What is to be done? Implications for policy makers

Dyson, Alan; Gunter, Helen; Hall, Dave; Raffo, Carlo; Jones, Lisa

Abstract

The review of frameworks and interventions in the previous chapter makes it abundantly clear that policy makers in Western democracies have been highly active in attempting to break the link between poverty and education. England and the US may be extreme cases, but the rapid succession of initiatives and reform efforts in those countries demonstrate that policy makers have no difficulty in finding levers to pull. Indeed, common to both the ‘Neo-liberal and ‘Civic’ projects, as we labelled them in Chapter 12, is the belief that breaking the poverty-education link is important, not simply because it is unjust that social background should determine educational outcomes, but because a ‘good education’ is seen as the way of creating a more just society. As a Secretary of State for Education in England once put it: … of all the areas that government can influence it is education and learning, which has perhaps the most potential to open up opportunity. Sure Start centres, nurseries, schools, colleges and universities are the cradles of aspiration and achievement that embody the hopes we all have for our children. That is why I see my department as the department for life chances. And that is why I see it as my job to boost social mobility. (Kelly, 2005) Unfortunately, as the previous chapter documents, the level of policy activity is not matched by the effectiveness of interventions. Despite yearsin some countries, generations-of initiatives and reforms, it remains the case that social background and educational outcomes are inextricably linked. This is not to say that policy interventions make no difference at all. However, their tendency to focus on what we call the micro and meso levels, and to overlook the structural inequalities embedded at the macro level, means that their effects will always be limited and precarious. The conclusion Rees et al. reach about the limitations of area based initiatives (ABIs) in the UK could, in fact be applied to all policy interventions: Once social and economic disadvantage is redefined as an aspect of the wider inequalities which are characteristic of British society, then these limitations become apparent. The state is not in a position to engage with issues of social inequality, structural shifts in the organization of economic activity and their consequences, except at the margins. The kinds of redistribution which would be necessary to do so simply do not appear on the policy agenda. ABIs and the conceptualizations of disadvantage on which they are based reflect this. They provide a means of presenting the promise of ‘active government’, but within the highly restricted policy repertoire which in reality is available. (Rees, Power, & Taylor, 2007:272) Bearing in mind our own analysis in Chapter 12, we could reach an even more pessimistic conclusion. The reason that policy makers’ repertoire is so ‘limited’ is that education policy in many Western democracies forms an integral part of a ‘Neo-liberal project’ which protects the market and the accumulation of capital, and draws on functionalist analyses to ‘fix’ the social and educational problems which this project generates. Given that neo-liberal ideology enjoys something like hegemonic status in those countries, there is no reason to suppose that the policy repertoire is likely to be extended anytime soon.

Citation

Dyson, A., Gunter, H., Hall, D., Raffo, C., & Jones, L. (2009). What is to be done? Implications for policy makers. In C. Raffo, A. Dyson, H. Gunter, D. Hall, L. Jones, & A. Kalambouka (Eds.), Education and poverty in affluent countries (195-215). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203860335

• Online Publication Date: Dec 22, 2009
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2009
• Deposit Date: Dec 19, 2014
• Journal: Education and poverty in affluent countries
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 195-215
• Series Title: Routledge Research in Education
• Series Number: 31
• Book Title: Education and poverty in affluent countries
• Chapter Number: 14
• ISBN: 9780415897297; 9780415998802
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203860335
• Keywords: REF 2014 submission
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/370908
• Contract Date: Dec 19, 2014