The Effect of Social Class on Educational Choices Essay

The Effect of Social Class on Educational Choices - Essay Example As the first step in this direction the neoliberal thought process regarding the issue and the idea of marketization, in particular, will be considered. Secondly, the essay will also look at the different ways by which the working class is affected by their educational choices. In this regard, my area of focus will be to observe how the working class parents view the different choices presented to them and also on the presence of any barriers that are likely to stop them from making the right choices for their child’s education. The third part of this essay will also see how the various choices affect the middle class. In section four this essay will investigate the implications of choice and its effect on social class as a whole. In the final section, the main argument of how choice is affected by social class will be presented along with supporting evidence. The 1988 Education Reform Act on the educational policy aimed to create a system of open enrolment and local management. Through this act, schools had to admit and enroll children whose parents had applied to the school. This resulted in schools operating as a quasi-market (Rikowski, 2007). However, the birth of Neoliberalism, from the liberal movements of the 1960s, had a profound effect on educational institutions including schools, colleges, and universities. The conservative government that Thatcher and John Major were leading introduced the idea of choice and more specifically the ‘parental choice’. Schools which have a clear market competition system provide solid evidence for this ground. Neo-liberal thinkers believe in product testing as they consider it to be very crucial and argue that it is the only way by which people can confirm whether the product would work or not. Thatcher and her team compared the way supermarkets convinced their customers to buy their p roduct to the case in schools.