Morality and School Choice: An Exploration of British Social Attitudes
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Humanities and Social Sciences
Abstract
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Organisations
| Description | Findings in the 28th BSA Report showed that while most people in Britain believe parents have a right to choose schools for their children and half believe parents have a 'duty' to choose the best school even where other schools might suffer, 63% also feel that parents ought to send their child to the nearest state school, with a further 22% saying they would agree if the quality of schools and their social mixes was more equal. Although most in Britain believe parents ought to put their own child first when choosing schools, most also believe parents ought to consider the needs of other children. Only 4% believe facilitating school choice ought to be top policy priority within education. Most do not support private schools or believe it acceptable for parents to avoid schools on the basis of pupil backgrounds. There are low levels of support for actions such as moving house or feigning religious interest in order to access 'better' schools. Work in Social Policy and Administration examined the way in which government policy emphasis on public support for choice ignores simultaneous support for neighbourhood schooling, disapproval of education 'vouchers' and only low support for measures such as subsidising school transport costs in order to facilitate choice. Support for choice in Britain is instrumental rather than intrinsic - problematic given inconclusive evidence on the extrinsic benefits of education quasi-markets. Work on parental partiality and the potential ramifications of parental decisions to 'go private' on the wider ethical environment has been published in the British Journal of Educational Studies. While attitudes in general between parents and non-parents on school choice are less different than one might expect, parents who have made decisions to send children to private school are noted as expressing significantly more individualistic views about education, even after controlling for wider political attitudes. |
| Exploitation Route | It is expected that secondary analyses of data from this project will take place in the future. Data have been submitted at the UK Data Archive and the BSA survey is one of the Archive's most frequently requested datasets. There is scope for possible future cross-national collaborations on attitudes towards school choice and a possible repeat fielding of questions designed for this project on a future wave of the BSA survey, examining change in attitudes over time (particularly given an era of major policy change in England in this respect). Scientific impacts in the academic community are expected from recently published journal articles. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Description | See other sections reporting this which have already been completed. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2011 |
| Sector | Education,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |