Exploring Fairness Of Schooling Access:British 11-Plus Examination(1919-1976)

As a key part in British secondary education reform in the 20 th century,11-Plus Examination was used to select or stream primary school students around the age of eleven.The results of this examination determine whether or not a student can obtain a secondary education qualification,or what kinds of secondary education qualification a student can obtain.The purposes of this study are(1)using 11-Plus Examination as a clue to present British secondary education reform in the 20 th century,and to reflect the transformation of the schooling access justice ideologue;(2)exploring the role of 11-Plus Examination in improving the fairness of schooling access,and distinguishing real improvement from superficial improvement from it;(3)elucidating the complexity of realizing fairness in schooling access to dialectically recognize the meaning of 11-Plus Examination,and then to reflect British traditional characters of education improvement.The history of British 11-Plus Examination has roughly gone through three stages,from initial formation to diffusion and refinement,and then to gradual decline.The thesis tried to use four chapters to discuss this history by integrating the perspective of educational improvement into the methodology called “the history of the problems of education”.Chapter 1 discussed the social background,the development of secondary education,the problems of schooling access,and the popularity of eugenics and intelligence tests in Britain from the late 19 th century to the 1920 s.These helped to illustrate the educational demands and theoretical support for the birth of the 11-Plus Examination,and to reflect the schooling access fairness ideologue the examination based on.Chapter 2 discussed the organization,the design of test papers,the implementation and the effectiveness of 11-Plus Examination from 1919 to 1925,in order to present its characteristics in the initial development stage.Chapter 3 focuses on the shift in objectives and the promotion of 11-Plus Examination from 1926 to 1952.These show the development and changes of the examination,which took place mainly at the technical level.Chapter 4 discusses the adjustment to the examination abolition way by the Labour Party,a great deal of criticism to the examination,and the specific process of its abolition in policy between 1953 and 1976.These make up the gradual decline stage of 11-Plus Examination,which reveals the collapse and reconfiguration of the British secondary education value system behind the examination.Findings are as follows:(1)In the history of 11-Plus Examination,the ideologue of fairness of schooling access took two turns,from scientific selection to rational streaming,and then from rational streaming to the elimination of differentiation.Each change in ideology has interacted with the development of the examination.(2)The three historical stages of 11-Plus Examination correspond to changes in education technologies,education systems and education aims.However,the first two changes and the third change respectively represent superficial and profound improvements in education.This new perspective helps to redefine the historical stages of the examination and to rethink the historical significance of different stages.(3)The reform of the examination faced double pressures,which were subjective willingness and objective conditions.The first one is the difficulty of consensus reached between educational improvement community,which exist not only between different interest groups,but also often within the same group;The second one is the insufficiency of social conditions to support educational fairness improvement.These pressures emerged one after another when exploring the fairness of secondary schooling access,making a new goal cannot be achieved immediately,which gave the examination some development space.(4)The examination should not be regarded as an obstacle to the improvement of educational fairness just based on its temporary effects.It provides an interim measure to enrollment students when realistic conditions cannot meet improvement goals.And it matched the moderate British educational improvement culture very well,which ensured the stability of society in some degree.