Educational Area Based Initiatives: Issues of Redistribution and Recognition

Abstract

The poorest educational outcomes continue to be located in the poorest towns and cities in the UK. Educational policy over the last 40 years responded to this inequality in two ways. Firstly there have been attempts to raise standards across the system as a whole. Where these attempts have failed, policies have then been developed to redistribute resources to neighbourhoods, including schools, families and other public services located in those neighbourhoods, to help improve educational outcomes. These compensatory educational policies and interventions have become known as area-based initiatives (ABIs). The chapter categorizes and documents these important initiatives and provides evidence of impact. The key finding is that although there have been improvements in attainments, there continues to be an enduring link between neighbourhood disadvantage and educational outcomes. In an attempt to conceptualise why this is the case, the chapter uses the ideas of redistribution and recognition. The analysis shows that ABIs have focused on meso level ameliorative redistribution providing limited resources for dealing with the impacts of structural economic disadvantage on young people’s engagement with education. In addition ABIs appear to have almost completely disregarded fine grained geodemographic research that recognises that educational outcomes are more closely linked to the particular socio-cultural makeup of poor urban neighbourhoods rather than to economic scarcity per se. It is precisely a positive focus on this socio-cultural diversity that underpins a politics of recognition – a focus that the schooling system and educational policy has historically failed to acknowledge and act upon. The chapter concludes by demonstrating how educational and a politics of recognition can inform future ABIs.