Values and Ethics in the Education Market Place: the case of Northwark Park[1]

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Abstract
The 1988 Education Reform Act introduced into England and Wales a market structure of secondary school provision. It is argued here that the education market functions as a system of rewards and punishments, a disciplinary mechanism, fostering particular cultural forms and socio‐psychological dispositions and marginalising others. The paper considers the case of one school in particular, Northwark Park, an undersubscribed, predominantly working‐class school, whose staff and governors find themselves having to confront the issue of institutional survival in the market context. The value conflicts and ethical dilemmas in which the staff and governors are becoming enmeshed are discussed, and the implications of the education market for patterns of educational opportunity considered.