International Studies in Sociology of Education

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Entitled to What? Control and Autonomy in School:

a student perspective

Susan Harris

To cite this article: Susan Harris (1994) Entitled to What? Control and Autonomy in School: a
student perspective, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 4:1, 57-76

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0962021940040104

Published online: 09 Jul 2006.

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International Studies in Sociology of Education, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1994

Entitled to What? Control and Autonomy

in School: a student perspective

SUSAN HARRIS
University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT In this paper the National Curriculum (and other changes brought
about by the Education Reform Act, ERA) is used as a context within which the
notion of entitlement is discussed from a student perspective. The National
Curriculum was described by the British government and its supporters as
providing a coherent and broad curriculum and as an 'entitlement curriculum'.
Data presented here are drawn from a four-year longitudinal qualitative research
project (1991-95) following three groups of students in three comprehensive
schools (about 90 students) through their last four years of secondary school.
Early findings suggest that rather than enable students to take more control of
their learning, ERA has intensified mechanisms of control over students as well
as teachers. Moreover, ERA is intensifying forms of differentiation which already
exist in school. One result of this is that students experience entitlement in a
differentiated way relating to class, race, gender and ability.

Entitlement and the National Curriculum

Entitlement is a term that has become common in political and educational
discourse but which is rarely defined. The term has taken on new significance
in the light of what Ranson (1990) has described as a "reconstituting of the
social and political order" which has seen radical change in attitudes to the
social democratic welfare state (Brown, 1990; Close, 1992). In education the
restructuring which Ranson refers to is evident in government policy from the
passing of the Education Reform Act (ERA) of 1988 which was geared
towards raising standards through increasing consumer choice. The main
measures of the Act are the introduction of a National Curriculum (applicable
to England and Wales only and not mandatory for all schools), open
enrolment, local management of schools (LMS) and grant-maintained status
(GMS).

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Susan Harris

The notion of entitlement used by the government in its discussion

documents about the National Curriculum talks of students' rights to a
common.curriculum and one which is "compulsory for all pupils ..." and to
which "all pupils have access to" (NCC, 1990). However, such claims for
equality of access are at odds with much of ERA, which used the rhetoric of
empowering parents and consumers but which primarily was an attack on
local democracy and an attempt to win back control of public services from
the 'mismanagement' of local authorities. And while proclaiming the
importance of parental rights the government has increased central control
with an unprecedented growth in the powers of the Secretary of State for
Education (Simon & Chitty, 1993; Whitty, 1990).
The needs of students, as given in the National Curriculum, has not
materialised because the overall impact of ERA has been to increase
differentiation between schools as they are forced to compete with each other
for customers in the education market (Bowe & Ball, 1992). Hence, Bowe &
Ball (1992) have argued, despite the government's claim of increasing
consumers' rights, students were not seen as consumers because the Act
"actually 'positions' students in the traditionally dependent learner role, the
real consumers are parents and employers" (p. 50). And, as Chitty (quoted in
Davies et al, 1992, p. 25) has suggested, the National Curriculum was more
about "bureaucratic efficiency" than about the quality of teaching and
learning. Moreover, the notion of entitlement, as referred to in the National
Curriculum, relates only to the curriculum per se and not to broader aspects of
students' experiences outside the classroom which are equally important.
There is also a real danger that minority interests such as those with special
needs or those for whom English is a second language - groups who are
already disadvantaged - are likely to be further disadvantage because age
rather than need is the most important factor in determining a school's
budget size (Maden, 1992).
In an NUT document, A Strategy for the Curriculum (1990), a student's
entitlement was more specifically defined than the government's and included
as essential the "equality of opportunity} a right of access to the full
curriculum, a curriculum which covers broadly all important areas of human
experience and endeavour, and a right to have such a curriculum properly
resourced" (quoted in Barber, 1992, p. 452).
In this paper entitlement is explored at the level of students' experiences
in school and is defined as access to the National Curriculum, as well as other
aspects of school life which affect their growing sense of identity as individuals
and as learners, and the extent to which they have control over this process.
Data are drawn from a four-year longitudinal qualitative study of students'
experiences of teaching and learning in secondary school. Three form groups
(ranging from 26 to 29 students) in three comprehensive schools are being
followed from Year 8 (Y8) to Yll (12 to 16 years old). The students began
their secondary school careers in 1990 during this period of significant
educational change and upheaval. Students are interviewed once a term and

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 Control and Autonomy in School

these' interviews are supplemented by data gathered through interviews with

teachers and the analysis of school documents and records. The students'
experiences are explored through a short account of school life in one of the
three research schools, School A, and the data presented are from the 29
students in the form group from that school. [1]
The conceptual framework used to analyse the data is based on
Foucault's work. Learning in school takes place in a highly controlled
environment structured around the management of the student population. It
is, in Foucualt's terms, a site where disciplinary power is employed through
"dividing practices" such as testing, examining and streaming and the use of
"different types of intelligence, ability and scholastic identity" (Ball, 1990,
p. 4). The management and control exercised over students is achieved
through 'normalisation', which creates a form of homogeneity through
categorisation and differentiation of students. This process which takes place
in school "compares, differentiates, hierarchizes, homogenizes, excludes. In
short, it normalizes" (Foucault, 1977, p. 183).

School A: the learning environment

In recent years School A's population has radically changed from a
predominantly monocultural middle-class intake to an increasingly
multicultural and socio-econbmically diverse population. The school
continues to enjoy a good academic reputation which it had acquired
originally as a boys' grammar school. The school is located on two sites with
Years 7-9 in one building and Years 10-12 in another about a mile away. The
school population is growing steadily (1350 in 1993/94), so much so that
there is now a desire to reduce numbers to maintain the quality of existing
resources.
The school is going through a transitional phase where the headteacher
(who arrived in 1988) is trying to steer various changes in the school's ethos
and move it from a narrowly academic school to one which caters successfully
for the social and personal needs of individual students from diverse
backgrounds whilst retaining its academic excellence. This, it is felt, must be
done without losing the support of parents and members of the local
community, many of whom regard the school's academic track record as its
main attraction.
The head was very much aware of the problems facing him as the
project began in 1991: "I think we're going through a process of actually
liberating and empowering" (i.e. colleagues). One problem the head identified
is that some staff do not share his view in the value of having a diverse school
population - some staff regard it as a problem because of the extra demands
they feel it places on the school and staff. The head (and senior management)
also feel that not all staff seem aware of the need to tackle equality of access to
the curriculum, others are less aware that such problems exist. As one senior
teacher said while "we say we celebrate the diversity of culture ... what we're

59
Susan Harris

not yet doing is saying we've identified the fact that those children from that
ethnic group are failing and what's happening is this, this and this". While the
head and many of his colleagues are committed to change and enhancing the
experience of all students, like most schools, they are constrained by
government policy which is dictating much of the school's agenda and
limiting the extent to which the school's own priorities can be realised (e.g.
developing equal opportunities and multi-racial work).

First Impressions of Secondary School: a sense of freedom

For the majority of the students in each of the three research schools the move
to secondary school was an exciting, if daunting, moment for them. When the
students were interviewed in Year 8 [2] and asked to recall their early
experiences of transition, similar concerns were raised as those found by
Measor & Woods (1984): getting used to the size of the new school,
making/losing friends, the fear of bullying, the discipline system, and work
demands. Most of the target students were positive about their new school -
preferring it to the old one because it was larger, there was more space, and
there was more variety (Harris & Rudduck, 1993). The novelty and
excitement of the secondary school was clearly evident. The following
comments from the students interviewed in School A echo those in the other
two research schools:
The teachers are good and the school is good as well. (Y8/F)
It's better in some ways [than primary] because we get treated more like an
adult in some ways. (Y8/F)
There's a lot more people [in secondary school] and we have to do lots of
different things, like there's lots of different teachers and new subjects which is
quite good. (Y8/M)
This mood of uncritical optimism began to change slightly for students in
School A as they settled into the daily routines of secondary school life and
became accustomed to the new regime. It was not long before the students
were becoming socialised into the new school and were developing "new
conceptions of what represents normality" (Measor & Woods, 1984, p. 76).

Regimes and Routines: managing the students

One of the features of School A is that it is in the process of moving from a
dual pastoral and academic curriculum to a more integrated system where
there is no distinction made between 'pastoral' and 'academic' teachers. This
change is beginning to come through such developments as Records of
Achievement, the introduction of a tutorial system and in-service training of
tutors. Such change is highlighting the lack of consensus among staff over
what constitutes a positive learning environment that will enhance all
students' experiences of school. For example, some staff consider a strong

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 Control and Autonomy in School

discipline framework as a prerequisite for a positive environment for students'

learning, while others tend to see the latter arising from provision of an
exciting and challenging curriculum and learning environment.
With a large number of students (approx 700) in a relatively confined
space at Lower School (Y7-Y9) and with staff travelling between buildings,
student movement around the school is strictly regulated. The size of the
school's population has been of increasing concern to senior management
mainly because of the pressures that such numbers place on simply
'managing' the population let alone maintaining an adequate teaching and
learning environment. As the headteacher aptly pointed out, while numbers
were increasing the physical environment was not expanding correspondingly
- corridors had not expanded on a similar scale to cater for the extra bodies.
The size of the population and the confined space justified in some
teachers' eyes, the need for the strict and highly visible discipline regime
which operates. Moreover, in the absence of older students who are based in a
different building, students in Y7-Y9 are treated as children in need of tight
control and supervision. The emphasis on the pastoral needs of the 'children'
(as most teachers refer to them) is strong and some staff contrast this concern
at Lower School with the more impersonal competitive and academic ethos of
Upper School. However, the pastoral ethos effectively means strong discipline
and no freedom for initiative: students are 'looked after' in every aspect (e.g.
not being allowed out at lunchtime in case of an accident and not being
allowed to enter a class unless a teacher is present.
While none of the students interviewed (during the first two years) was
openly resentful of school, once they had got used to the novelty to change,
some students' comments in Y8 and Y9 became more critical:
The annoying thing is that we're not allowed out for dinner and the school
dinners are so awful. (Y8/M)
... the assemblies are really boring... they tell you stupid stories that are
supposed to have a moral but they don't, it's all about responsibility and stuff
like that. (Y8/F)
It is worth noting at this point, however, that most of the comments quoted in
this paper were not made by those who could be described as 'anti-school'
(Ball, 1981; Lacey, 1970; Woods, 1979). At this stage in the research there
was very little evidence to suggest this. Nevertheless, by the end of Y8 and
beginning of Y9 more comments were being made about aspects of school
which annoyed or irritated students. For example, various rules restricted
their freedom and movement around school while teachers were free to do as
they wished.
I think the main thing I'd change is to be respected. We aren't treated equally.
We have to carry all our bags and we've got nowhere to put them. (Y8/F)
AU the teachers like always shout at the kids if they go down the wrong stairs
... And the teachers can just go down anywhere they want. It just seems a bit
annoying. (Y9/M)

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Susan Harris
At lunch-time you have to leave your coat either in the cloakroom where it's
likely to get nicked or in a classroom and then you can't go back and get it
before you go outside because they're locked up so you have to freeze to death
outside without a coat. That's stupid. (Y8/F)
Although the students interviewed in School A felt that those in Year 9 were
treated more responsibly, for example, by being allowed to enter a room
without a teacher present, the extent or.speed of change was not as great as
students would have liked. For example in Y9 teachers' expectations of
students' behaviour and work was greater than in Y8. While teachers saw this
maturity as a progression which continued to develop through Y10 and
beyond, students saw the teachers' increased expectations as a sign that they
had already reached 'maturity' and had outgrown their child status and
become adult. This difference in perspective led to frustration for some
students who felt that teachers behaved inconsistently:
They contradict themselves like saying what suits them at the time, like, 'we
should act more mature' or if they tell us to act mature because we're now the
eldest in the school and we should set examples to the Y7s, but then they say
sometimes that we're really good or we act too old. (Y9/M)
... like sometimes they say, be grown up so we try to be grown up. Then they
say, 'just don't think you're so brilliant'. (Y9/F)
Such views which challenge authority are common in adolescence and are not
peculiar to the students interviewed here, although it may be the case that
such views were stronger in this school because of the strict regime operating
in Lower School.
As the earlier quotes suggest most critical comments were reserved for
the rules and regulations - 'being treated more grown up' - than about the
nature of their learning, either the content or the process. In a sense students
did not seem to regard this as a legitimate area to complain about. Apart from
the frequent comment that a lesson was 'boring' students tended to comment
on the teaching style rather than content. Although there were a few
exceptions:
PJt's supposed to be a personal topic but it's not really because we have to like
hand in the work every like sort of week and we have to have deadlines.
(Y8/F)
He's busy talking, thinking everybody is listening to him and he's off on his
own little way of talking and everybody else is like throwing pieces of paper
round the classroom and not listening at all. Because all the information is just
on the sheet- it tells you the answers. (Y8/M)
As the students reached Y9 they were less tolerant of the "restrictive regime"
as one teacher described it. A frequent comment made related to some of the
constraints put on them which they felt to be 'unfair', such as the
unwillingness of the school to take up suggestions made by students at their
student councils. By Y9 there was also a yearning from members of the target

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 Control and Autonomy in School

form group for the 'freedoms' of Y10, which at this stage seemed significant
compared with Y9. The most important change commented on was being
allowed to go off the school site to buy or eat their lunch. In Y7 to Y9
students were not allowed off site nor were they supposed to eat their lunch
outside in the playground:
What are you looking forward to in Y10?
Going out for dinner times. (Y9/M)
It'll be good [upper school] 'cause at dinner time they let us out. (Y9/F)
... being treated more like adults. (Y9/F)
It seemed like quite a grown up school when I first came but now that you're
the oldest... and it now seems more of a young school. I want to get to the old
school. (Y9/F)
The data suggest that in two important dimensions of schooling there has
been little change over time in the extent to which students have some
control: their time, space and movement are restricted, and they are also
restricted in their learning. To take the first dimension, as Silberman noted in
1971, and which still holds true, one of the main features of schooling is that
students exist in a "congested social environment". There is little space or
means available to students to exert real autonomy over what happens to
them in school (Delamont & Galton, 1986; Metz, 1978). It is difficult to be
alone, an individual - for most of the time students are seen as part of a group,
form group, year group, or labelled in some such way (Jackson, 1990). In
terms of the second dimension, students have little or no control over their
learning with few if any mechanisms to allow them or encourage them to look
critically at what they are doing. Even though there is a move in School A to
increase student involvement in their academic learning through
self-assessment, the student voice remains peripheral - they are essentially
observers rather than participants in their own development. For many
students coming to terms with the 'system' is often more significant than the
actual learning process. As one of the students in School A bemoaned:

... you get really bored with doing the same thing every week and it gets really
boring and you think, 'Oh God, I've got this today' and so on. It gets really
boring and you don't feel excited anymore coming to school. (Y9/F)
It is a helpful insight into what can for many be the monotony of school
routine - this is true of well motivated students as it is for those who are less
motivated in school. It is difficult to be enthusiastic, spontaneous or
independent in an institutional setting which by nature is geared to order,
routine, regulation. As Hamilton has argued (1989, p. 10) this is perhaps
inevitable given, that the social control element of schooling is "intrinsic to all
institutionalised pedagogic processes".

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Susan Harris

Curriculum, Options and Choice

As other writers have already noted the notion of a National Curriculum is
flawed in a number of ways (see Davies et al, 1992; Donald, 1992; Gundara,
1993). First and foremost not all schools need cover the National Curriculum
and it is a highly restricted notion of 'national' which does not seek to
celebrate the multi-ethnic population of many schools nor the special needs
requirements of large numbers of students. In the school discussed here there
is some ambiguity over the way in which the school articulates its concern for
providing entitlement for all students. The stance is taken by school's
management that if students 'opt in' to the school there should be no
subsequent 'opting out' of any aspect of the school's curriculum. The
headteacher's view of student entitlement is that all students should have the
opportunity of studying languages rather than only a few of the 'able'
students. Moreover, current policy is that students take a second foreign
language in Y9 (a first having been taken in Y7; in Y10 students can drop one
language). Only students whose English is very poor and are struggling are
exempt from taking a second foreign language. While in theory this notion of
entitlement is admirable, it is causing problems for some students who are
finding one language very difficult. Their anxiety increased in Y9 when they
had to choose a second language because lack of success in one led them to
feel that they would struggle with all languages.
Other practical constraints on the school together with this liberal notion
of entitlement affect the way in which some students view the 'fairness' of the
school's rules on subject choice. For example the head has been very keen to
establish community languages but lack of funding has put a temporary block
on this. For students however, unaware of resource problems, the absence of
such a choice increased their frustration. In one case an Asian student was
upset because he felt that his knowledge of languages was not recognised
because they were the 'wrong' languages:
It's [taking a second language] not a good idea because I know at least three
languages - Bengali; I understand Pakistan and Arabic. I can understand it
and zurite it. I'm not very good at French and I don't understand it. (Y9/M)
In other ways the curriculum on offer was seen as limited or restrictive. For
example one student was particularly frustrated at the limited choice of
languages available although she did not think other schools would be any
different:
/ came here because they have a wide choice of subjects and stuff, but we don't
really. And like none of the schools have a very wide range. (Y8/F)
There were similar frustrations at the number of options allowed. In the case
of those students who were artistic there was a dilemma as to which to
choose. For example, it was impossible to take drama, and music and RE
(which also involved a lot of drama and artistic work). Some female students

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 Control and Autonomy in School

felt that technology should not be a core subject and they should have been
allowed to drop it at the end of Y9.
The role of options and students' views of options have been discussed
in another paper (Harris et al, forthcoming). The options process was
identified by all three research schools as a significant event for students and it
was built up a lot during Y9 as the first occasion where students were to be
given some autonomy over their learning. However, for many students in
School A the options process was less significant and made less impact on
them than teachers would have hoped for. Several factors can be identified
which help explain this. First, the actual choice available to students was not
great. Second, many students regarded the options process as simply another
task that they were being asked to carry out. This was in marked contrast to
another research school, which prided itself on its democratic ethos, where the
students did appear to be excited by the prospect of choosing some of their
subjects. Possibly as a result of students' response to the options process in
School A, most tended to choose subjects which responded to teachers'
assumptions of ability - no student challenged this by taking 'unusual' or
'inappropriate' options. Unlike another research school there was little need
for 'cooling out' or 'warming up' (Ball, 1981; Woods, 1979)

'Becoming Subjects'
The data presented in this paper so far suggest that despite the ambitions of
staff to enhance the quality of experiences for all students various institutional
and external factors disrupt these intentions. Drawing on Foucault, learning is
restrictive in the sense that students' development is not liberating but rather
constructed in a highly ordered and differentiated way - rather than being in
control of the process students are 'subjects' on the receiving end. This is
evident in the way in which the students interviewed tended to comment
about the rules and regulations rather than about the actual learning process
or content. It can be seen further when examining students' perceptions of
their progress and self-image. It is most clearly evident in the way that some
students in the bottom sets had very early on internalised negative messages
from peers and teachers. Also, most students use extrinsic measures of
judging how well they are doing or what they think about subjects, for
example set position, test results and teachers' comments.

Differentiation through Setting

Although changing, School A retains a competitive ethos geared to academic
success, a characteristic reinforced through the setting policy, with students
arranged in sets in Y9 for four subjects: maths, science, French and English
(streaming had ceased in 1981). Departments such as maths and science were
strongly in favour of setting whilst others such as geography were against it.

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Susan Harris

Students were aware of the change in tempo between Y8 and Y9

although most seemed unperturbed. However, two comments made are of
interest because they highlight two very different perspectives regarding
setting:
I preferred Y8 probably because in Y9 we're in sets, it's like a competition all
the time to see who's best and who can keep up, but in Y8you could just take
things at your own pace. (Y9/F)
[I prefer] Y9 because sets mean that you don't have really thick people or those
[special needs] people which means teachers have to spend all their time with
them ... because we're all about the same level. (Y9/M)
In School A where setting is established there was a common belief that being
in the top set in a subject meant a better standard of education and ultimately
a better job prospect. Students appeared to accept which set they were place
in uncritically (although this may change in Y10 and Yl 1) unlike students in
one of the other research schools where setting took place in only one subject -
students interviewed in this school were more eager to move up a set if they
had been placed in a low or the bottom set.
Students from School A who were most likely to be concerned about
their position in the hierarchy were those in the top sets:
/ don't think I would mind second but if I was in third or fourth set I wouldn't
be feeling too proud of myself. (Y9/F)
At the end of Y9 many students tended to define their achievement and
progress by means of extrinsic measures such as set position or test result.
They would be 'doing well' in a subject if they were in the top set, or
alternatively not doing well if in the bottom set. There were no intrinsic
measures used to describe their progress or achievement or how well they felt
they were doing personally irrespective of how others were doing:
/ think I'm doing alright in maths because I'm in a good set. (Y9/M)
Why don't you think you're doing well in science?
Because I'm in a lower set. (Y9/M)
The data from School A reflect some of the effects of the labelling and
differentiation processes related in earlier studies (Ball, 1981; Delamont &
Galton, 1986; Lacey, 1970; Measor & Woods, 1984). In this study there were
indications of increasing differentiation based on class, race, gender and
ability. For example, two of the working-class students who were in bottom
sets for some subjects had internalised negative self-images very early on,
based on messages received from peers and teachers.
Why do you say it's better to be put into sets?
'cause they were really brainy people and the teacher went fast. But this year
we're all the same. (Y9/F)
[I] prefer them [sets] because you get all the clever people in one set and not
right clever people in the other sets. (Y9/M)

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 Control and Autonomy in School

One of the working-class girls was very adamant in her wish to remain in her
existing group because to 'improve' her position and move to a higher set
would bee too costly in personal terms:
/ like being in this group because they don't make fun of you when you stand
up and read... when I used to be in the other class, every time I stood up and
read and did spelling they used to laugh at me. (Y9/F)
The data on the setting procedures suggests that some students, very early on
in their school career, develop low self-esteem based largely on perceived
ability. This can be seen through a brief discussion of the group dynamics of
the form group where there was fragmentation of the group and little
attachment or sense of identity with the form. Unlike the form group in
School A, those in the other two research schools, where mixed ability was the
norm, students readily identified with 'their' form - there appeared to be a
stronger sense of form membership and loyalty.
At the start of the research there were 29 students in the form (by the
end of the second year two students had left) - 14 girls and 15 boys.
Three-quarters of the group are from middle-class backgrounds while the
remainder are working-class. Six of the students are Asian (three girls, three
boys) and one girl is Afro-Caribbean. These figures are representative of the
school's population (which was the main reason for choosing the form group).
From the outset (and with little change over the first two years of the
fieldwork) the form group was divided in quite clearly defined groupings,
based largely on class, race and gender. For example, there is a large
homogeneous group of English, white, middle-class girls - many of whom had
come from the same junior school or from similar areas of the city. There is
an equally large but more heterogeneous group of boys, mainly middle class
but not as strongly bonded as the girls - membership of this shifted
throughout the first two years. There are two smaller groups of girls one
consisting of three working-class girls, from the same part of the city - two
white, one Afro-Caribbean and a group of three Asian girls. There is also a
smaller group of white working-class and Asian boys but this grouping is
much more open than the others.
Early friendship patterns in the form were reinforced through setting
and school culture. The labelling process was evident very early on, especially
so for those students who had internalised messages they received from peers
and teachers that they were less able than others. As Delamont & Galton
(1986) found for some students, group work reinforced their sense of
isolation within a class. This process was most visible in the case of the three
working-class and Asian female students (see also Harris & Rudduck, 1993)
where both groups disliked having to work with others outside their own
friendship group because they felt ill at ease and alienated. The feeling was so
strong for two of the working-class girls that they were keen to be set so that
they would be separated from the rest of the form: "They always block us out
like when we've got to work in groups. They always work together and leave

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Susan Harris

us" (Y8/F). For this student and her friends, their salvation lay in separation:
"All the people in our class [form group] are really clever and I weren't. So it's
better this year because I'm always with people who can work with me"
(Y9/F). However, setting proved only a temporary break "and when the form
came together in certain lessons this student felt excluded again: "They all
hang around together [in the form] and they never help us because they're
like the brainy ones" .(Y9/F)
The working-class girls mentioned above felt uncomfortable in the form
group because they were excluded from activities involving the larger group of
girls. While they enjoyed their own company and had no real desire to be part
of the other group, on a purely working relationship they could not cope
because they felt excluded. Similarly the three Asian girls were very much on
the outside of the form group activities and felt more comfortable when they
were left alone by themselves. The danger is that for both these groups
constant exclusion may make it very difficult if not impossible for them to
exercise their rights as members of the form group and the wider learning
community. There is a real possibility that they may develop an increasingly
negative attitude towards learning and school, although by the end of Y9 they
had remained generally positive. [3]

Differentiation through Assessment

Speaking of the Australian education system but which is equally valid for the
system as it operates in Britain, Connell (1992, p. 137) wrote:
[AJssessment systems are potent because they shape the form of the curriculum
as well as its more obvious content. An individualised, competitive assessment
system shapes learning as the individual appropriation of reproducible items of
knowledge and the individual cultivation of skills ...In turn the conception of
unequal merit (intelligence, learning capacity, talent, diligence, educability,
achievement...) validates unequal offers of education.
Formal assessment and testing are mechanisms to refocus students on their
learning (and as a means of evaluating school performance) but at the same
time they also differentiate and categorise students. Following ERA, schools
are required to provide ever more readily accessible 'information' for the
public, for example, on examination results and attendance figures in the
form of league tables, by which schools can be evaluated and judged
successful, efficient, failing or otherwise. Such practices not only increase the
control and monitoring of schools but also of their students and this is
discussed below.

Testing. Students have always been tested and graded according to written
evidence of their ability. In many schools setting has also taken place which
has differentiated students by ability. What ERA has done is to intensify the

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process through for example, the standard assessment tests (SATs) at Key
Stages 1, 2 and 3.
SATs were imposed on schools primarily as a means of increasing
accountability and ensuring efficiency of schools. At one level they can be
seen as a means of encouraging or coercing students to engage in their
learning (Harris et al, forthcoming) but at another level they may be regarded
as representing a further degree of control over students; another measure by
which constant evaluation ensure that students are "coded and compared,
ranked and measured" (Foucault, quoted in Meadmore, 1993, p. 61). The
students followed in this study were the first to sit the SATs at Key Stage 3,
although in the event they did not because of the national teachers' boycott
which resulted in only a small number of students in the country who took the
tests.
When the students in all three research schools were asked to compare
Y9 with Y8 most stated that they thought Y9 to be more important and
mentioned the coming SATs as an example. The SATs represented the first
national tests that students faced in secondary school and were deemed by the
majority to be more significant than other school or locally based tests. One
student from School A emphasised the special nature of the SATs: "In the
past everyone had to take just normal exams, but now we've got to take those
and SATs. It's going to be a lot to remember and a lot of revision" (Y9/M).
For the students interviewed in School A where the ethos and culture
was of academic achievement and competition the threat of SATs was
significant. (It was not until the eleventh hour that they were told they would
not be sitting the tests.) While most of the boys seemed more relaxed about
the demands of the SATs, for most of the girls the threat of these tests had
increased the pressure to work harder in Y9: "Well with these SATs we've got
so much pressure to learn everything and so much to learn that I don't think
we've enough time" (Y9/F). Others felt the pressure to 'do well' because poor
results would, they believed, affect their set position, which would in turn
affect their chances at GCSE.
Do you think that the SATs are important?
Yes, because like it sets you up for your GCSE studies and everything, all part
of the future. (Y9/M)
What do you think will happen if you don't do weil in the SATs?
Might go down another set next year. (Y9/F)
Will that be bad. Will it matter?
Yes it does matter. If you're in a lower set you're not as good are you. (Y9/F)
The tension between testing and assessment, which Broadfoot et al (1990)
identify, can be seen here where SATs operate primarily as an evaluation
system rather than as a means of improving the quality of learning experience.
In providing 'hard evidence' of ability at an increasingly early stage of
students careers, the SATs are potentially damaging to students whose

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Susan Harris

self-image (such as the working-class girls discussed earlier) may be low at the
very early stages in their school career.

Student Assessment. Another form of assessment is that of student self-

assessment which is part of the Records of Achievement (RoA) adopted
enthusiastically by many schools as a means of encouraging student
motivation and celebrating achievement. However, although many schools
have supported RoA unreservedly, they do raise some important issues. For
example, Hargreaves (1986), although in favour of the guiding principle,
warns that there are problems and cites two dilemmas involving the "purpose
and orientation" of Records of Achievement which are "dilemmas of
motivation versus selection and independence versus surveillance". These two
dilemmas were apparent in School A where much work was being done to
establish RoA as a key part in the school's celebration of students'
achievements. The group of teachers most involved with this initiative had
succeeded in a relatively short space of time to win staff over to the merits of
RoA although none were in doubt that there was still a lot of work to be done.
At the end of 1993 staff received very positive feedback from Y l l students
who had completed their RoA. One of the tasks facing the school for the
coming year was to widen the involvement of subject departments in student
self-assessment and to educate local employers about RoAs in order to
maximise their purpose and value to students.
Despite such success by the school so far in introducing RoA, there are
certain issues which arose from the data collected on Y9 students that require
discussion. Unlike the Ylls who had seen the process through to the final
stage of being awarded their own RoA document, for Y9s the filling in of
self-assessments did not hold out the same sense of purpose or reward. This is
perhaps partly because not all subject areas yet invite students to make a
self-assessment on their progress and achievement and some subject areas are
not enthusiastic about the scheme. When students were asked if they thought
the Records of Achievement were important the majority said yes because
teachers had told them they were:
It's like a proof of what you've done. It's proof. If you don't do anything it's
not very good. (Y9/M)
They've [teachers] been telling us that at college if they've only got a few
spaces left then they look at your Records of Achievement to see how much
you've achieved and whoever has the best Record of Achievement normally
gets the place. (Y9/F)
However, of those students who talked about what they had written half said
that they had written about their attendance and punctuality, or, if they had
worked hard, points which they had been encouraged to make by their
teachers. Others mentioned the fact that they were encouraged to write
something positive and felt that it was yet another task being asked of them -
there was little sense of personal ownership in the exercise.

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 Control and Autonomy in School

What did you write in your self-assessment?

Same as everyone else.
Did you have much choice or freedom to put down what you wanted?
We did have to sort of put optimistic things but it is fairly restricted. (Y9/F)
One student more bluntly felt that the task was pointless because it was
simply 'lies':
What did you write in your self-assessment?
A load of lies really. Just that I think I'm really good at everything - that's
what the teacher told us to write. (Y9/M)
Three students were particularly annoyed because one teacher had underlined
certain sections of their written assessment which they were allowed to enter:
In [one subject] we had to write down in a book and she underlined the bits
she wanted us to put on which isn't a self-assessment because it's,been edited.
(Y9/F)
For some students the actual process was felt to be time-consuming, laborious
or 'difficult' because they found it very hard to write about themselves. Some
did not feel that they had anything to say about themselves, while others
regarded the process as a means of 'proof of individual achievement by which
teachers could judge students.
As RoA became more integral to all curriculum areas in the school some
of the problems identified by the students may be solved, but not all. There
are issues concerning all schools irrespective of current approaches to RoA
which relate to the value judgements implicit in teachers' advice to students in
how to write about themselves and the school's values, which for many
students may conflict with their own (Hargreaves, 1986). Also, the student's
sense of worth, already shaped by messages from teachers and peers about
their ability and achievement may affect the type of record a student writes.
For example, a student who was identified as low ability and who had
developed a very low sense of self-worth by Y9, did not write down in her
self-assessment that one of her pastimes was drawing and sketching because
she had little confidence in her own abilities and because she was not
accustomed to relating out of school activities with what she did in school. As
Connell et al (1987) noted earlier it is not only certain forms of knowledge
which are marginalised in school, but other related activities so that certain
outside activities and experiences which are thought more worthy of note than
others (by teachers and students) can lead to some students feeling they have
less to offer and that they have little or no talent or ability or 'interests' worth
writing down.
What seems to be happening is that in the present climate Records of
Achievement are being coloured by the overall concerns of ERA which
emphasise accountability, productivity and efficiency; their potential for
acting as a force that liberates students to think individually about their own
learning has little chance of being realised. Records of Achievement, along
with testing, are part of the continual evaluation taking place in schools. They

71
Susan Harris

may turn out, inadvertently, to feed the broad government intent of ensuring
that students 'know their place' in the increasingly important quality
hierarchies that operate in relation to individual students as well as in relation
to schools.

Entitled to What?
This paper set out to explore the nature of student entitlement in the context
of the introduction of the National Curriculum, which was described as
offering an entitlement for all students, and other measures in ERA. which
were claimed to increase the power and choice of 'consumers'. Student
entitlement was defined as access to the National Curriculum and other
aspects of schooling which affect students' growing sense of self as individuals
and learners, and the extent to which they have control over this process.
Four particular features of school life in one school were used to examine
students' experiences: the school regime, the curriculum, the policy of setting
students and forms of assessment.
Discussion of the school regime in the research school showed that
although students began secondary school optimistically, feeling that it was
more grown up than primary school and that teachers treated them
differently, it was not long before the novelty of change gave way to feelings of
frustration over school rules and regulations in particular. It was argued that
two important aspects of schooling remain unchanged since ERA. Students'
movement and activities remain tightly controlled and managed, and they
have little opportunity to exert real autonomy over their learning.
In relation to the second context, the curriculum, the headteacher's
determination that no student 'opt out' of any curriculum experience was
seen as a means of insuring equality of experience for all students (for
example through the policy that students study two languages in Y9 rather
than only the most able). In practice this view of providing an entitlement
curriculum did not operate as the head intended, because financial constraints
restricted the variety and breadth of courses the school was able to offer
students. In addition to this, some students felt aggrieved at being unable to
exercise real choice in what they studied, while others felt that the system was
'unfair' because of the strict policy on studying languages.
Differentiation affects the extent to which'individual students perceive
their entitlement of both the formal and informal curriculum because their
experience of each influence their developing sense of self as an individual, a
learner and as a member of the school. The school's long-established policy of
setting and competitive ethos led to differentiation taking place very early in
students' school careers. It was apparent that by the end of the Y9 students
were defining their achievement and progress in school in terms of which set
they were in and that many of those in the bottom sets had very low
self-esteem. For example, the working-class girls who experienced exclusion
in their form class and who had internalised negative self-images from peers

72
 Control and Autonomy in School

and teachers, based primarily on their ability, did not have the same
confidence in themselves or expectations of school which some of the other
students demonstrated. Similarly, the Asian girls who were excluded from
much of the activities in their form group and other classes appeared to be
marginal actors. Such individuals who are marginal do not have the same
access to what is on offer in school as those identified and labelled as the
achievers, those who are confident and who are the most 'visible' members of
the school.
The fourth context discussed was that of the assessment system. It was
argued that emphasis on the formal assessment system, such as the SATs,
intensify the differentiation process through the constant evaluation and
categorisation of students. In School A there was pressure on students to do
well in SATs because it was seen as affecting their set position. For those
struggling to do well, or those in the lower sets, the emphasis on evaluation
mainly on ability terms can affect their self-confidence and sense of self-worth
and reduce their expectations of themselves and what school can offer them.
And although the Records of Achievement are intended to redress this by
recording positive achievements about individual students, in a climate which
focuses on accountability and efficiency, RoAs may become simply another
means of categorising and differentiating students instead of a means of
liberating them.
In concluding therefore, it can be argued that the nature and extent of
student entitlement has not altered significantly since the introduction of the
National Curriculum. This is because, firstly, the notion of entitlement, as
referred to in the National Curriculum, is narrow and the emphasis is on
testing and constant evaluation, which reduces the significance attached to
student entitlement and the way in which students experience schooling.
Entitlement has to be secured in other areas of school life; some - which are
critically related to academic achievement - are the importance of building
good relations between teachers and students, establishing a learning
community in which all members are welcomed and appreciated, and
establishing the conditions for learning. Secondly, there has been little change
because institutional features of school have remained intact. Students have
little autonomy over their learning or over their time and movement in school.
Thirdly, and most significantly, ERA was not about empowerment or
enabling students to take more control and ownership of their learning or
experiences in school. The intensification of evaluation processes which
classify and grade through, for example, national standard assessment tests,
the publication of examination results and the use of 'league tables', increase
differentiation within schools and between schools as they compete in the
education market. Moreover, such processes also intensify the mechanisms of
control over students as well as operate to constrain and control teachers'
work (Carter & Burgess, 1993; Connell, 1992; Hargreaves, 1986; Hatcher,
1994).

73
Susan Harris

While students have little control and autonomy over their learning,
access to what opportunities exist are highly differentiated; some students
have easier access than others, for example, those from ethnic minority
backgrounds, those with special needs, and those with problems outside
school which affect their life in school. An important aspect of students'
understanding of entitlement is their facility with language (and race, class
and gender can significantly affect students' confidence in articulating their
feelings and points of view). Some students, such as the working-class girls or
Asian girls discussed earlier, do not have the same resources available to them
as other middle-class academically able students and are less able to express
themselves or make themselves heard - and their silence can be construed as
lack of interest or engagement. As Connell et al (1987) found, students have
very different perceptions and expectations of school. As this paper has
shown, this is not simply related to class factors, but is also related to race,
gender and ability which can affect students' sense of what they are entitled to
receive from school.
For schools like the one discussed in this paper there is a real dilemma:
it is trying to push forward on its own agenda of tackling inequality and
differentiation and the lack of engagement in learning, while being pushed in
the opposite direction by the consequences of implementing ERA and the
National Curriculum. The problem for such schools is how to hold on to their
values at the same time as responding to educational change. At the moment
there are historical as well political factors which work against those staff in
schools across the country who are endeavouring to enhance the quality of
experience for all their students. As Ball has argued:
The populist politics of Majorism ... re-naturalises an education system which
achieves commonality by division and legitimates difference by the ideology of
choice. (1993, p. 210)

Acknowledgements
My thanks to Len Barton, Jean Rudduck and Gwen Wallace for their
comments on an earlier version of this paper. I am grateful to the headteacher
for giving up his rime to discuss and clarify some of the issues raised. Thanks
also to the two referees for their constructive comments.

Correspondence

Susan Harris, Division of Education, University of Sheffield, 388 Glossop

Road, Sheffield S10 2JA, United Kingdom.

Notes
[1] At the end of the second year of the study three students left the school and one joined the
form group but is regularly absent from school.

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 Control and Autonomy in School

[2] The form group started in Y8. Until 1993 entry was staggered with some students coming
in Y7 and some in Y8.
[3] By the middle of Y10 two of the working-class girls were showing signs of disengagement
with school and were feeling frustrated with school life and the demands of Y10. Staff were
aware of this but how successful they will be in re-engaging the students remains to be seen.

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