Education | OCR A-Level Sociology (H580)

Education

101 questions
9 subtopics
Component 03: Debates in contemporary society
Component 03

Education is examined on component 03 of OCR Sociology, Debates in contemporary society.

It is one of the three Section B options on that paper, of which a student sits one. 101 recall questions across 9 subtopics.

Sample questions from Education

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

Functionalist, Marxist and liberal views of the role of education

What did Althusser mean by calling education an ideological state apparatus?

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He meant education maintains ruling-class power by shaping ideas rather than by force, unlike the repressive apparatus of police and army, and it does so by reproducing both labour power and an ideology that makes inequality seem natural.
Social democratic, New Right and feminist views and vocational education

How do liberal feminists explain girls' position in education, and what do they propose?

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They argue girls were held back by sexist attitudes and unequal provision, and that continued reform — equal access, positive role models and monitoring of results — will steadily strip the remaining barriers away.
Class and ethnic patterns in educational attainment

Overall results have risen for every social class over recent decades. Why is that not evidence that class inequality in education is disappearing?

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Because the improvement has lifted all groups roughly together, so although absolute attainment is higher, the relative distance between the classes has proved stubbornly persistent.
Gender patterns, global educational inequality and intersectionality

What is meant by gender apartheid in education?

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It describes the systematic exclusion of girls and women from schooling in some societies, where they are barred or effectively prevented from entering education that boys and men enter freely.
Inside-school factors: labelling, setting, triage and institutional racism

Explain the self-fulfilling prophecy in education, using Rosenthal and Jacobson's findings.

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A false definition of a pupil can become true because the teacher acts on it and the pupil internalises it; Rosenthal and Jacobson told teachers certain randomly chosen children would 'spurt', and those children went on to make greater gains than their classmates.
Material and cultural deprivation and cultural capital

Explain Bernstein's distinction between the restricted and elaborated speech codes.

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The restricted code is context-bound, uses shorter constructions and assumes shared understanding, while the elaborated code is explicit, context-free and spells meaning out; Bernstein argued schools teach and examine in the elaborated code, which advantages pupils already fluent in it.
Explaining gender and ethnic differences and theoretical views of achievement

How do functionalists explain differences in achievement between pupils?

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They treat the system as broadly meritocratic, so differences largely reflect differences in individual ability and effort, and where whole groups underachieve they look for inadequate socialisation or dysfunction outside the school rather than inside it.
Types of school and education policy since 1988

Name three further kinds of school that add to the diversity of provision.

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Faith schools, university technical colleges and studio schools are three; specialist schools and city technology colleges were earlier additions of the same kind.

The 9 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Functionalist, Marxist and liberal views of the role of education	Recall questions on Durkheim on social solidarity and specialist skills, Parsons's school as a bridge, Davis and Moore's role allocation, Althusser's ideological state apparatus, Bowles and Gintis's correspondence principle, hidden curriculum and myth of meritocracy, Willis's lads, and the liberal view of education and the schooling it favours.	12
Social democratic, New Right and feminist views and vocational education	Recall questions on social democratic views and comprehensive schooling, New Right views and Chubb and Moe, liberal, radical and Marxist feminist views of education, functionalist, Marxist and New Right views of education and work, vocational education, T Levels and the apprenticeship levy, Finn and Cohen's criticisms, and parity of esteem.	14
Class and ethnic patterns in educational attainment	Recall questions on the relationship between social class and attainment, free school meals as an indicator, the widening class gap, class and access to higher education, and ethnic patterns in attainment, including Chinese, Indian, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Black Caribbean and white British pupils.	10
Gender patterns, global educational inequality and intersectionality	Recall questions on the gender gap in attainment and when girls moved ahead, gendered subject choice, debates about boys' underachievement, gender apartheid and barriers to girls' schooling globally, differences in provision between rich and poor countries, learning poverty, modernisation and dependency explanations, and how class, gender and ethnicity combine.	13
Inside-school factors: labelling, setting, triage and institutional racism	Recall questions on inside-school and outside-school explanations, structural, material and cultural explanations, Becker on labelling, Rosenthal and Jacobson's self-fulfilling prophecy, streaming and setting, Lacey's differentiation and polarisation, Gillborn and Youdell's educational triage, the ethnocentric curriculum and institutional racism in schools.	9
Material and cultural deprivation and cultural capital	Recall questions on material deprivation and Callender and Jackson on debt aversion, cultural deprivation theory, Bernstein's restricted and elaborated codes, Douglas and Sugarman, Keddie's critique, Bourdieu's cultural capital, habitus and symbolic violence, and the outside-school factors used to explain ethnic differences in achievement.	9
Explaining gender and ethnic differences and theoretical views of achievement	Recall questions on family-based explanations of Black Caribbean boys' attainment and Sewell, the outside-school changes behind girls' improved performance, and functionalist, Marxist, interactionist, social democratic, feminist and New Right explanations of differential educational achievement.	8
Types of school and education policy since 1988	Recall questions on the types of institution in UK education, academies, free schools, selective and non-selective schooling, the Education Reform Act 1988, quasi-markets, league tables and inspection, New Labour policies against disadvantage, tuition fees, Coalition and Conservative reforms after 2010, and post-1988 vocational training.	14
Ideology, marketisation and equality of opportunity in education policy	Recall questions on New Right and social democratic ideology in post-1988 policy, New Labour's hybrid approach, cream-skimming and silt-shifting, Ball's myth of parentocracy, debates about rising standards and a narrowing curriculum, and how far policy has improved equality of opportunity by class, gender and ethnicity, including multicultural and anti-racist approaches.	12

Education is 101 of the 859 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.