Why I'm quitting teaching 4/11: modern education systems are designed to create losers...
Social Democrats have long hoped that state education can be used to close social inequalities, however, modern education systems may actually be having the opposite effect, according to Danny Dorling (2015) in ‘Injustice: Why Social Inequality Still Persists’.
Dorling’s argument is that there is very little natural difference between children in terms of intelligence: we are all born more or less equal.
HOWEVER, modern education systems, which measure everyone’s intelligence (at younger and younger ages) and categorise children into ability groups: from the ‘limited’ to the ‘advanced’ magnify these differences and create a kind of educational apartheid which ‘garages’ those categorised as lower ability and ‘hot-houses’ those labelled as advanced.
Dorling argues that there are, in fact, seven such categories (with the average percentages next to them), which you can find in most OECD countries’ education systems:
- None - 3%
- Limited - 11%
- Barely Adequate - 20%
- Simple - 28%
- Effective - 25%
- Developed - 11%
- Advanced - 2%
NB - the fact that these are entirely artificial categories is born out by the simple fact that there is no way that fully 34% of the population is ‘educationally sub-normal’. Similarly, the notion that that the ‘advanced’ are significantly different to the ‘developed’ has been dismissed by Malcolm Gladwell in his excellent book ‘Outliers’.
The difference in both cases lies in the significance given to to the labels rather than any real underlying difference in the actual ability of the people given those labels.
Moreover, this is exactly as the elites want it: because by creating such unnatural divisions (or by ‘socially constructing’ them as sociologists say) it gives those with the financial means the ability to game the system and come out on top - they can hot-house their children by getting them private tuition, for example, and this is precisely what happens according to Dorling: the kids which drift to the top are the kids of the wealthy, who get better at passing exams because of the training they’ve received. Meanwhile, those at the bottom (like those on Free School Meals) drift to the bottom, are 'garaged' and fail their GCSEs in huge numbers:
NB - the above stats may be dated, but you have to back a while to find them, because the UK government no longer publicizes stats on the relationship between poverty and educational achievement - they basically seem to have burried the info...
The fact that these divisions are themselves based on standardised tests which measure only a limited range of intelligence also works in favour of elites: it is easier to game the system if you only have a limited range of skills which you need to help your child develop - £10K worth of private tuition focusing on how to pass the limited GCSE maths curriculum is going to give you a significant advantage compared to those not receiving tuition. If exams were more qualitative, and broader, it would simply be more difficult for wealthy parents to train their kids to do well in them.
A further consequence of all of this is that now this system is so well established many of us use it to legitimise our status in society, educational qualifications remain to this day the surest means of accessing a high paying job in the professions, and are thus part of justifying differential rewards: ‘I should earn £100K a year as a lawyer/ surgeon because I’m more intelligent as proved by my degree’, or ‘all I deserve is minimum wage because I failed my GCESs’.
Evidence for the fact that education 'reproduces class inequalities'
You don't need to look far: here are just a few 'hub posts':
- The most recent Guardian Article: Bright but poor pupils years behind their better off peers
- A hub post on the topic from my main blog - [The effects of cultural capital on educational achievement]t(https://revisesociology.com/2016/04/05/cultural-capital-and-educational-achievement/) (links to other posts on the topic)
- This 2015 Joseph Rowntree Foundation Report demonstrates that children in receipt of Free School Meals (an indicator of poverty) are about twice as likely to underachieve as those not in receipt of them.
Further evidence lies in the fact that in the government's main Academic achievement by pupil characteristic - report, they don't monitor the effects of poverty: only gender, ethnicity, SEN, absences, and age (within cohort) - a sure sign that poverty matters, hence why they've buried it.
The fact that the modern education system simply reproduces class inequality is the 4th out of 11 reasons why I've handed in my notice and am quitting teaching this year. The first series in the post is as follows:
- Why I'm quitting teaching - post one: introduction
- Part 2:Education: a tryanny of numbers
- Part 3: seven reasons why exams don't measure intelligence
Image Sources:
1> My own!
2> The Poverty Site
Absolutely, it is designed to create losers. I agree with what you outlined here. The rich are always going to be able to pay for tutoring and private school and will always have an advantage.
I think beyond that the education system is just so regimented that a large portion of the students are being taught in a suboptimal way.
Many children learn better hands on and when they have a goal they need to accomplish. The majority or learning in school is just memorization. Which is incredibly boring to many students. Especially those that are rather intelligent and don't need the excessive repitition.
Bored students don't pay attention and are disruptive and are often medicated these days. It just goes on and on.
Anyway, good article. It is good to see these things from different angles.
Somewhat ironically I didn't do the chapter justice - I probably oversimplified it.
When I read the first edition of Dorling's book a few years ago I got the feeling he was struggling to articulate some very complex social theory on inequality - with the second edition his ideas are much clearer.
It's next on my list to read properly (by that I mean read/ sum/ apply).
Danny Dorling's well worth checking out - Oxford professor, on-side with the whole Occupy movement a while back.
I completely agree, and if I would have read this when I was 5 years old, I probably would have agreed then, too.
I have unschooled my kids since 2004, and write about it here and elsewhere. I myself dropped out of highschool because I found it so banal and anti-life.
Glad to see more people are noticing that schools are designed to produce compliant and obedient products--NOT a truly educated populace!
Capitalist society is definitely designed to create losers.