2. • Whitty (2002) sees a contradiction between
Labour's policies to tackle inequality and its
commitment to marketisation. EMA's encourage
working class students to stay on until they are
18-tuition fees deter people away from university.
• Also critics point out that there is a continued
existence of both selective grammar schools and
fee-paying private schools. Despite the Labour
Party's long-standing opposition to private
schools as bastions of middle and upper-class
privilege.

3. Gender
• The tripartite system has led girls to be included
in higher education.
• Policies like GIST have reduced gender
differences in subject choice.
Ethnicity
• Policies aimed at improving achievement of
children from minority ethnic backgrounds have
gone through several phases.

4. • Assimilation policies focused on the need for pupils to
assimilate into mainstream British culture as a way of
raising their achievement.
• Multicultural education (MCE) policies aimed to
promote achievements from minority ethnic groups by
valuing all cultures in the school curriculum thereby
raising minority achievements. The MCE has been
criticised on several grounds:
• Maureen Stone argues that black pupils do not fail for
lack of self esteem, so MCE is misguided.
• The New Right criticise MCE for perpetuating cultural
divisions.
• Social inclusion of pupils and policies to raise
achievement of minority ethnic groups. Policies include:
• the detailed monitoring of exam results by ethnicity and
help for voluntary 'Saturday schools' in the black
community.