Sed2601
Exam with
Complete
Solutions
2023
Question
Outline two reasons why marketisation policies may produce inequality of educational
achievement between social classes.
Answer:
• cream-skimming; successful schools can attract higher
achievers, who are more likely to be middle-class.
• silt-shifting; successful schools can avoid taking less able,
largely working-class pupils, who thus end up in low-achieving
schools.
Question
Outline three reasons for gender differences in educational achievement.
Answer:
• laddish subcultures; boys are more likely to join anti-
school subcultures that prevent them from achieving.
• changes in the job market: more jobs for women/decline in
traditional men’s jobs increase girls’/reduce boys’ motivation to
achieve.
• feminisation of education; more female teachers as role
models today gives girls an advantage over boys.
• leisure pursuits; for example, girls’ leisure often involves a
‘bedroom culture’ of talking with friends, which develops their
communication skills.
Question
Item A
According to Marx, capitalism is based on the ownership of the means of production
by a wealthy minority. Capitalism continues to exist because each new generation of
workers is forced to undertake low-paid, alienating work to survive. This makes
capitalism potentially unstable, since it depends on the proletariat not seeking to
overthrow this unequal system.
Applying material from Item A, analyse two ways in which the education system might
serve the needs of capitalism.
Answer:
There will be two developed applications of material from the item, eg the
, proletariat do not seek to overthrow capitalism because the education system acts
as an ideological state apparatus; the education system reproduces capitalism by
preparing each generation of working-class children to fill their future roles as
Exam with
Complete
Solutions
2023
Question
Outline two reasons why marketisation policies may produce inequality of educational
achievement between social classes.
Answer:
• cream-skimming; successful schools can attract higher
achievers, who are more likely to be middle-class.
• silt-shifting; successful schools can avoid taking less able,
largely working-class pupils, who thus end up in low-achieving
schools.
Question
Outline three reasons for gender differences in educational achievement.
Answer:
• laddish subcultures; boys are more likely to join anti-
school subcultures that prevent them from achieving.
• changes in the job market: more jobs for women/decline in
traditional men’s jobs increase girls’/reduce boys’ motivation to
achieve.
• feminisation of education; more female teachers as role
models today gives girls an advantage over boys.
• leisure pursuits; for example, girls’ leisure often involves a
‘bedroom culture’ of talking with friends, which develops their
communication skills.
Question
Item A
According to Marx, capitalism is based on the ownership of the means of production
by a wealthy minority. Capitalism continues to exist because each new generation of
workers is forced to undertake low-paid, alienating work to survive. This makes
capitalism potentially unstable, since it depends on the proletariat not seeking to
overthrow this unequal system.
Applying material from Item A, analyse two ways in which the education system might
serve the needs of capitalism.
Answer:
There will be two developed applications of material from the item, eg the
, proletariat do not seek to overthrow capitalism because the education system acts
as an ideological state apparatus; the education system reproduces capitalism by
preparing each generation of working-class children to fill their future roles as
