SP230      One Unit
Education Policy

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

This course provides an introduction to the main issues in educational policy. It draws on interdisciplinary research literature and has a comparative and international focus. The course aims to show how major concepts used in social policy can be applied to the study of education, for example, equality of opportunity, equity and the distribution of resources. 

Issues to be addressed include: policy goals of education; historical development of education and the role of the state in provision and funding; the impact of social characteristics on educational outcomes (class, gender, ethnicity and ‘race); education of children with special educational needs and disabilities; financing education; private schooling; privatisation and the changing role of the state; early years education; school-based education; post-compulsory education including higher education; education systems in comparative perspective and education regimes, decentralisation and devolution. Not all of these issues are covered as separate weekly topics.

10 hours of lectures and 13.5 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.
10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of classes in the Winter Term.
1 hours of lectures and 1.5 hours of classes in the Spring Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

All teaching will be in accordance with the LSE Academic Code which specifies a "minimum of two hours taught contact time per week when the course is running in the Autumn Term (AT) and/or Winter Term (WT)". Social Policy courses are predominantly taught through a combination of in-person lectures and in-person classes/seminars. Further information will be provided by the Course Convenor in the first lecture of the course.

This course is taught in both AT & WT.

Students will attempt an essay in class under timed conditions

Some introductory texts are recommended:

Arthur, J., Peterson, A. (eds) (2011) The Routledge Companion to Education. London: Routledge.

Lauder, H., Brown, P., Dillabough, J., Halsey, A.H. (eds) (2006) Education, Globalization and Social Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Specialist reading lists for each topic will be provided.

Exam (80%), duration: 180 Minutes in the Spring exam period

Presentation (10%)

Course participation (10%)

80% in-person E-Exam; 10% Class Engagement and 10% Group Presentation