Divide And School

Gender And Class Dynamics In Comprehensive Education

John Abraham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317856153
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

First published in 1995. This book is concerned with how comprehensive schooling can act as a social system of class and gender differentiation. Based on a critical synthesis of feminist and sociological literature on secondary education, Abraham develops a theoretical and methodological framework for ethnographic research into the central gender and class dynamic of a comprehensive school.

Chapter 1

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Comprehensive Education: Past Debates and Future Ideals

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In Britain over the last few decades there has been no shortage of debate and dispute over the desirability of comprehensive secondary schools. Secondary schooling remains a burning issue and continues to have a high political profile, sometimes taking the centre stage in general elections. Tracking the debate on comprehensive education is rather like stalking an intellectual chameleon. The debate often changes direction with subtle changes in defmitions and meanings. There are difficulties, therefore, in defming the comprehensive debate. Nevertheless, since this book is an empirical study of a comprehensive school, I think it is valuable to identify some of the main points of contention regarding comprehensivization.

By the mid-1960s the Labour Party was won over to the idea of comprehensive schools and in 1965 the Labour Government announced plans for widespread comprehensivization. The oft-cited Department of Education and Science Circular 10/65 may be regarded as the fmt explicit attempt by a British Government to defme the possible forms that comprehensive reorganization might take. However, as Ball (1981) points out, that document did not set out any positive aims for comprehensive schooling. In addition the Government failed to defme any educational goals for pupils within the comprehensive schools. Consequently, a considerable variation in philosophies for comprehensive education has developed and so too have different types of comprehensives.

Aims and Principles

Despite government reticence, McPherson and Willms (1987) believe that it is possible to defme six purposes of the comprehensivization reforms, as follows:

1 no selection of pupils at secondary level;

2 the establishment of one type of secondary school- the all-through fixed catchment comprehensive;

3 compulsory schooling should not end before the fmt stage of public certification;

4 the reduction in between-school variation in pupils' backgrounds so that the school should represent a 'fuller cross-section' of the community;

5 the elimination of the 'creaming' of 'able' pupils from one school catchment to another; and

6 increased access to certification.

The proposal that comprehensive schools should represent a fuller cross-section of the community entirely neglected, of course, the 7 per cent of elite pupils who attend private schools. Leaving this detail aside, it can be seen that none of these 'purposes' says anything explicit about ideals for education as such. Rather they are prescriptions for certain organizational arrangements. Insofar as we can infer the educational principles underlying these purposes then we can regard them as being bounded by either the 'meritocratic' or the 'integrative' models of comprehensive education (Ball, 1981). For example, (1), (3) and (6) can be regarded as concerned with equality of opportunity and the maximization of pupils' qualifications whatever the consequences for social relationships (the meritocratic principle). On the other hand, (2), (4) and (5) represent concerns based on the idea that all children, despite social background, should attend the same secondary school with the aim of increasing social solidarity (the integrative principle). None of these six purposes can be readily related to the egalitarian principle which distinguishes between equality and equality of opportunity. The egalitarian view aims to reduce inequality. It maintains that changes in the educational process such as the development of cooperative learning and greater openness between the school and community are required to achieve the goal of equality.

The Threat to Competitiveness

By 1970 support at least for the meritocratic and integrative principles of the comprehensive idea had grown within the Conservative Party. However, with the election of three successive Thatcher Governments from 1979 the new political Right were in the ascendancy. Cross-party consensus on comprehensive schooling was broken as the new Right began its offensive against comprehensive ideals, reaching a peak in the mid-1980s. The Right criticized comprehensive schools for being too egalitarian and accused them of contributing to Britain's poor competitive economic performance despite the fact that egalitarianism was precisely the definitional component of comprehensives which had been lacking. The jungle of ideological and causal connections which emerged in the comprehensive debate was well illustrated in 1986 when a headteacher did not allow competitive sports during the school Sports Day, and when the Inner London Education Authority's physical education inspector declared that competitive team sports should not be played during school hours. These events prompted Norman Tebbit, then Conservative Party Chairman, to defend competitive sports in schools and to retort: 'Can you imagine that our Japanese or German competitors in the business world are poisoning the minds of their youngsters in such a way?' (Anon, 1986a). Another commentator sought to defend competitiveness within comprehensive schools on the grounds that the 'transition' from tribal to industrialized societies involved competition. (Sofer, 1986).

In the early comprehensives the practice of rigid streaming (by forms) of pupils according to 'ability' tests was common. By the late 1960s that practice was being criticized for re-creating, in effect, the old selective system within the same school. Moreover, one study found that in a situation of rigid streaming there was 'no evidence that comprehensive education contributed[ d) to the breaking down of the barriers of social class which divide adults and children alike' (Ford, 1969, pp. 129–30). Consequently, during the late 1970s some comprehensives began de-streaming by experimenting with 'mixed ability' classes. This too came under attack by the political Right in the 1980s. Linking 'the national interest' with education policy Kenneth Baker, the Secretary for Education, condemned 'mixed ability' classes:

The ultimate goal of socialist education is the mixed-ability choir where the flat, the toneless and the stone deaf all make their contribution to cacophony - and all this has to be compulsorily applauded. The trouble with our nation is that not enough encouragement is given to excellence or competition. (Anon, 1986b)

He located the philosophy of state schools, including comprehensives, f1rmly within the meritocratic model by stating that 'equality of opportunity means the achievers must be allowed to achieve' (Anon, 1986c).

On a similar note Chris Patten, the Education Minister, argued that pupils should be grouped and banded according to their abilities and aptitudes with the justification that 'you cannot treat them [children] alike ifyou want to be fair to each one of them' (Anon, 1986d). That view also found support outside the Conservative Government. Stevens (1980) declared that postponing streaming in comprehensives could not be defended if it put 'bright' pupils in comprehensives at a disadvantage when competing for university places.

In these comments we fmd comprehensive education accused of fostering non-competitiveness and failing to give the meritocratic principle of equality of opportunity sufficient priority over other ideals. Intertwined with this is the implication that comprehensive education hampers the pursuit of 'excellence' and the progress of the 'most able' children. Ideals for education are readily mixed with national economic aspirations, presuppositions about the performance of comprehensive schools and even crude theories of industrialization.

Principles and Performance Indicators

Some academic researchers have brought much more order to the discussion by concentrating on the historical record of comprehensive schools in terms of 'output', though they have done so at the expense of the question of ideals for comprehensive education. In 1983 the results of three such 'output' studies were published. Marks, Cox and Pomian-Srzadnicki (1983) maintained that their research showed that a fully selective secondaryschooling system led to substantially higher '0'-level, CSE and 'A'-level examination results than a fully comprehensive system. By contrast, Gray, McPherson and Raffe (1983) concluded that comprehensives seemed to have raised average attainment and Steedman (1983) suggested that overall trends in examination results could not be explained by going comprehensive. Reviews of these studies have pointed to some serious problems with the research carried out by Marks et al. (1983) in terms of the appropriateness of the research design with respect to the conclusions drawn (Fogelman, 1984; Clifford and Heath, 1984). Thus, systematic research so far carried out on output performance seems to offer little support to the criticisms of comprehensives put forward by the political Right.

One problem with the output-performance controversy is that it may lead to a neglect of more fundamental questions concerning the educational practice and principles of comprehensive schooling. For example, Heath (1984), writing 'in defence of comprehensive schools', comments that they have been criticized by the political Left 'for failing to lead us to the promised land of equality of opportunity'. Here we see that the ideal for comprehensive education that is being defended is narrowly located within the meritocratic principle. The integrative and egalitarian ideals are not even considered. Despite this the integrative and egalitarian principles have to some extent been rescued by David Hargreaves (1982) and Reynolds, Sullivan and Murgatroyd (1987).

Hargreaves (1982) is particularly concerned that schools should confer on pupils 'a genuine sense of dignity' which would form the basis for a 'stronger national solidarity' and the ability to resolve conflicts between subcommunities. In rejecting meritocratic concerns he suggests that all 16-plus examinations should be abolished and that from the age of 11 to 15 pupils should follow a core curriculum which is sensitive to the needs of the community, and one which acknowledges current social-class inequalities with respect to schooling. Hargreaves acknowledges that his proposals might lead to a decline in the academic attainment of 'gifted' pupils, but argues that the improvement in their general education would more than compensate for this. He proposes that half of the curriculum, the common core, should be organized in terms of mixed-ability groups but concedes that 'much of the academic option work would almost certainly have to be streamed or set by ability if most pupils are to be stretched'.

As for Reynolds et al. (1987), their vision of a comprehensive is a school which is much more collectively organized, and which exhibits distribution of power among a greater number of people involved in the educational system. They recommend that the 'deep structure' of relationships and feelings in comprehensives must be the focus for reform rather than merely concerns about resources. Like Hargreaves they accept that the ideal comprehensive should not impose an entirely universal curriculum on pupils ('the egalitarian steampress model'), but favour some universalistic elements combined with some selectivistic differentiated curricula as well. The differentiation would be based upon the different 'abilities' of the pupils which they claim defme different 'needs'.

Ability, Needs and Naturalization

Even the much more detailed contributions on the educational nature of comprehensives by Hargreaves and Reynolds et al., leave a few grey areas in need of clarification. For example, what sort of 'ability' is it that defines pupils' needs? It is not adequate merely to imply that 'giftedness' defmes a pupil's needs because needs have to be related to some goals in order to make any sense. There is also the question of what sort of 'giftedness' is valued in the educational system. Some pupils might be very 'gifted' at helping others who have diffKulty in achieving particular goals yet those 'gifted' pupils are likely to be separated from those they could help in a system divided by ability hierarchies. Helping others could be more of a need than striving ahead competitively for at least some pupils. An education which emphasizes cooperative learning and genuine caring for other people is likely to nurture in pupils different needs to those that would develop under a pressured environment dominated by competitive certification. This is not to suggest that individuals have the same abilities to perform certain specified tasks, but before we accept and systematize some hierarchy of ability we should be much clearer about the criteria for judging ability in the firSt place. Furthermore, education is stripped of any social purpose if it is assumed that abilities defme needs. Needs may be much better defmed according to desires to live in a certain kind of society, as David Hargreaves (1982) appreciates. Thus, needs are politically contestable. For example, someone might be able to be trained as an astronaut, but whether training to be an astronaut is a need must surely be a different question.

It follows that to claim that pupils will have different needs on the basis of their different abilities must be assuming some underlying model of pupil and societal development. Unfortunately, such a model never really emerges in the writings of those who advocate differentiated schooling based on ability hierarchies. Reynolds et al. (1987) say that 'the low ability child also may need a slightly different curriculum' but they do not explain why this is a need except by some implicit reference to standards within the curriculum. Nor are we told how low ability is determined and in relation to what broader social purposes for education. The result is a naturalization of ability hierarchies which runs the risk of being applied as a rationale for social inequality (Shilling, 1992).

Sex, Gender and Naturalization

The comprehensive debate has been largely concerned with meritocracy, integration and egalitarianism for social classes. As the momentum to challenge class divisions in secondary schools grew in official circles during the 1960s, matters of gender divisions and sexual inequality were neglected. In 1963 the Newsom Report naturalized the common social situation of women in Britain as a justification for an education dedicated to maintaining gender divisions:

We try to educate girls into becoming imitation men and as a result we are wasting and frustrating their qualities of womanhood at great expense to the community…In addition to their needs as individuals our girls should be educated in terms of their main social function which is to make for themselves, their children and their husbands a secure and comfortable home and to be mothers. (cited in Lees, 1993, p. 154)

Coupled with such neglect of sexual inequality, comprehensivization increased the number of co-educational secondary schools, as single-sex grammar schools merged into new comprehensives taking boys and girls under the same roof. The major concern that has linked the comprehensive debate with gender issues is the feminist argument that comprehensive education has accentuated the academic failure of girls relative to boys. This has been raised by Shaw (1980), whose main points deserve considerable attention.

She claims that the pressure to discontinue all-female colleges and single-sex schools had the same ideological basis as attempts to exclude women from education in a previous era, namely a defensive response to the threat that women might take over certain advantages reserved for men. Secondly, Shaw contends that the consequence of integrating boys and girls in co-education comprehensives was that girls received a poorer education in order to allow traditional sex roles to flourish in a 'boy-girl' environment. In particular, she notes that pupils who opted for science subjects at secondary school were more likely to remain in formal education, and that ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halt Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Comprehensive Education: Past Debates and Future Ideals
• Chapter 2 Sociology of Education and Secondary Schooling
• Chapter 3 Research Methodology and Design
• Chapter 4 Organizational Differentiation and Polarization: Setting, Social Class and Pupil Values
• Chapter 5 Gender, Differentiation and Deviance
• Chapter 6 The Subject-option Process: Pupil Choice in School Knowledge
• Chapter 7 Gendering and Stratification of School Knowledge
• Chapter 8 Teacher Ideology and Sex Roles in Curriculum Texts
• Chapter 9 Conclusions, Implications and Social Change
• Bibliography
• Index