Ability, inequality and post-pandemic schools : rethinking contemporary myths of meritocracy /
Alice Bradbury discusses how the meritocracy myth reinforces educational inequalities and analyses how the recent educational developments of datafication and neuroscience might challenge how we classify and label children as we rebuild a post-pandemic schooling system.
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| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Bristol :
Policy Press,
2021.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | CONNECT CONNECT |
Table of Contents:
- Front Cover
- Ability, Inequality and Post-Pandemic Schools: Rethinking Contemporary Myths of Meritocracy
- Copyright information
- Dedication
- Table of contents
- List of figures and tables
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- Why 'ability' and inequality?
- Merit and ability in recent political debate
- Government perspectives since 2010
- The opposition view: the rejection of caution
- Theoretical perspectives
- Discourse and power
- Discipline and regulation
- Micropractices of power: classification and normalisation
- Inequality and inequity
- Contemporary educational discourses: data and neuroscience
- Researching ability
- An outline of the book
- 2 Ability and its use in schools
- Introduction
- The historical context
- The meritocratic neoliberal state
- Merit and ability in the postgenomic age
- A note on ability and dis/ability
- Current discourses of ability in education
- Ways of describing ability: as innate
- Ability as intelligence, skills or talents
- Ability as potential
- Ways of describing ability: as positional
- Ability as a set point
- Ability as attainment
- Ability in relation to a norm
- Ways of describing ability as something some children possess
- Ability as readiness
- Ability as knowledge
- Ability as background
- Combinations of different perspectives
- Alternatives and challenges
- The implications of ability
- Grouping practices
- Interactions between teacher and pupil
- Children's identities as learners
- Conclusion
- 3 How does the idea of ability relate to inequalities?
- Introduction
- Educational inequalities
- Attainment in early years
- Attainment in primary schools
- Attainment in secondary schools
- Exclusion figures
- The frames of debate about education and inequality
- Institutional racism
- 'Model minorities'
- The focus on the 'white working class'
- The interaction of ability with inequality
- The new eugenics?
- The epigenetic challenge to determinism and race
- Inequality and education in the era of COVID-19
- Conclusion
- 4 The influence of neuroscience
- Introduction
- The 'new neuros'
- The neuroturn in education
- The first three years
- The doubts and dangers
- The view from early childhood education
- Understanding the attraction of neuroscience
- The influence on discourses of ability and inequality
- The biological/psychological connection
- The irreparable brain
- The 'damaged brain' and race
- Conclusion
- 5 Data and the solidification of ability
- Introduction
- The growth of data in schools
- The datafication of education
- The five Ps of datafication
- Data-based ability practices
- Data and ability: the growth of progress measures
- The ability spectrum and inequality
- The shift on from data?
- Conclusion
- 6 Challenging ability, inequality and the myth of meritocracy in the post-pandemic era
- Introduction
