Labour, official school improvement and equality

Abstract

After the experience of a Conservative government characterized by substantial social inequalities in education, what impact will the policies of the new Labour government have? In this paper I argue that Labour government's economic and social policies will tend to sustain and recreate inequality, and that its education policies are themselves governed by the same imperatives of competitiveness in the global market, human capital theory, corporate managerialism and electoral calculation. The resulting agenda, which I have called Official School Improvement, is not orientated towards effectively tackling education inequality in terms of either its conceptual base, its aims or its policies.