Module: EDU6103-20 Inequality, Education and Policy

Level: 6

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Eri Mountbatten-O'Mailey

Module Tutor Contact Details: e.mountbatten-omailey@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

In this module, you will examine national, local and school policies that make the English education system as it is: specifically those that directly affect classrooms, children and their teachers.

Although policies are often based on profound philosophical and political beliefs, making decisions that will be implemented by 430,000 teachers with just over seven and half million children is not straightforward. There are many steps in between! So you will also study the processes of policy development and realisation, including, because of changes currently taking place in the state, what the future for national policy may be like.

The history of specific policies will feature in the module when relevant, but the focus of the module is primarily on the past thirty years or so. Each session will consider the significance of what the Coalition Government did in the light of its policy heritage from New Labour and how its successor Conservative Government is changing or continuing policies such as the Pupil Premium and the developing regional education state, and developing new ones, such as the expansion of selective education.

You will develop a deeper understanding in the module of how schools and teachers’ professional lives and identities have been shaped by national policy. You will be invited to consider the implications for the next twenty years or so, including if there is a change of government in 2020 (or earlier). You will also study in greater depth the political and professional background to a particular policy and provide an academic critique of it. By the end of the module, you will have developed a variety of intellectual tools to enable you to critique and analyse national policy for the coming years.

2.Outline syllabus

Within a social justice orientation, the module draws on political, network and social theory and takes an overall policy sociology approach. However, students are encouraged to bring their own preferred methods of analysis to examining policy, whether philosophy, economics, sociology, critical discourse analysis, textual analysis or quantitative methods.

The topics critically examined in the thirteen sessions include the nature of policy, government and the state, neoliberalism as a sub-conscious driver of policy and our interpretations of it, secondary schooling, the question of ‘standards’ and ambitions for children, Ofsted and performativity, how all schools can be effective, the broader social context for attainment, what happens when policy ideas meet social and economic reality, the postmodern university, the professional preparation of teachers and the developing nature of the Education Policy in England.

3.Teaching and learning activities

Each of the seminars will include one or more inputs prepared by the tutor. They will not necessarily all be drawn on, but are set out in a way to summarise a topic and are available on Minerva with a video commentary.

Students are asked to consider particular policy matters in each seminar in a variety of workshop formats and, from seminar five, a group will run their own workshop on a particular policy chosen by themselves and agreed with the tutor. The students have their own private group space on Minerva to make contact and prepare their workshop.

A new discussion board is available for each seminar within the curriculum resources pages on Minerva. The tutor begins the discussion with a provocative question related to the topic to which students are able to respond, raise other matters or simply ask questions.

There is one - or in some cases two - key readings for each seminar, all of which are explained in the Minerva pages. Each seminar also has a list of additional or further readings for students to use, drawing also on the wider bibliography contained in the handbook. Students are expected to read widely, particularly in relation to their assessments.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Group presentation (1500 word equivalent)

• % Weighting: 30

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Essay (3500 words)

• % Weighting: 70