Sociology of Education The Zombie Stalking the English Schools The journal article, The Zombie Stalking the English Schools (Reay, 2006) puts forward the argument that social class and inequality is still as prevalent in today’s education system as it was 100 years ago. Reay argues that the divide between the rich and the poor is widening, resulting in the growth of social inequality. Reay claims that educational policy and training does not recognise the relevance of social class and class processes, consequently resulting in school classrooms being classless environments. Furthermore, Reay states that educational policy and training aimed at reducing the class divide is failing by abetting the middle class and hindering the working class, …show more content…
However, working class children have little or no knowledge of the elaborate code and so, concerning schooling, do not understand the language the teacher is using. As a result, a child may feel confused and ignored. A child who feels this way will often retreat and isolate itself, resulting in a decline in attainment (Thomas, 2013). The research Reay conducted was not limited to working class boys and included pupils from both genders and various ethnicities. Throughout the research, Reay found several reasons to believe that working class pupils were treated unfairly. As a result, Reay suggests that although there have been many initiatives and policy changes introduced in recent years to attempt to combat social inequality within education, they have had little, if any, impact. However, Reay’s comparison of social class to a zombie stalking the English school is not accurate. In recent years, several initiatives have been introduced to tackle the issue, and while they may not have been as successful as initially anticipated, the zombie known as social class is far from being neglected, as Reay would …show more content…
The Act introduced meritocracy, a concept that ability and talent rather than class or wealth determines the school a child attends. At the age of 11, each child would undergo a test known as the ’11 plus’ which was intended to sort children in terms of age, ability and aptitude. The results of the 11 plus determined which type of school a child was to attend. This segregated system, known as the ‘tripartite system’ contained grammar schools for the academic child, secondary modern for the practical child and technical schools for the technical children (Thomas,