Keith S. Taber
Oh dear, a sense of deja vu. One no sooner writes about the errors of the past *, and it is suggested we commit them again.
Return of the 11-plus?
"Return of the 11-plus: Does Theresa May back selective grammar schools?"
Newspaper headline
"It also became clear that although the process was meant to select on the basis of academic ability, to a large extent the outcomes reflected the socio-economic family background of the children.
Where the independent schools largely served the more wealthy in society, the grammar schools admitted disproportionate numbers of children from so called 'middle-class' families (i.e., parents being lower professional and white-collar workers) rather than so-called working class (e.g., children of unskilled labourers). It was found that scholastic achievement at age 11 was strongly linked to social capital deriving from the home background.
If schools are expected to be agents of social change, rather than a means to reproduce existing social differences (and that of course is an ideological choice), then determining a person's educational, and so possibly professional, future at age eleven, based on an examination that did not compensate for levels of educational opportunity and advantage in the home environment, was clearly inappropriate.."
(Taber, 2017: 189)
Source cited:
- Taber, K. S. (2017). Teaching science to the gifted in English state schools: Locating a compromised "gifted and talented" policy within its systemic context. In M. Sumida & K. S. Taber (Eds.), Policy and Practice in Science Education for the Gifted: Approaches from diverse national contexts (pp. 185-203). Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge.
* First published 22nd January 2017 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/
