Scottish Government

3 The changing context of secondary schooling

3.1 This section provides a brief reminder of the social, economic, demographic and policy changes that occurred in the period 1985-2005. It does not attempt to describe these changes in detail, but merely to suggest some implications for the context of secondary education. Brief reference is given to reports where further information, including references to relevant literature, can be found, including the series of SSLS special studies ³ commissioned by the Scottish Government.

3.2 Changes in context summarised here include changes in:

• the structure of the labour market
• perceptions of the role of women
• demography
• curriculum and assessment
• other policies affecting secondary education and youth transitions.

Labour market changes

3.3 The past two decades continued a period of economic change - especially changes in the industrial structure of Scotland, with the decline in coal-mining, iron and steel, and manufacturing industries. Industrial change led to changes in patterns of employment, especially evident in the decreasing proportion of workers in manual employment and increasing proportion of the work force engaged in "white collar" jobs, and in the financial and service sectors. A full account of these changes and their consequences for Scotland can be found in "Living in Scotland" by Paterson, Bechofer and McCrone (2004). The focus of this report is the implications of these changes for young people surveyed by SSLS, including changes to family background. For example, data on parental occupation from the SSLS (Table 2.7 in section 2) show a steadily increasing proportion of parents in managerial and professional occupations, and corresponding decline in the proportion in working class occupations.

3.4 Industrial and occupational changes have important implications for young people's future expectations. In previous decades the majority of young people expected to leave school and enter the labour market at age 15 or 16. However, in the early 1980s the demand for minimum-age low-qualified school leavers fell sharply, youth unemployment rose, and in response the government created a series of youth training programmes. Subsequently, there have been radical changes in the youth labour market coupled with increasing participation in post-16 education (Howieson 2003). Figure 3.1 ⁴ shows that the proportion of young people who left education at age 16 fell from 54% in 1984 to 23% in 2002.

3.5 As educational qualifications have became important to more and more young people an increasing proportion of young people expect to continue their education beyond the age of 16. Young people with low levels of attainment at age 16 have very poor prospects in the labour market (Biggart 2000, Howieson 2003).

Figure 3.1

Changing perceptions of the role of women

3.6 During the 1980s and 1990s there have been increasing opportunities for women in education and the labour market as a result of growing demand for female labour, especially in the service sector. Some barriers to women's careers were reduced by the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act. Similarly, some gender barriers have been reduced within schools, including more equal access to some areas of the curriculum (Croxford et al 2003). The effects of these changes include increasing rates of employment and educational participation by women

3.7 One noticeable change in the current study is the economic activity of the mothers of young people in the SSLS survey. Figure 3.2 shows that the proportion of young people whose mother was occupied full-time unpaid in the home decreased from 25% in 1984 to 12% in 2002, while the proportion in full-time employment increased over the same period from 30% to 51%. These trends have important implications for pupils, including increasing awareness of the demands of the labour market and increasing the aspirations of female students.

3.8 The social status of mothers' occupations have also increased over time, as illustrated by Figure 3.3. The proportion of mothers in occupations classified as managerial or professional rose from 8% in 1984 to 23% in 2002, while if intermediate occupations are included, the proportion in managerial, professional or intermediate occupations rose from 27% to 45% over the same period.

Figure 3.2

Figure 3.3

3.9 These changes in participation and status of mothers' paid work may have implications for pupils' perceptions of gender roles and the career aspirations of young women. In 2000, a study of gender and pupil performance commissioned by the Scottish Government (Tinklin et al 2001, 2005) found that:

"in general the young people believed that it was equally important for males and females to get good qualifications at school, to have worthwhile careers and that childcare should be a joint responsibility. They also believed that males and females could do anything they wanted to these days. Their views were tempered, however, by the inequalities they saw around them in the workplace and in their own families".

3.10 The study concluded that

"while great strides have been made in changing attitudes towards gender equality, there is still a long way to go before equal opportunities are really achieved" (Tinklin et al 2005).

Demographic change

3.11 The two decades covered by this research were also a period of demographic change, with the numbers of 16-year olds in the population falling to a low-point in 1993. In Scotland the decline in the numbers of 16-year olds was steeper and more sustained that elsewhere in Britain, and by 1998 the numbers were just 71% of the 1984 level.

3.12 Linked to these have been changes in the family background characteristics of pupils. For example, the average size of families has become smaller, so that whereas young people in the 1984 cohort had 2.2 siblings on average, this had declined to 1.4 siblings by 2002. There is also an increasing proportion of lone-parent or step-parent families so that the proportion of young people living with both of their own parents declined from 79% of the 1984 cohort to 70% in 2002. The EYT research found that pupils with lone parents or step parents have lower attainment, on average, than their peers (Croxford 2007).

Changes in curriculum and assessment

3.13 Over the 1980s and 1990s there have been major changes in curriculum and assessment. Reforms of courses and qualifications for the 14-16 age group were initiated in the early 1980s by the Munn and Dunning enquiries.
The Munn report (Scottish Education Department ( SED) 1977a) led to the introduction of a common curriculum framework in Scotland from 1983, which to some extent created a curriculum entitlement that reduced inequalities by gender and social class (Croxford 1994). The Dunning report - "Assessment for All" ( SED 1977b) - led to the development of Standard Grade examinations in order to provide appropriate awards for pupils of all levels of attainment. The systems of examination in place at the beginning of the 1980s had been designed to cater for the top third of the ability range, and were not appropriate for all students - the division of students between "certificate" and "non-certificate" classes had negative effects on pupils' motivation (Gow and McPherson 1980). The introduction of Standard Grade in 1986 provided a system of certification for a much wider range of abilities, and thus provided greater motivation for students (Gamoran 1996).

3.14 There have been a number of attempts to make the curriculum more vocationally relevant. In the early 1980s, the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative ( TVEI) aimed to make what was taught in schools more relevant to the world of work. However, much of the impetus was lost when the specific funding programme came to an end, and the Scottish curriculum continues to be very academic (Raffe et al 2001). New types of vocational qualifications were introduced (and modified) in the 1980s and 90s in response to the perceived need to raise skill levels in Britain, to improve its economic competitiveness and to provide appropriate opportunities for the increasing proportion of the cohort staying on in full-time education. In Scotland, National Certificate modules covering both general and vocational learning were introduced in 1986 for use in school, college and the work place. National Certificate modules blurred the boundaries between academic and vocational education and helped to prevent the development of a distinct broad vocational track as in England. Overall, levels of participation in vocational qualifications tended to be lower in Scotland than in England. However, in all three systems vocational qualifications have tended to be regarded with lower esteem than academic qualifications (Raffe et al 2001), and to be less well understood by respondents to youth cohort surveys.

3.15 At the end of the 1990s the Higher Still reforms attempted to create a unified system of academic and vocational qualifications that would provide "Opportunity for All" (Scottish Office 1994, Howieson et al 1997). National Qualifications ( NQ) were developed at a number of levels - Access, Intermediate, Higher and Advanced Higher - in order to provide appropriate courses and qualifications for all levels of ability. However, recent research shows that improved opportunities for access have not translated into improved attainment for mid and low attainers despite the logic of the Higher Still framework (Raffe, Howieson and Tinklin 2005, 2007).

3.16 Until very recently the level of course studied was strongly related to age and stage. Almost all school pupils studied two-year Standard Grade courses in S3 and S4, so that their level of attainment at the end of compulsory schooling could be certificated. However, greater flexibility was introduced in 2003, so that some pupils could be fast-tracked to complete Standard Grade courses in some subjects in S3, while Standard Grade courses in S3-S4 have been replaced by other NQ including Intermediate 1 and 2 in a small number of schools. Similarly, the curriculum has been made more flexible: the common core of the curriculum framework was reduced in the late 1990s in order to allow more scope for curricular choice, and more recently a Curriculum for Excellence intends to make the provision of courses and qualifications even more flexible with greater personalisation of the curriculum to individual student's needs (Scottish Executive 2004).

Other changes in education policy

3.17 This report does not seek to review all the changes in government policies towards education that have occurred over the past two decades, but to mention two broad policy directions that affected the context of secondary schooling in the period to 2005.

3.18 The first is the introduction of market competition, performance management and quality assurance, with a focus on improving schools and raising attainment (Croxford and Cowie 2005).

3.19 An important aspect of marketisation in Scotland was the introduction of greater parental choice of school from the 1980s. The 1981 Education (Scotland) Act gave parents the statutory right to request that their child attend a school outside of their designated attendance areas. The Act required Education Authorities to take these requests into account, and restricted the circumstances in which local authorities could reject a request. To assist parents in their choice, the legislation also required Education Authorities to publish brochures for each school that reported examination results and other pertinent information. Research on the early effects of parental choice (Adler 1989, Echols et al 1990, Willms 1996) found that parents who exercised their right to choose a school other than their designated school were better educated and had higher levels of social class. Parents disproportionately chose schools that had pupils with higher levels of attainment and socio-economic status. Moreover, chosen schools tended to be older, formerly selective schools that had been founded by the turn of the century and still included "academy" in their name. However, as the reform took hold, choice became more common amongst parents from working class backgrounds, and middle class parents were more likely to opt out of the state system altogether and place their child in a private school. As in the early stages of the reform, parents disproportionately chose schools that served pupils with above-average levels of socio-economic status (Willms 1997).

3.20 One of the concerns about parental choice is that it contributes to the segregation of pupils with differing social class backgrounds into separate schools, thereby leading to a system similar to the selective system that operated prior to comprehensive reorganisation in 1965. Willms (1996) estimated the extent of segregation between schools of middle- and working-class pupils for the 54 Scottish communities that had at least two secondary schools. The analysis revealed that between-school segregation along social class lines increased substantially as the choice reform proceeded apace. The tendency was for middle class pupils to increasingly become isolated in a small number of schools within each community. Segregation increased in large and small communities alike, but the biggest increase was in the isolation of middle-class pupils in Scotland's five largest cities (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paisley, Aberdeen and Dundee). Subsequent trends in segregation are explored further in section 4.

3.21 The focus of the current study ends in 2005 with the end-point of SSLS data, so that recent important policy developments including a Curriculum for Excellence and More Choices More Chances (Scottish Executive 2004,2006) are beyond the scope of this analysis. We note however that there is increasing policy focus on mitigating the problems of young people with low levels of attainment at school, who leave school at the earliest opportunity and have limited opportunities in the labour market. Among the initiatives to address these problems are the introduction of Educational Maintenance Allowances to encourage young people from low-income households to stay on in full-time post-compulsory education. Evaluations of the pilot EMA programmes showed that the EMA has a positive effect on participation and attainment in national qualifications (Croxford et al 2002, 2005). Changes over time in participation are discussed in section 5.

Summary

3.22 The context of secondary schooling has changed substantially over the two decades covered by this study, as a result of:

• economic and industrial restructuring, and consequent changes in employment and training opportunities for young people;
• increasing emphasis on educational credentials;
• reduction of opportunities for low-attaining minimum-age school leavers and increase in proportion of students staying on to post-16 education;
• increasing participation and status of women in the labour force;
• developments in curriculum and assessment;
• policies to encourage market competition, parental choice, performance management and quality assurance, with a focus on improving schools and raising attainment;
• more recent policies to address the needs of young people with low attainment, and those not in education, employment or training. (For the most part these are beyond the timescale of the current study.)