2010/ED/EFA/MRT/PI/41

Background paper prepared for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2010

Reaching the marginalized

Educational marginalization in the UK

Anna Vignoles2009

This paper was commissioned by the Education for All Global Monitoring Report as background information to assist in drafting the 2010 report. It has not been edited by the team. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and should not be attributed to the EFA Global Monitoring Report or to UNESCO. The papers can be cited with the following reference: “Paper commissioned for the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010, Reaching the marginalized” For further information, please contact efareport@unesco.org

Educational marginalization in the UK Anna Vignoles

April 2009

1. Introduction The purpose of this report is to describe the extent of educational marginalization in

the UK and to consider the effectiveness of UK policy with regards to reducing this

marginalization1. During recent decades the UK Government has introduced a wide

range of policies aimed at both increasing educational quality and participation

generally, and narrowing socio-economic, gender and ethnic gaps in education

achievement. The government has also increased the share of GDP spent on

education from 5.2% of GDP to 6.2% between 1994 and 2005 and increased per

capita expenditure on primary and secondary education from 3.7% of GDP to 4.6%

over the same period (OECD, 2008). Certainly this government has done much to

live up to their claim that education is a top priority, a claim which has been made in

the Queen’s speech at the opening of every parliament since 19972.

Much of the policy emphasis has been on a specific education gap: namely the gap

in education achievement between students from different socio-economic

backgrounds. The broad thrust of UK education policy on marginalization is outlined

in the next section, along with more detailed discussion of two policy interventions

that were introduced to tackle particular types of marginalization. Specifically, the

report reviews the Excellence in Cities programme, which was introduced to raise

standards and address issues of marginalization in inner city schools. The report also

discusses the Education Maintenance Allowance policy which was introduced to

reduce the socio-economic gap in education participation in the post-compulsory

schooling phase (age 16 plus).

A key feature of the UK education system is the large increase in education

participation during the last 40 years. The proportion of young people remaining on in

full time education beyond the age of 16 has increased substantially and now stands

1 Much of the emphasis will be on school policy development in England. 2 Thanks go to Ruth Lupton for highlighting this point. See her broader discussion in Lupton et al. 2008.

1

at 78%, up from 70% in 1997 and up from around just under half the age group in

19853. Furthermore, the tertiary education participation rate has risen dramatically

since the 1980s, although it has remained stagnant at around 40% for the last few

years. Yet despite the large increase in education participation in the UK, there has

been growing concern about the marginalization of certain groups, particularly those

from poorer backgrounds. Certainly the socio-economic gap in HE participation

remains large in the UK and research suggests suggest that much of the increase in

education participation over time has been amongst more advantaged groups of

students (Blanden, Gregg and Machin, 2005; Blanden and Machin, 2008), an issue

we return to in more detail below.

Another trend in the UK over the last ten years is the shift of public resources

towards earlier educational phases, such as pre-school. The UK government

increased expenditure on early years and childcare fourfold (in nominal terms) over

the period 1997-2007 to £5billion and the number of child care places doubled

(Cabinet Office, 2008). This approach is supported by research that has indicated

that educational marginalization starts early and hence policy responses need to be

aimed at reducing the socio-economic gap in education achievement much earlier in

the system (Chowdry et al. 2008; Feinstein, 2003; Cunha and Heckman, 2008).

Certainly one of the most pressing challenges for the UK, in terms of educational

marginalization, is not widening participation in tertiary participation, for example, but

rather reducing the “long tail of low achieving students” caused by the relatively high

proportion of each cohort who continue to drop out of the education system at age 16

with few or no qualifications. The proportion not achieving a pass at GCSE, the

examination taken at age 16, has reduced from 8% in 1997 to 5% in 2007, whilst the

proportion not achieving 5 pass grades at GCSE reduced from 13.6% in 1997 to

10.1% in 20074.

3 http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000792/index.shtml 4 Derived from information provided to the Houses of Parliament in response to a Parliamentary Question. See Hansard 21 July Column 936W and http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080107/text/80107w0045.htm.

2

With the above trends in mind, the report will start with an overview of the extent of

marginalization in the UK, particularly with respect to socio-economic background,

gender, ethnicity and location. The general direction of policy in terms of reducing

marginalization will then be discussed, along with the Excellence in Cities (EiC) and

the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) interventions. Lastly, the report will

look to the future and consider the likely impact of the recent proposals in the

Government’s recent White Paper on social mobility and their implications for

educational marginalization (H M Government, 2008).

2. Educational marginalization in the UK

As has been already said, there has been extensive educational reform in the UK in

recent years, with a number of policies aimed at improving the skill levels of students

and reducing the number who leave the education system with few or no

qualifications at the end of the compulsory schooling phase (age 16). Despite this,

the UK has a lower proportion of young people participating in full or part time

education than many other OECD countries (Figure 1). In 2006, 70% of young

people age 15-19 in the UK were in full time or part time education, as compared to

82% for the OECD as a whole, and 85% for the 19 EU countries.

3

Figure 1: OECD participation in education at 15-19 in 2006

n 10.0

20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0

60.0 70.0 80.0

90.0 100.0

Belgium

Greece

Poland

Czech

Rep

ublic

Netherlan

ds

German

y

Finlan

d

Irelan

d

Sweden

Hungary

NorwayKore

a

France

EU19 av

erage

Slovak R

epub

lic

Iceland

Switzerl

and

Denmark

Austra

lia

Austria Ita

ly

OECD avera

geSpa

in

Canada

United Stat

es

New Zealan

d

Luxe

mbourg

Portug

al

United King

dom

Mexico

Turkey

%

Source: OECD, ‘Education at a Glance 2008’, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/46/41284038.pdf

International comparison data is also potentially informative, although the UK ranking

on international tests varies substantially over time and by test and thus long term

trends can be difficult to determine. Furthermore, measuring educational

marginalization (particularly socio-economic marginalization) is problematic as

measures of socio-economic background vary in meaning across countries and

contexts. That said, such data can be a useful guide as to how the UK compares with

other countries. The most recent international test data, namely data from the OECD

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)5, suggests that the UK is

an above average achiever in science and average in mathematics and reading. In

2006, the UK scored 515, i.e. above the OECD mean in science (500). In reading

and mathematics, the UK scored just below the OECD mean but not significantly so.

Of course the overall level of educational participation and achievement does not

necessarily inform us of the extent of educational marginalization and we start by

documenting the extent of this marginalisation. In the UK policy attention has been

focused particularly on socio-economic marginalization. 5 http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/60/1/39727764.ppt#2417

4

2.1 Socio-economic marginalization

Gaps in educational achievement between socio-economically advantaged and

disadvantaged groups emerge early (Feinstein, 2003; George et al. 2007). A study of

children born in 2000 (The Millennium Cohort Study) has confirmed that poorer

children in the UK have lower vocabulary scores, and score less well on tests of

school readiness, even at the age of 3 (George et al. 2007). Barreau et al. (2008)

found that English children from lower socio-economic backgrounds have both

poorer cognitive and non-cognitive development pre-school and go on to have lower

levels of academic achievement and non-cognitive development at school.

As has been said, even as children enter the education system there is a socio-

economic gap in achievement. At age 5 in 2007, only around one third of pupils in the

most deprived areas reached the expected level of attainment as compared to

around half of pupils in other areas (DCSF, 2008). Of course not all poor children live

in a deprived area nor attend a deprived school. In fact, a relatively small percentage

of pupils (3%) who are poor, as identified by whether they are in receipt of Free

School Meals6, actually live in a deprived area or attend a school with a high

proportion of FSM pupils (DCSF, 2008). So whilst identifying poorer children by which

school they attend is partially successful, individual measurement is important too.

Focusing now on FSM pupils (as distinct from deprived schools), the socio-economic

gap widens through the school system until, in 2007, at age 16 there was a 28-29

percentage point gap in the English and mathematics test scores7 achieved by FSM

students and less deprived pupils.

There is an important although admittedly arbitrary threshold at age 16, namely

achieving five Grades A*-C General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSE)

including English and Mathematics. There is considerable policy emphasis on this

threshold and data on the proportions of children achieving this threshold are

published at school level. One fifth of deprived (FSM) children achieved this in 2007, 6 In the UK children from poor families in receipt of state income support benefits are entitled to Free School Meals. Thus FSM status is an indicator of deprivation. 7 In England students take General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSE) at age 16. They take these tests in a range of subjects, the range being determined by the ability and interests of the child.

5

compared to around 50% of less deprived pupils, although the gap between FSM

and non FSM students has reduced somewhat since 2003 (DCSF, 2008). FSM

pupils are not only less likely to achieve in school but they are also more likely to be

“excluded” from school i.e. asked to leave the school either permanently or

temporarily. FSM pupils are seven times more likely to be excluded from primary

school and 3 to 4 times more likely to be excluded from secondary school.

PISA data, described earlier, confirms that in international terms the UK is a slightly

higher than average performer at age 15 but also has higher than average socio-

economic education achievement gaps8. 

Socio-economic marginalization continues on into higher education. Figure 3

indicates that there has been a reduction in the (long standing) socio-economic gap

since 2002 (this mirrors the reduction in the FSM/ non FSM gap in test score

achievement at age 16 over the same period mentioned earlier). Specifically, the gap

in higher education participation at age 18-20 between higher socio-economic

classes (groups 1, 2, 3) and lower socio-economic classes (groups 4 to 7) has

narrowed from nearly 27 percentage points in 2002 down to 21 percentage points in

2006. The gap is of course still sizeable.

8 http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/60/1/39727764.ppt#2390,21,Slide 21

6

Figure 2: Higher Education Participation Rates by Socio-economic Class for Young People age 18-20

Source: (DIUS, 2008)

Notes: The figure shows the Full-time Young Participation by Socio-Economic Class (FYPSEC)

measure. FYPSEC covers English domiciled 18-20 year old first time entrants to full time higher

education at UK HEIs and English FE colleges who remain on their courses for at least 6 months.

In summary, the main cause of the very large socio-economic gap in tertiary

participation in England is pupils’ poor prior achievement (Chowdry et al., 2008). In

other words, because socio-economic gaps emerge early in the UK education

system and widen, poorer students fail to achieve in primary and secondary school

and this explains why they then do not enroll in tertiary education. The left hand

panel of Figure 3 shows the socio-economic gap in higher education participation as

measured by FSM for those entering higher education in 2004/5 and 2005/6. More

advantaged young females who did not receive Free School Meals at the age of 16

had more than twice the probability of enrolling in tertiary education at the age of

18/19, as compared to those in receipt of free school meals. The picture is similar for

males. Yet the right hand panel also shows that the raw socio-economic gap in

tertiary enrollment (in excess of 20 percentage points) is massively reduced once we

allow for the prior achievement of these students. This confirms that much of the

7

reason why poorer pupils do not go to university is that they have not achieved the

prior attainment needed to go on to tertiary education.

Figure 3 Raw socio-economic gap in HE participation rates at age 18/19 for females (left-hand panel) and difference after adding in controls (right hand panel)

0 10 20 30 40% attending HE at 18/19

FSM

Non-FSM

05

1015

20D

iffer

ence

in %

atte

ndin

g H

E at

18/

19

raw after_controls

Note: the dashed line indicates the average HE participation rate amongst all females.

Source: Chowdry et al. (2009). Data is for England only.

Having established that early socio-economic marginalization occurs in the UK

education system, we now turn to the myriad factors that can potentially explain why.

Most recent evidence from Barreau et al. (2008) suggests that the socio-economic

gradient in academic achievement steepens as pupils progress through the school

system in part because of the crucially important role played by family factors largely

outside the control of the school system. This is consistent with other literature which

suggests that only around 10-20% of the variation in education achievement between

different pupils can be explained by schools, with the rest attributable to family and

social environment (Teddlie and Reynolds, 2000).

8

Barreau et al. found that parental characteristics, e.g. parental education, or other

child factors, such as birth weight are important in determining child achievement.

What they term as “non-traditional” factors i.e. parental and child attitudes and beliefs

appear to be important too. Focusing on non academic outcomes, such as

behavioural and emotional difficulties and risky behaviour, they confirmed that some

of the socio-economic gradient in non-cognitive outcomes is also related to these

“non-traditional” factors. In particular, maternal mental health seemed to play a

significant role. Aspirations, self confidence in one’s own ability, locus of control and

behavioural problems are highly related to both academic achievement and non-

cognitive outcomes.

International 2.2 Ethnic marginalization

Education achievement gaps by ethnicity have also been a source of concern.

Historically, some ethnic minority groups (but by no means all) have had lower levels

of achievement in the UK (Dearing, 1997). Patterns of ethnic marginalization are

changing however and Cassen and Kingdon (2007) report that nearly half of all low

achievers at age 16, defined as achieving few or no passes at GCSE, are White

British students.

Current levels of education achievement by ethnic minority group are shown in Table

1, with Asian and Chinese students doing particularly well at age 16. By contrast

Black students do less well at age 16. However, it is also the case that ethnicity and

socio-economic background are related (DCSF, 2008). Ethnic minority students tend

to come from more deprived backgrounds and it is important to take account of this.

Wilson et al. (2005) found that all ethnic minority groups now make more progress

through the English primary and secondary education system than whites, once you

allow for their (on average poorer) socio-economic background. The interaction

between socio-economic background and ethnicity is also strongest for White British

students. Cassen and Kingdon (2007) found that the socio-economic gap in

education achievement at age 16 was greatest for White British pupils (see too

DCSF, 2008).

9

Table 1: Achievements at GCSE and Equivalents by ethnicity 2008

% achieving 5 grade A* to C GCSE including

English and mathematics

Total White 47.9 Mixed 46.9 Asian 50.6 Black 40.2 Chinese 69.5

Any other ethnic group 44.3

Unclassified 42.8 All Pupils 47.8

Source: Department for Children Schools and Families

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000822/index.shtml

Data is for England only and 2008 provisional.

A similar picture emerges at tertiary level. Figure 5 shows sizeable ethnic gaps in the

likelihood of enrolling in tertiary education. Indian, Chinese, Other Asian and mixed

ethnic groups are more likely to go to university than White British students.

Conversely Black Caribbean and Other Black students are slightly less likely to go to

university than White British students. Again, these gaps in the probability of HE

enrollment are changed after we take account of pupils’ prior attainment in primary

and secondary school. The right hand panel of Figure 5 shows that in every case,

once account is taken of prior achievement, ethnic minority students are in fact more

likely to enroll in higher education than White British students. Again the implication is

that Black Caribbean and Other Black students are less likely than White British

students to enroll in tertiary education because of their weaker academic

achievement in secondary school.

10

Figure 4 Raw ethnic gap in HE participation rates at age 18/19 for males (left-hand panel) and difference after adding in controls (right hand panel)

0 20 40 60 80% attending HE at 18/19

Other (O)

Mixed (M)

Other Asian (OA)

Chinese (C)

Bangladeshi (B)

Pakistani (P)

Indian (I)

Other Black (OB)

Black Caribbean (BC)

Black African (BA)

Other White (OW)

White British (WB)

-20

020

4060

Diff

eren

ce in

% a

ttend

ing

HE

at 1

8/19

OW BA BC OB I P B C OA M O

raw after_controls

Note: the dashed line indicates the average HE participation rate amongst all males.

Source: Chowdry et al. 2008. Data is for England only. 2.3 Other sources of marginalization

Historically marginalization by gender has been a major issue in the UK, as girls

underachieved relative to boys. However since the late 1980s, females have

outperformed males in the UK education system. Women are more likely than males

to have higher levels of achievement at every level, including tertiary. Policy concern

has switched to underachievement of boys, particularly working class boys. In fact

administrative data indicates that between the ages of 14 to 16, the gender gap in the

gain in achievement exceeds the socio-economic gap (DCSF, 2008). So for a given

level of achievement at age 14, girls are 11 percentage points more likely than boys

to reach the key education threshold 5 grades A*-C at GCSE (age 16), whilst more

advantaged non FSM students are 7 percentage points more likely to achieve this

threshold than FSM students. Of course some of the gender gap may simply reflect

the fact that boys develop at different rates, or that the particular assessment

methods used at age 16 (more continual assessment in recent years, for example)

11

favour girls. Nonetheless the extent to which boys’ behaviour and achievement is

problematic in the UK education system is a topical issue.

There are also differences in educational achievement across the different regions of

the UK and indeed even greater disparities within English regions. Disparities in both

education achievement and school quality by neighbourhood have been longstanding

in the UK (Lupton, 2006). Despite a number of policies targeting poor

neighbourhoods with low levels of education achievement (e.g. New Deal for

Communities) or schools in deprived areas (e.g. the Excellence in Cities programme

as reviewed below), geographic disparities in education achievement remain. For

example, in 2008 within London the proportion of young people achieving 5 grades

A*-C at GCSE (including mathematics and English) ranged from just 38.2% in

Islington to 67.2% in Sutton9 (see Table 2 for regional differences). Furthermore,

Cassen and Kingdon (2007) in their study of underachievement noted that in fact

educational disadvantage is particularly concentrated in urban areas. Their evidence

from 2003 indicated that, for example, there were 13 local authorities where low

achievement, defined as no passes at GCSE was 50% or more above the national

average (which was 5.53% at that time). Such concentrations of very disadvantaged

pupils in a limited number of urban schools may lead to greater educational

difficulties than more dispersed rural deprivation. This was part of the motivation

behind the Excellence in Cities programme, described below, which was focused

purely on urban schools.

The socio-economic gap in education achievement also varies by region. Column 2

of Table 2 shows the FSM gap in the proportion of young people achieving 5 grades

A*-C at GCSE (including mathematics and English). Most striking is the fact that the

socio-economic gap in education achievement is around one third lower in London

than in the other regions. Thus London is a relatively average achieving area of

England but also one where the gap in education achievement between FSM and

non FSM students is relatively low. This is partly because non FSM students are

relatively poorer in London than elsewhere.

9 Source: Department for Children, Schools and Families http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000822/index.shtml

12

Equally as has been said already, only a small proportion of FSM (3%) children live

in deprived areas and attend deprived schools. This of course limits the potential

effectiveness of area based initiatives because such interventions are then received

by many non deprived students. That said, a case can still be made for such

interventions as discussed further below under the Excellence in Cities programme

analysis.

Table 2: FSM/non-FSM gap in 20081 % achieving 5 grades A*-C GCSEs includingEnglish and Mathematics by Government Office Region Coverage: England FSM/ Non-FSM gap

Percentage achieving 5 A* to C including E & M Percentage difference

of those achieving 5 A* to C including E & M

NORTH EAST 44.6 30.2 NORTH WEST 46.9 30.6 YORKSHIRE & HUMBER 44.0 29.8 EAST MIDLANDS 46.5 30.0 WEST MIDLANDS 45.7 27.0 EAST OF ENGLAND 50.0 29.7 LONDON 49.9 20.5 SOUTH EAST 51.4 32.7 SOUTH WEST 49.0 30.8 ENGLAND 47.9 27.8 1. Figures for 2005 are based on revised data and figures for 2006, 2007 and 2008 are based on provisional data, to be comparable with the information published in the relevant Statistical First Releases.

Source: Department for Children, Schools and Families http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000822/index.shtml

2.4 Social mobility

Another aspect of educational marginalization is social mobility, i.e. the extent to

which your parents’ characteristics determine your chances of achieving highly in

education and the labour market. Recently the UK Government have published a

White Paper on the issue (Cabinet Office, 2008). The evidence base on social

mobility suggests that immediately after World War II there was a rise in social

13

mobility in the UK, particularly as the number of white collar jobs increased. However

Blanden and Machin (2008) (see also Blanden, Gregg and Machin, 2005) found that

there had been some reduction in social mobility across two cohorts of men born in

1958 and 1970. Specifically they found that family income was a more important

determinant of both educational achievement and subsequent income levels for the

later cohort. This apparent fall in social mobility was a major motivation behind the

increased policy focus on this issue. This evidence is contentious and some

commentators argue that class based measures of social mobility are superior to

those based purely on income (Goldthorpe and Jackson, 2008). That said other

studies certainly confirm that there was no major improvement in social mobility

during this period (Ermisch and Nicoletti, 2005). International evidence indicates that

social mobility for UK males in the 1970s-1990s period was similar to the mobility

experienced by males in other European countries, although social mobility for UK

females was somewhat lower (Breen, 2004).

3. Policy responses

The policy emphasis in the UK in recent decades has been on tackling the two inter-

related problems of a) raising mean educational standards and b) reducing the gaps

in education achievement between different groups of students. Certainly since 1997

the government has professed their commitment to reducing educational

marginalization and since 1997 this goal has been made explicit in most pieces of

education legislation passed into law.

Educational marginalization has been tackled in two main ways. Firstly, there have

been numerous initiatives to raise standards in schools, to ensure that individuals

who do leave the school system at age 16 leave with a minimum level of skill. These

initiatives include greater accountability and market oriented reform of the schooling

system, as well as curriculum reform (Machin and Vignoles, 2005). Whilst some

policies, such as market reforms, are primarily about raising mean standards in

schools, policy-makers have recognized that the lowest levels of achievement are

found in the most deprived areas and certainly amongst deprived students. Thus

policies which raised standards, it was argued, were likely to help low achieving

14

students to a greater extent. Whether this has happened in practice is discussed

further below. The second policy thrust has been to encourage individuals to spend

more time in education, either by persuading them to stay on in school past the age

of 16, by encouraging them to enroll in higher education or by enabling them to return

to education and training later in life.

In 1988 quasi-market features were introduced into the UK education system.

Parents were given the power to choose their child’s school, with the idea that

schools would therefore become more accountable and this would tend to improve

educational standards. Alongside parental choice, the financial system allocated

resources to schools on the basis of student numbers. Thus schools had a clear

incentive to attract more students. In addition, better information on schools and pupil

performance was published (the so called “school league tables”), to help parents

make informed choices. So for the last two decades the English education system in

particular has relied partially on market forces to improve educational standards.

Yet the empirical evidence suggests that competition between schools has had only

a limited impact on mean education achievement (Bradley et al. 2001; Levacic, 2004;

Gibbons et al. 2008 Burgess and Slater, 2006). Nor has it substantially reduced the

extent of marginalization, at least as measured by the socio-economic gap in

education achievement. Some critics had argued that market reforms would in fact

increase educational marginalization, as more advantaged parents secure places for

their children in better quality schools thus widening gaps in achievement further and

increasing social segregation across schools. In fact this has not happened either

(Gorard et al. 2003; Allen and Vignoles, 2008). In general there has been a lack of a

competition effect (for good or bad). This is partly because market forces are

constrained in the UK. Good schools cannot expand indefinitely and policy-makers

try to avoid closing poor quality schools (they prefer to try to improve them by giving

them additional resources). This means that although parents have a free choice of

school, in practice parents still need to live very near to “good” oversubscribed

schools in order to gain access. In other words the introduction of parental choice

has not radically altered the pre-existing system of allocation to schools according to

residential location. It remains as true as ever that richer parents can afford to buy

more expensive houses near better schools and thus access to these good schools

15

is not equal: this is one route by which socio-economic educational marginalization

occurs.

The government has not left everything to the market however. The National

Challenge programme, for example, was launched in 2008. This programme

provided support to schools that did not achieve a minimum standard of at least 30%

of pupils in every school gaining five or more GCSEs at A*‐C, including both English

and mathematics. In 2008 around 400 schools did not meet this standard in England.

However, the number of “National Challenge Schools” has reduced markedly since

2007 when it stood at just over 600. Whilst additional resources were allocated to this

programme (£400m)10, it is difficult to confirm that this was genuinely additional

money as opposed to resources redirected from elsewhere in the education system,

and it is even more difficult to explain how such a dramatic improvement has been

brought about in such a short period of time and with only 27 school closures11. Another government policy, namely Every Child Matters (ECM), can also be seen as

a major attempt to both reduce the educational marginalization of some groups of

children (by forcing schools to focus on the lowest achievers) and to broaden the role

of the school system beyond academic achievement to non-cognitive outcomes,

such as children’s health or well being. It is not clear how ECM is going to lead to

reductions in marginalization in practice and the policy has not been fully evaluated.

What it has done however, at least in theory, is to require schools to focus more on

the “whole child” and increased schools’ concern with child welfare. In part this

reflects a backlash against a particular side effect of the market system, namely that

schools focus excessively on school league table results, potentially at the expense

of other aspects of children’s schooling. It also represents (implicitly) an

acknowledgement that some low achieving children face challenging family

circumstances and that schools need to play a pastoral role to help pupils overcome

this. Policies such as Every Child Matters and indeed Extended Schools (the latter

extends the role of schools to include breakfast clubs and after school clubs and

10 How much has been spent on each school under this programme has been subject to much public debate both in the media and in the House of Commons. Many schools have only received small amounts of funding. 11 http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/nationalchallenge/index.shtml

16

activities) can be seen as part of this attempt to tackle the factors associated with

educational marginalisation and to refocus attention on broader child outcomes.

We also noted earlier that there has been a distinct shift of public resources in the UK

towards the early years. Much of the considerable investments made in pre-school

provision have been designed specifically to reduce the socio-economic gap in

education achievement that emerges so early. One example of an intervention

targeting poorer parents in their children’s early years is Sure Start, a programme

modelled on the US HeadStart pre-school intervention, which provides advice,

health, nutrition, education and parenting support. Sure Start has been found to have

a positive impact on early achievement and to reduce the socio-economic gap12.

Likewise interventions in the primary school phase, such as the Literacy and

Numeracy Hours which prescribe how these subjects should be taught in primary

school, have also improved mean achievement and reduced the socio-economic gap

(Machin and McNally, 2004).

At the other end of the academic spectrum, public resources into higher education

have been reduced (at least on a per pupil basis). Tertiary students now are required

to pay tuition fees, although the fees are deferred and supported by income

contingent loans available for students. The net result of these tertiary financial

reforms has been to shift the burden of costs towards students. Recent evaluation of

these reforms has found firstly, no substantial negative impact on higher education

participation rates from the reform, and secondly no widening of the socio-economic

gap (Dearden et al., 2007). The latter finding is perhaps unsurprising given that

tuition fees are means tested and the poorest students are fully exempt from fees.

With these broad policy trends in mind, we now consider in more detail two specific

policies aimed at reducing educational marginalization.

3.1 Excellence in Cities

12 http://www.ness.bbk.ac.uk/documents/activities/impact/42.pdf

17

The Excellence in Cities (EiC) programme was a policy initiative aimed at improving

pupil achievement in deprived urban schools and was first introduced on a pilot basis

in 1999. Subsequently further schools were incorporated into Excellence in Cities

both during the pilot stage (to 2001) and afterwards when the programme was

implemented nationally. The initial pilots were targeted on inner city schools in the

most deprived circumstances.

The EiC programme was in fact not a single policy intervention. It was implemented

in a relatively diverse manner across different schools, i.e. the intervention was quite

different in different settings. In some schools the focus was on targeting students at

risk of failure, whilst in others it involved a greater focus on more able but deprived

pupils. The policy was also relatively modest in terms of the additional resources

allocated to it: EiC schools were funded at an additional £120 per pupil level initially

so the impact on achievement was likely to be modest. Expenditure then rose from

£24 million in the first year of the pilot (1999) to £386million in 2006 (Kendall et al.

2005).

Although describing the exact activities taking place in each school under the EiC

programme is not possible, most EiC schools included elements of the following

strands:

1. Gifted and talented programmes were targeted at the most able students. The

idea behind this initiative was to identify pupils in these deprived schools who

were capable of performing above their expected level. The programme would

then stretch and encourage them in their learning and provide some level of

individualized support. The extent to which this actually happened varied

hugely in practice and some teachers reported being uncomfortable with this

element of the programme and perceived it as elitist. Since the first EiC pilots,

identification of gifted and talented children has become routine in most

schools (although what happens to that information varies hugely by school).

2. Learning mentors were introduced to assist under achieving children. Learning

mentors provided support either in or outside the classroom and specifically

18

targeted support at children who were having trouble accessing the

curriculum, faced barriers to learning and were not making sufficient progress.

3. Learner Support Units to assist under achieving children were also introduced.

LSUs provided more structured support to pupils who were failing to achieve

academically and had behaviour and other types of difficulties that meant they

would benefit from having some time outside the classroom.

4. EIC Action Zones were set up, i.e. areas that were identified as being

educationally deprived were included into the EiC initiative and local

partnerships set up. The purpose of an area rather than a school based

approach was particularly to encourage different primary and secondary

schools in deprived urban areas to work together to raise standards.

5. In a few schools there were also City Learning Centres (CLCs) which were

technology units that provided information technology for young people

normally across a range of schools and community groups.

A comprehensive evaluation of EiC was carried out by the London School of

Economics (Machin et al. 2007) and the National Foundation for Education

Research13. The evaluation was very large with many interim findings and a number

of different methodological approaches were adopted for the evaluation with some

conflicting results. We focus largely on the quantitative evidence arising from the

evaluation as our interest is primarily in whether the EiC initiative reduced the extent

of educational marginalization in these inner city schools.

13A full list of research outputs from this evaluation is at http://www.nfer.ac.uk/research-areas/research-area-full-list.cfm?research_area=EIC&Ref=Excellence%20in%20cities.

19

We need to start the discussion with a methodological point. As has been discussed

earlier, only a relatively small percentage of poor students (FSM pupils) live in a poor

area and attend a deprived (high FSM school). Thus an area based approach will

inevitably miss many poor students who attend less deprived schools or who live in

less deprived areas. Equally an area based approach will incur considerable

deadweight loss, i.e. it will provide support or resources to pupils who are not

genuinely deprived but who happen to live in a deprived area and attend a deprived

school. Excellence in Cities was implemented however, as a school based

programme, and clearly many systematic problems relating to underachievement of

some pupils can only be dealt with at a school or an even more aggregate area level.

For example, the difficulties schools face in attracting and retaining good teachers is

clearly an area or school based problem rather than one facing an individual pupil. A

central question about EiC was therefore the extent to which it benefited poor (FSM)

pupils or whether the benefits were largely experienced by less deprived pupils in

EiC schools.

The quantitative research found that the impact of EiC varied across the stages of

education. The evaluators found that the greatest impact from EiC was on

mathematics achievement at age 14 in the most disadvantaged schools in the

programme. However, within these more deprived schools the impact of EiC on

mathematics test scores was greatest for medium and higher ability children. Effects

on English and Science were not found at this age and no effect from the programme

was found on GCSE scores at age 16. When the programme was implemented, all

schools in deprived urban Local Education Authorities were included in the EiC

programme. Yet as the programme only impacted on the most disadvantaged

schools, this suggests some deadweight loss. Nonetheless a variety of different

evaluations, using different methods, concluded that by and large EiC had a positive

impact, at least on some pupils in deprived schools, but that since it did not impact on

GCSE results and it tended to be more effective for medium/high ability children, its

impact on educational marginalization was relatively limited.

In terms of the impact of specific strands, again no impact on student achievement

was found for pupils making use of either a Learner Support Unit or a City Learning

Centre. Students using a Learning Mentor at Key Stage 3 (age 14) actually made

20

less progress than those who did not but there was qualitative evidence that Learning

Mentors helped some students overcome barriers to learning. There was no

evidence that EiC Action Zones had any impact either. Pupils designated as Gifted

and Talented did indeed have higher levels of education achievement but the

evaluation evidence does not suggest any causal impact from EiC on their

achievement (Kendall et al. 2005).

Funding for EiC as a specific initiative has ceased from 2006. Funding and indeed

the programme is now no longer distinct in the sense that there is no additional

budget from central government specifically for EiC schools and all schools are

expected to adopt the elements of the EiC programme (e.g. have a gifted and

talented programme). So EiC schools, i.e. those who were part of the original EiC

initiative, are now funded in the normal way, via a mix of funding from local and

central government. This does not mean they have experienced a cut in funding

however, as funding levels in primary and secondary schools have risen since 1997,

as detailed earlier, and deprived schools continue to be funded at a higher rate than

less deprived schools (as has always been the case in the UK). The extent to which

more deprived pupils, and indeed deprived schools, receive higher levels of funding

is in fact hard to determine. Research suggests that even though additional

resources are given to local government in areas with higher numbers of FSM

students, this resource does not necessarily reach the most deprived pupils nor their

schools (Thrupp and Lupton, 2006; West, 2009). Recent analysis by Sibieta et. al.

(2008) suggests that FSM pupils attract around 70% more funding than non FSM

pupils and that this premium has grown over time. Yet they also calculated that only

40-50% of the additional funds given to local authorities for FSM pupils actually goes

to the schools that these FSM pupils attend. This has been a major political issue

and the government has decreed that this proportion needs to rise to a minimum of

80% (DCSF, 2008).

In summary, EiC as an area based initiative was always destined to have a high level

of deadweight loss in that it was targeted at a wide range of students who attended

deprived schools. However, the results suggest that deadweight loss was not

necessarily the major concern. What was striking was the generally weak positive

impact from the EiC programme overall. This may have been partially linked to the

21

low level of funding and the fact that the programme was implemented in very

diverse ways in different schools making it difficult to uncover impact. Perhaps

teachers themselves can explain why the programme was not more effective.

Although the evaluation evidence suggests teachers viewed EiC favourably, it also

found that teacher turnover was not reduced and in fact teacher recruitment became

more difficult over the period (linked to fall in new teacher qualification rates). Since

teachers are arguably a more important determinant of children’s achievement than

schools (Rivkin et al. 2005), this fact may explain why this particular school based

initiative was not more effective.

 3.2 Educational Maintenance Allowance

We now discuss a second major initiative implemented on a pilot basis in 1999 and

continuing to this day, namely the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA). The

objective of the EMA was to raise post-compulsory educational participation and

retention in education of young people (age 16-19) from low income families.

Education Maintenance Allowances are weekly term time only payments made to

students aged 16-19 for staying on in full time education for 2-3 additional years. The

amount paid to the student varies and is means tested in the sense that EMA

eligibility was determined by family income level in the previous year. The EMA

scheme was designed to give young people from disadvantaged backgrounds an

added incentive to stay on in education and to help them meet some of the additional

costs associated with full time education. In 2008, it was reported in the House of

Commons that 556,702 young people aged 16-19 claimed EMA, around 35% of each

cohort14.

One unique feature of the Education Maintenance Allowance scheme is that it was

evaluated prior to national implementation and the evaluation design was very

methodologically robust (IFS, 2007)15. The EMA pilots were implemented in 1999,

14 This proportion is calculated from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England and the Youth Cohort Study http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SBU/b000795/YCS_LSYPE_Bulletin_final.pdf 15 The evaluation design was based on a longitudinal cohort study of random samples of young people living in EMA pilot areas and control areas.

22

extended to about a third of the country between 2000-2004 and in 2004, the EMA

was rolled out throughout the UK.

The evaluation of the EMA indicated a positive impact on education participation for

those eligible for EMA, i.e. more deprived students from low income families.

Specifically, the introduction of EMA appears to have lead to an increase in

education participation at age 16 of 4.5 percentage points among those eligible for

the EMA. This improvement in the participation rate of the most deprived students is

in the context of an average education participation rate of 64.7% in the control

sample (Dearden et al. 2005). A follow up study (Dearden et al. 2007), using more

recent but somewhat lower quality data, found a smaller impact from EMA on

participation (2-3 percentage points) and only for Whites. Since EMA raised the

education participation rate of deprived students, it directly narrowed the socio-

economic gap in participation post age 16. The EMA was therefore successful in

terms of its objective of reducing educational marginalisation. However, the evidence

on the impact of EMA on education achievement (i.e. qualifications achieved) and

indeed subsequent labour market progress is less clear. Dearden et al. (2007) found

no significant impact from EMA on female qualification rates and only small effects

for males. In other words, although paying poorer students to remain on in full time

education may have induced them to do so, the impact on their educational

achievement in the long run is not proven. This is an important point given the recent

decision by the UK government to extend compulsory education and training to age

18.

4. Future policy development

This section discusses the likely impact of policies introduced by the recent

Government White Paper on social mobility and the extent to which they are likely to

break the cycle of educational marginalization in the UK.

The White Paper recognized the educational marginalization of some UK students;

specifically, it highlighted the under achievement of students from deprived

23

backgrounds as documented in this paper. The White Paper also acknowledged that

gaps in educational achievement emerge incredibly early and thus suggests a

number of pre-school policies to address early educational marginalization. The

White Paper also confirmed that the socio-economic gap in education achievement

widens, at least in the secondary phase. A number of policies have been put forward

to solve this problem. In particular, building on the Excellence in Cities policy

described above, the Government has already implemented a programme which

targets additional resources at deprived schools (this includes The National

Challenge programme described earlier to achieve minimum standards in all

schools).

Perhaps the most radical proposal in the White Paper to reduce marginalization is

the use of greater personalization for pupils at risk of under achievement. Some

programmes have already been implemented in this regard, namely Every Child a

Reader/Writer, and now Every Child Counts aimed at those in the bottom 5% of

education achievement. These programmes provide additional tutoring (on a one-to-

one basis in theory) for under achieving children. There is as yet no full evaluation of

the impact of the existing programmes. There is also a similar tutoring programme for

children about to enter secondary school who are at risk of falling behind. The White

Paper proposed that £1.6 billion nationally be spent on these types of programmes.

Another key initiative in the White Paper is a package of policies to encourage better

teachers to work in the most deprived schools, again with the aim of reduction socio-

economic marginalization. This package will include additional payments to teachers

for sustained work in deprived schools.

At the school level, the White Paper proposes that the current system of league

tables which measure the contextualized value added of each school be

supplemented with a broader range of measures of school success (a “school report

card”). As discussed above, this is a further attempt to refocus schools on broader

outcomes from education and to mitigate the undue focus on academic achievement

and targets. The White Paper is not clear as to how these broader indicators of

school success will be measured in practice. However, the suggestion is that the

24

focus will switch from an emphasis on mean pupil achievement to a focus on

variances in achievement within schools and statutory targets that are aimed

specifically at marginalized groups. Thus there will be targets specifically for

improving the educational achievement of poorer pupils (i.e. those eligible for Free

School Meals).

Again as mentioned earlier, the most major policy reform with the potential to

increase education achievement is the raising of the age for leaving full-time

education to 18 by 2015. Its impact very much depends on what pupils do when they

remain in education (see comments about the modest impact of EMA on actual

achievement above). Linked to this the White Paper also promised a review of how

16-18 year olds would be funded given that they now have to remain in full time

education longer. In addition better advice and guidance is promised to guide these

students through the system.

6. Conclusions In summary, the major source of educational marginalisation in the UK is socio-

economic. Gender gaps interact with socio-economic gaps so that poor boys are

particularly vulnerable to educational marginalisation. The evidence also suggests

these gaps emerge early and remain entrenched in primary school and widen in the

secondary phase. Some progress has certainly been made in reducing the socio-

economic gap in education achievement during the last decade or so but it remains

large.

So which policies have been most effective in reducing educational marginalisation,

albeit by a modest amount? The UK, unlike most other education systems, has for

some time followed a quasi-market approach to education policy (parental choice

and markets were introduced to the system in 1988). This has not had a huge impact

on overall educational standards but equally nor has it increased or reduced

educational marginalisation to any great extent. Therefore although the fears that

markets in education inevitably lead to greater educational marginalisation have not

25

been realised, the potentially positive effects of markets have not come to pass

either.

Reducing educational marginalisation has been the major policy objective in recent

legislation and initiatives. Policy-makers have recognised however that much of the

socio-economic gap in education achievement is related to factors outside the school

system. Thus policies such as Every Child Matters or Extended Schools attempt to

both involve parents in their children’s schooling and to broaden the role of schools to

undertake activities often done by parents (e.g. homework supervision). The

effectiveness of these policies has not yet been evaluated, although on the basis of

previous broadly targeted interventions we might worry that they will tend to benefit

the less deprived students rather than necessarily reduce marginalisation.

In this paper, we highlighted two specific approaches to reducing marginalisation.

Interventions to raise standards in the most deprived schools, such as the Excellence

in Cities programme, and policies to encourage greater participation of poor children,

such as Education Maintenance Allowances. Both have had some impact but neither

has substantially reduced the socio-economic gap in education achievement (as

opposed to participation). EMA did however, at least raise education participation of

poorer students post age 16. On the basis of just two policies it would be dangerous

to conclude that area based initiatives like EiC are inherently flawed and an individual

approach like EMA is best (see Lupton, Heath and Salter, 2008). Indeed many of the

difficulties that deprived students face in deprived schools are systemic and can only

be addressed at the whole school level or even at a more aggregate level16.

However, there are difficulties inherent in area based approaches, including the

significant deadweight loss as more advantaged pupils in deprived areas tend to

benefit disproportionately from such interventions. One can see the increased

emphasis on personalisation in the recent White Paper, as described in the previous

section, as one reflection of the shift to more individual based approaches.

16 Such as the difficulties of attracting good teachers to schools with disadvantaged intakes, which has been recognised in the recent White Paper as described above. See also Tunstall and Lupton (2003) for an analysis of the effectiveness of area based targeting.

26

So what does work to reduce educational marginalisation? The evidence base is

optimistic about the effectiveness of some key UK policies in the Early Years and

Primary school phase, such as The Literacy and Numeracy Hours and Sure Start.

Such policies improved children’s learning and led to both mean improvements in

standards and some narrowing of the socio-economic gap in achievement. Thus the

recent White Paper’s continued emphasis on early investment is to be welcomed.

Only by putting in place policies to reduce educational marginalisation early on in the

system can we be hopeful that policies that extend education participation later on

(e.g. EMA or raising the education participation age to 18) will genuinely reduce gaps

in educational achievement. Early intervention is a necessary but not sufficient

response to marginalisation however. Further investments in later years, targeted at

marginalised students and building on success in early years are also needed

(Cunha and Heckman, 2008). In particular the evidence base points to the

importance of teachers and interventions to improve the quality of teachers in

deprived areas and schools are also likely to be most effective.

6. References

Allen, R. and Vignoles, A. (2007) ‘What Should an Index of School Segregation

Measure?’, Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 33 No. 4.

Barreau, S., P. Carneiro, H. Chowdry, C. Crawford, L. Dearden, A. Goodman, P.

Gregg, L. Macmillan, L. Sibieta, K. Sylva & L. Washbrook (2008) “The socio-

economic gradient in child outcomes: the role of attitudes, behaviours and beliefs”,

Interim Report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, July 2008.

Blanden, J., Gregg, P. and Machin, S. (2005), ‘Educational Inequality and

Intergenerational Mobility’, in Stephen Machin and Anna Vignoles (eds), What’s the

Good of Education?, Princeton University Press.

Blanden and Machin (2008) Up and Down the Generational Income Ladder in

Britain: Past Changes and Future Prospects.

27

Bradley, S., Johnes, G. and Millington, J. (2001) “The effect of competition on the

efficiency of secondary schools in England” European Journal of Operational

Research, 135: 545-568.

Breen (2004) Social Mobility in Europe.

Burgess, S. and Slater, H. (2006) “Using boundary changes to estimate the impact of

school competition on test scores”, CMPO working paper 158.

Cabinet Office (2008) ‘Getting on, getting ahead – A discussion paper: analyzing the

trends and drivers of social mobility’, Cabinet Office The Strategy Unit, November.

Cassen, R. and Kingdon, G. (2007) Tackling Low Achievement, Report for The

Joseph Rowntree Foundation,

http://www.aimhighereastofengland.org.uk/clientUpload/resource/2063-education-

schools-achievement.pdf

Chowdry, H., C. Crawford, L. Dearden, A. Goodman and A. Vignoles (2008),

Widening Participation in Higher Education: analysis using linked administrative data,

Institute for Fiscal Studies Report No. R69, mimeo.

Cunha F. and Heckman, J. (2008) “Formulating, identifying, and estimating the

technology of cognitive and noncognitive skill formation”, Journal of Human

Resources (forthcoming)

Dearden, L., Emmerson, C., Frayne, C. and Meghir, C. (2005), ‘Education and

School Drop-Out Rates’, forthcoming Centre for the Economics of Education

Discussion Paper.

Dearden, L., Fitzsimons, Goodman, A. and Kaplan, G. (2007) ‘Higher education

funding reforms in England: the distributional effects and the shifting balance of

costs’, Economic Journal Features, 118, 526, pp.F110-125 (see also Institute for

Fiscal Studies Working Papers, http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/4077).

28

Dearing, R (1997) Higher Education in the Learning Society, Report of the National

Committee, National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (HMSO: Norwich).

Department for Children, Schools and Families (2008) ‘Deprivation and Education:

The evidence on pupils in England, Foundation Stage to Key Stage 4’,

http://publications.dcsf.gov.uk/eOrderingDownload/DCSF-RTP-09-01.pdf .

Ermisch and Nicoletti (2005) Intergenerational Earnings Mobility: Changes Across

Cohorts in Britain.

Feinstein, L., (2003), "Inequality in the Early Cognitive Development of British

Children in the 1970 Cohort," Economica 70(277): 73-97.

George, A., Hansen, K., and Schoon, I. (2007). Child Development. In K. Hansen &

H. Joshi (Eds.), Millennium Cohort Study. Second Survey. A User's Guide to Initial

Findings. London: Institute of Education, Centre for Longitudinal Studies.

Gibbons, S., S. Machin, and O. Silva, (2008) ‘Choice, Competition and Pupil

Achievement,’ Journal of the European Economic Association, 6 (4): 912-947.

Gibbons, S., and O. Silva, (2005), ‘Competition and School Stratification,’

forthcoming Centre for the Economics of Education Discussion Paper

Goldthorpe, J. and Jackson, J (2008) ‘Education-Based Meritocracy: the Barriers to

its Realisation’ in A. Lareau and D. Conley, eds., Social Class: How Does it Work?

Russell Sage Foundation, New York.

Gorard, S., Taylor, C., and Fitz, J. (2003) Schools, markets and choice policies.

RoutledgeFalmer, London.

H M Government (2008) New Opportunities White Paper - Fair Chances for the

Future, White Paper, Cabinet Office: http://www.hmg.gov.uk/newopportunities.aspx

29

IFS (2007) Education maintenance allowance: Evaluation with administrative data.

Kendall, L., O’Donnell, L., Golden, S., Ridley, K., Machin, S., Rutt, S., McNally, S.,

Schagen, I., Meghir, C., Stoney, S., Morris, M., West, A., and Noden, P. (2005)

Excellence in Cities; The National Evaluation of a Policy to Raise Standards in Urban

Schools 2000-2003, Department for Children Schools and Families, Research Report

RR675B.

RESEARCH

Levacic, R. (2004) “Competition and the performance of English secondary schools:

further evidence”, Education Economics, 12: 179-194.

Lupton, R. (2006) “Schools in Disadvantaged Areas: Low Attainment and a

Contextualised Policy Response”, in H.Lauder, P.Brown, J.Dillabough and A.H.

Halsey (eds.), Education, Globalization and Social Change, Oxford University Press.

Lupton, R., Heath, N. and Salter, E. (2008) ‘Education: New Labour’s Top Priority’ in

J. Hills (ed) Towards a more equal society, Policy Press, UK.

Lupton, R. and Tunstall, R. (2004) ‘Is Targeting Deprived Areas an Effective Means

to Reach Poor People? An assessment of one rationale for area-based funding

programmes’, London School of Economics, Paper No' CASE 070.

Machin, S. and McNally, S. (2004), ‘The Literacy Hour’, Institute for the Study

of Labor (IZA) Discussion Paper 1005, Bonn, Germany.

Machin, S., McNally, S. and Meghir, C. (2007), ‘Resources and Standards in

Urban Schools’, Centre for the Economics of Education Discussion Paper 79,

London School of Economics, http://cee.lse.ac.uk/cee%20dps/ceedp76.pdf.

Machin, S. and Vignoles, A. (2005) What’s the Good of Education?: The Economics

of Education in the UK, Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford.

OECD (2008) Education at a Glance, OECD: Paris.

30

31

Sibieta, L., Chowdry, H. and Muriel, A. (2008) Level playing field? The implications of

school funding. CFBT. http://www.ifs.org.uk/docs/level_playing.pdf

Raffo, C., Dyson, A., Gunter, H., Hall, D., Jones, L. and Kalambouka, A. (2007)

Education and Poverty: a critical review of theory, policy and practice. Joseph

Rowntree Foundation.

http://www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/eBooks/2028‐education‐poverty‐theory.pdf

Rivkin, S.G., Hanushek, E.A., and Kain, J.F. (2005) ‘Teachers, Schools and

Academic Achievement’, Econometrica, Vol. 73, No. 2 (March, 2005), 417–458.

Teddlie, C. and Reynolds, D. (2000) The International Handbook of School

Effectiveness Research, Reynolds, Falmer Press, London and New York.

UNICEF

Thrupp, M. and Lupton, R. (2006) Taking school contexts more seriously: the social

justice challenge. British Journal of Educational Studies, 54:3, 308‐328.

West, Anne (2009) Redistribution and financing schools in England under Labour:

are resources going where needs are greatest? Education management,

administration and leadership, 37 (2). pp. 158-179. ISSN 1741-1432.

Wilson, D., Burgess, S. and Briggs, A. (2005) The Dynamics of School Attainment of

England's Ethnic Minorities. CMPO DP # 05/130.