Have Labour's school admissions reforms successfully reconciled parental choice and social justice?
The five papers in this symposium give a wide-ranging perspective on Labour government policies intended to promote parental choice whilst modifying its potential impact on social stratification across schools. The question of who gets to go to popular schools remains at the forefront of the policy arena and has long been seen as a critical question by researchers who are concerned with social justice in schools policy. This symposium brings together a wide range of research techniques and theoretical perspectives, evaluating changes in admissions rules at a national and local level and the impact of admissions forums and choice advisors.
The most important policy instrument for affecting the assignment of pupils to schools remains the School Admissions Code. The first paper in this symposium analyses the two major changes to the Code that took place over the course of the Labour government, asking whether the changes were effective in actually changing school admissions practice, thereby reducing complexity and improving fairness in the system. The second paper gives a quantitative case study of one city
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