a £50m boost to expand their pupil numbers. To qualify for the funding, schools had to submit plans on how they would try and increase the number of poorer pupils.

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Marketisation, parentocracy, league tables, Ofsted etc

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When Gary Phillips started his career as a young teacher, the education world was a radically different place. There were no league tables, no Ofsted, no academies or free schools. Parent choice and competition had barely registered on the national consciousness.

All that changed 30 years ago this summer with the introduction of the 1988 Education Reform Act, a huge piece of legislation that introduced the national curriculum and the idea of diversity and a "schools market" in which parents would vote with their feet, in theory encouraging the best schools to expand and the worst to improve or close.

Three decades later, the tools of that market - performance measures and inspection reports - are a fact of life. "Go compare"-style websites ranking local schools are taken for granted. New education providers, in the form of academy trusts, are a reality in most communities.

And Phillips's school, Lilian Baylis Technology School, in Lambeth, south London, would appear to exemplify the benefits of this approach to public services.

When Phillips took over at Lilian Baylis in the late 1990s, the school was in the doldrums. Barely 10% of its pupils achieved five good GCSEs and attendance was chronically low.

Situated in one of the most deprived parts of the country, it was propelled into the national headlines when the former cabinet minister and local parent Oliver Letwin proclaimed at a Tory party conference fringe meeting that he would rather beg on the streets than send his children to the school closest to where he lived.

Today it is outstanding on every count, oversubscribed and achieving impressive results with a diverse intake. The 1988 reforms played an unambiguous role in that improvement, says Phillips: "They shone a spotlight on schools failing young people like this one."

He is more guarded about the overall success of the market experiment: "I would give it six out of 10. More accountability provided a great opportunity for my generation of school leaders to prove ourselves and the national curriculum was right because it reduced inequality, even if it has been undermined by academy freedoms.

"But performance measures (such as the new Progress 8) have now become impenetrable to most parents so may not even be helpful for exercising choice.

"The school you go to still depends on where you live - we see parents swapping council houses to come here. Intake and its social class still influences how some parents make their choices and these subtle forces influence selection."

In the past six months I have been researching a new book, The Best For My Child. Did the schools market deliver?, which looks back at the 30 years since the passage of the 1988 act. The unease Phillips voices about the market reforms came through interviews with many of the key players in recent education reform.

The English schools hierarchy is as powerful as ever, with some choices only available to a select group of parents who can afford hefty fees, move to the catchment of a successful school, or pay for costly private tuition to pass high-stakes entrance exams. Popular schools haven't expanded to accommodate all comers, as pure market advocates predicted, and failing schools have proved hard to close down.

The complex interaction between choice, admissions practices, house price and performance measures has led to segregation typified by schools with radically different profiles from their local communities.

And while many more young people are staying on to higher level qualifications than 30 years ago, and gaps in attainment by social group are starting to narrow, around 11% of 16- 24-year-olds are still not in employment, education or training.

Some parts of the country, recently categorised in 12 new government-designated " opportunity areas ", appear stubbornly resistant to every policy initiative of the past 30 years.

"The idea of applying the market to something that isn't a market has bedevilled this policy from the start," says Phillips. "A market is always going to have winners and losers. You can't close down failing schools until they have completely collapsed their roll. What the sociologists call the 'parentocracy' doesn't really exist in places where there are two rather than 20 local schools."

Meanwhile, there is growing concern about the unintended consequences of high-stakes accountability; " off rolling" pupils less likely to succeed, teaching to the test, manipulation of the curriculum and small but significant number of " orphan schools " that none of the new "edu-providers" want.

Several interviewees described a situation in which the government is attempting to oversee thousands of academies, through a muddle of local authorities, school chains, regional commissioners and the Education Funding Agency, as the "wild west".

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Break time at Lilian Baylis school. Photograph: Jill Mead for the Guardian

Stories of poor financial management, even corrupt practices, in the independent state school sector persist. The antics at the Durand Academy, relieved of its funding agreement by the Department for Education, have been well documented and watched closely by neighbouring schools such as like LIlian Baylis. Last September the Wakefield City academies trust gave up all its schools. Recently the Bright Tribe academy trust has been in the news over transactions with companies linked to the trust's founder.

Phillips, who seriously considered academy conversion for his school but decided to stay within Lambeth local authority, believes the innovative instincts behind the early academies have evaporated in the rush for mass academisation. "The chains have over-expanded and it often becomes more about the preservation of the trust than about the pupils. In that situation, the children of the poor are most likely to suffer."

But perhaps the biggest weakness of the market has been the failure to guarantee enough good teachers - and challenging schools that struggle in performance measures often find it the hardest to recruit good teachers. "We have tripled the number of young people coming out of university with degrees but we haven't increased substantially the number who are prepared to become teachers," says Gary Phillips.

"Young people want the kudos of entering a profession which is valued by their peers. There are too many bad case studies, often academy chains, being passed around and places where people don't want to work."

Parent choice is here to stay, but the current lull in domestic policy could provide an opportunity for reflection on what has worked in the past 30 years and what could change in the future.

Better local oversight of schools and stronger incentives for local collaboration, rather than national chains "cherry picking" little groups of schools, would be Phillips' priorities. My own conclusions for what is needed now include reform of school admissions and a broader definition of what we mean by success, one that goes beyond simple test and exam results.

Thirty years on we may be ready for another all-encompassing Education Reform Act. "But that would require great political leadership now," says Gary Phillips. I agree with that.
The Best For My Child. Did the schools market deliver? by Fiona Millar will be published by John Catt this month Topics

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After 30 years of 'go compare', English education is a wild west | Fiona Millar

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When Gary Phillips started his career as a young teacher, the education world was a radically different place. There were no league tables, no Ofsted, no academies or free schools. Parent choice and competition had barely registered on the national consciousness.

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How white working-class underachievement has been used to demonise antiracism

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here is a tragicomic element to the title of the latest report by MPs: The forgotten: how white working-class pupils have been let down, and how to change it. If there is one group that has featured consistently in newspaper headlines, thinktank scare stories and government rhetoric about education over the last decade, it is the "white working class".

Since 2010 the education select committee has conducted dozens of formal inquiries; only two have focused on a single ethnic group and both were about the white working class. This gives a clue as to why the report is so controversial and so dangerous; it is the latest step in an ongoing campaign to use the underachievement of poor white people as a weapon to demonise antiracism and keep the same people angry at the wrong target.

Let's be clear: a genuine focus on the underachievement of children who receive free school meals (FSM) is long overdue. These kids are less likely to succeed academically and more likely to be excluded than children of average wealth - which puts them at heightened risk of long-term unemployment and involvement in the criminal justice system. Many inequalities in performance are already present when kids enter schooling at the age of five, and the gaps tend to get bigger as they move through the education system. Governments of every political shade have proclaimed a desire to "close the gap", but none have delivered. Instead, in recent years we have been served a constant stream of misinformation and distraction.

Back in 2007 the BBC aired the White Season. The series was advertised with a trailer showing a white man's face being slowly obliterated by black ink, as numerous hands (mostly Brown and Black) wrote non-English script across his face. The scene dissolved to a black screen with the tag line: "Is white working class Britain becoming invisible?" The image was visceral at the time and, after Brexit and the rise in race hatred that accompanied the 2016 referendum, it now feels inflammatory and reckless.

So what's wrong with a focus on white working-class pupils? First, "working-class" children are not the same as those on free school meals. The latest report - as well as almost every headline on this topic over the past decade - has reported data on this group of children in poverty under the banner "working class". This makes for impressive soundbites, but it grossly misrepresents the scale of the issue. In Britain around 60% of adults think of themselves as working class; but free school meals kids make up only around 15% of white pupils in state schools. Simply by replacing "FSM" with "working class", the MPs' report exaggerates the size of the issue by a factor of four. Not only that, it makes 60% of adults feel that their children are being held back unfairly.

And, contrary to the reporting, white children on free school meals are not the lowest attaining group. FSM children in every ethnic group do less well than their wealthier counterparts.

In fact, Gypsy and Roma children consistently achieve much lower outcomes than any other group; in the latest figures white FSM children are four times more likely to achieve good passes in English and maths GCSEs than children from Gypsy/Roma backgrounds. In addition, there is negligible difference in attainment between white FSM children and Black Caribbean or dual-heritage (so called "mixed-race") students, with one white parent and one of Black Caribbean heritage.

A decision to focus on poor white children, to the exclusion of all others on free school meals, is perverse at best, racist at worst. In fact this is noted in the minority report, put forward by the select committee's Labour members, who say: "Only addressing the barriers facing disadvantaged white students would systematically disadvantage other ethnic groups and increase racial educational inequalities."

It is revealing that the majority of the committee ignored the fact that their focus on white FSM children may be in breach of the Equality Act 2010. Indeed, their report argues that focusing on race inequities for ethnic minorities runs the risk of schools contravening their duty to be politically impartial. They especially criticise the notion of white privilege - a line of attack made by equalities minister Kemi Badenoch last October, and repeated in the government's infamous Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.

"White privilege" is a convenient target because the word "privilege" is easy to pillory when talking about people who live in poverty. But to imagine that antiracism boils down to a single concept, while ignoring the actual meaning of that concept and the multiple examples of racism all around us, is to wilfully shut down discussion of the subject. Is it really so difficult to understand that white people, no matter how poor, don't suffer disadvantage from being white in a racist society? Do the massive racial disparities on stop and search, death in custody and exclusion from school - which all impact negatively on Black people - count for nothing?

This is where the hypocrisy of the select committee report is so blatant. It echoes the government line that antiracism - all antiracism - is divisive. Whether it's teaching about Black history, asserting the simple claim that "Black Lives Matter", or silently taking the knee before a sporting event; there is no antiracist act that white racists find acceptable.

And here is the remarkable double standard of the report: it argues that talking about racism is divisive, while imagining that "by highlighting the hardships faced by many white people from disadvantaged backgrounds, our inquiry may help advance a new way to discuss disadvantage without pitting different groups against each other". And so the committee imagines that by targeting resources on poor white children, division can be avoided. If that's not privileging white people, I'd like to know what is.

David Gillborn is emeritus professor of critical race studies at the University of Birmingham

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How white working-class underachievement has been used to demonise antiracism | David Gillborn

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here is a tragicomic element to the title of the latest report by MPs: The forgotten: how white working-class pupils have been let down, and how to change it. If there is one group that has featured consistently in newspaper headlines, thinktank scare stories and government rhetoric about education over the last decade, it is the "white working class".

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"It's nothing short of a scandal" how white working class pupils in England have been "let down and neglected" by the education system for decades, says a hard-hitting report from MPs.

Robert Halfon, education select committee chairman, dismissed "divisive concepts like 'white privilege' that pit one group against another".

Poorer white pupils were falling behind "every step of the way", he warned.

The Department for Education said it was investing in "levelling up".

The report accused the government of "muddled thinking" in failing to target support at the "forgotten" disadvantaged white pupils - who underachieve from early years through to GCSEs, A-levels and university entry.

'Swept under the carpet'

Mr Halfon described it as a "major social injustice" that so little attention had been paid to how white pupils on free school meals underachieved compared with free school meals pupils from most other ethnic groups.

"If you think it's about poverty, then it doesn't explain why most other ethnic groups do much better," he said.

At GCSE, in 2019, 18% of white British pupils on free meals achieved grade 4 in English and maths, compared with 23% for the average for pupils on free meals

For university entry, 16% of white British pupils on free meals get places, compared with 59% of black African pupils on free meals, 59% of Bangladeshi pupils on free meals and 32% of black Caribbean pupils on free meals.

The committee warned the scale of the problem, affecting almost a million young people, could not be "swept under the carpet".

The idea of "white privilege" in education was rejected - and the report suggested schools should consider whether using this terminology was "consistent under their duties" in equality legislation.

The committee described "white privilege" as the idea of "societal privilege that benefits white people over other ethnic groups" - and said "privilege is the very opposite to what disadvantaged white children" experience.

Mr Halfon warned its use in education was "divisive" and likely to "promote disharmony".

But a Labour MP on the committee, Kim Johnson, rejected the references to white privilege as trying to "stoke the culture war" and said the report was avoiding the "lack of investment" in education and local communities.

"There's this nagging feeling that it's not for me," says 18-year-old Oliver Jones-Lyons, describing the "suspicions" about the value of education that he thinks hold back some white working class communities.

He has been a pupil on free meals at a school near Newcastle and says there is still a concern about the education system harbouring snobbery and class prejudice, even down to stereotypes about regional accents which "mark you out as different".

There's an inclination to turn away from exams and instead say "my dad can get us a job".

"There's a lack of explanation of how education is helping you," Oliver says.

But he argues "the biggest barriers to education are outside education" - in places with limited job opportunities, bad housing, poor public transport and families not able to support their children in school.

And he says that while he describes himself as a "white working class boy" he doesn't like the way that the label is being used to "create more stereotypes".

"It shouldn't be about putting people against each other" or about "culture wars", he says, and rejects the white working class identity being caricatured as being bigoted or narrow minded.

A better description would be people "more likely to undersell ourselves" and to dislike showing off, says Oliver.

But his own ambition has been supported by working with the Social Mobility Foundation charity - and he is waiting to see if he gets the A-levels grades needed to get into Oxford University next year.

The report calls for a targeted use of pupil premium funding for disadvantaged pupils and investment in "family hubs" to reach parents disengaged with education or who might have had a bad experience of school themselves.

Mr Halfon also highlighted a divide between the amount of funding and political focus that helped to improve schools in big cities - while many white working class pupils were in towns which had less investment.

"The rising tide of higher national standards has not lifted the boats of our white lower income communities," said former Ofsted chief, Sir Michael Wilshaw.

"Two thirds of children on free school meals live in these communities. We will never reduce educational inequality unless we urgently address this longstanding issue," he said.

The report argues that vocational routes in education need to be clearly available - showing the connection between qualifications and work.

This chimes with the concerns of Kerry, a mother in Mansfield who is thinking about what jobs will be available for her sons, Bailey and Finley, in the years ahead.

Her own parents stepped from school into factory work, which she says offered secure jobs.

The current world of employment seems more precarious, she says.

"I don't see good jobs arising, I don't think there's much opportunity out there," says Kerry

"I want them to go to college, then get apprenticeships," she says.

The aim is "guaranteed work" and she is worried about the cost of university. "As a parent, I wouldn't be able to fund them to go," says Kerry.

The underachievement is down to a "poisonous mix of place, family and local culture", said Chris Zarraga, director of Schools North East, a regional network of head teachers in one of the areas with the biggest concentrations of disadvantaged white pupils.

He said it meant tackling the consequences of "long-term deprivation", where there might be fifth and sixth generations of workless families.

"Schools can't do it alone," he said, warning that already the pandemic had seen schools having to cope with feeding and clothing pupils.

"We need a cross-party sense of urgency about solving these problems," he said.

Minority or majority?

The report calls for a better way of talking about ethnic differences in achievement - and maps the complications of terms such as "minorities" and "majorities".

There are high proportions of white pupils in areas such as the north east, while in many parts of London, white pupils are in a minority.

A recent campaign launched by Imperial College London to recruit more black science students showed how black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) figures can also conceal complex differences.

The leading science university has more BAME undergraduates than white - but only about 235 out of 10,000 students are black, with the great majority of these BAME students being from Asian backgrounds.

Labour's shadow education secretary, Kate Green, said the MPs' report showed the Conservative Party has "turned its back on these pupils who need most support, from knowingly underfunded free childcare places in early years to cutting the pupil premium".

A Department for Education spokesman said: "This government is focused on levelling up opportunity so that no young person is left behind."

"That's why we are providing the biggest uplift to school funding in a decade," said the DfE spokesman, with £3bn in recovery funding and existing plans to increase school budgets.

"The pupil premium is expected to increase to more than £2.5bn this year, through which schools can support pupils with extra teaching, academic support or activities like breakfast clubs or educational trips," he added.

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Poorer white pupils neglected for decades, say MPs

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"It's nothing short of a scandal" how white working class pupils in England have been "let down and neglected" by the education system for decades, says a hard-hitting report from MPs. Robert Halfon, education select committee chairman, dismissed "divisive concepts like 'white privilege' that pit one group against another".