Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia/Sociedad Española de Educación Comparada
Doi
Abstract
This article is available open access from the publisher’s website at the link below.This article closely examines the development of education in England,
taking special account of educational standards — of the official
measurable kind, but also the perceived kind — in the various sectors of
education. It argues that, today, and in the past, the ‘problems’ associated
with education standards mostly relate to a ‘long tail’ of underperforming
schools serving urban areas and attended by relatively underprivileged
children. At the other end of the scale, it is suggested that England’s
leading schools, both in the public and private sectors, remain the subject
of admiration. The same remains true of England’s leading, and typically
oldest, universities, which occupy a more privileged position than institutions
chartered in the relatively recent past. The article presents a story of
persistent unequal educational opportunities over time, which, worryingly,
does not seem to be improving in the second decade of the twenty-first
century