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Parents and diversity in secondary education

A discussion paper on diversity in secondary education and parents’ views on it by Professor John Coldron, Centre for Education Research and Social Inclusion at Sheffield Hallam University, has been published today on the RISE website

The paper identifies different kinds of diversity – structural, educational and compositional (diversity of intake). Evidence as to how much of these kinds of diversity parents are likely to experience currently is examined. In concluding Professor Coldron says:

'I start from the position that providing room for people to have a say in what happens to them is in most parts of life a good thing and that diversity enriches society and the quality of experience and debate while uniformity tends to impoverish. My concern is that the current policies promoting choice and diversity in education borrow legitimacy from this common sense position but on closer inspection lack coherence and the claims about what people want are at best simplistic and at worst wrong.'

The paper concludes with questions for future research. RISE is inviting comments on the paper.

13 April 2007

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Publication of new research – Parents in the Driving Seat?

In the 2005 White Paper, ‘Higher Standards, Better Schools for All’, the Government promised ‘to put parents in the driving seat’ and to give parents the right to ask for a new school. 

During 2006 Anne West and Hazel Pennell from the London School of Economics, commissioned by Research and Information on State Education (RISE) and funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, investigated 15 parent campaigns, including seven campaigns to set up new schools and eight against the setting up of a new school, to find out the extent to which parents’ views were taken on board. The research aimed to identify what lessons could be learnt for school planning in the future.

The researchers found:

• parents’ involvement in the planning and setting up of new schools was limited, particularly in relation to academies;
• in some cases, parents’ wishes, either in favour of or opposed to the setting up of a new school, were taken on board;
• there was variation in the extent to which campaigners were successful in meeting their aims and objectives, although the campaigns for a new school appeared to be more successful than those against.

5 March 2007

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