Comercio, productos básicos y acuerdos regionales de intercambio comercial

This section demonstrates how school reputation and image impacts on school choice in Ravenswood. Schools’ reputations and images are considered to be somewhat different. A school’s reputation refers to the general perception of the school within a community, whilst making consideration to a variety of aspects such as academic results, school buildings and grounds, teaching quality, and extracurricular activities (Ball et al, 1995, p66). On the other hand, the school image refers to the impression given by the pupils and how they are seen in the local community (Ball et al, 1995, p70). It is thought that how pupils behave when travelling to and from school each day is an important part of this (ibid.). However, for the purposes of this study, they are discussed together, as residents regularly spoke about both interchangeably. The chapter argues that in Ravenswood discussions amongst residents around

186

school reputation and image became a form of ‘terror talk’ (Katz, 1995, cited in Watson, 2006, p125) in that it worked to perpetuate the exisiting pattern and concern of school choice and use in the area.

It should be remembered that the reputation and image of a school can be either good or bad, and can, therefore, serve to attract or alternatively repel people from sending their children to a certain school. Furthermore, a school’s reputation and image are not discrete issues. They, like a school’s socio-economic status and academic rating, are influenced by one another and other issues, some of which are discussed in this chapter.

Throughout the research, many participants referred to the reputation or image of local schools around Ravenswood. Mrs Wyn, the Head Teacher at Nacton Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, spoke about the reputation of Ravenswood’s primary school. Although she never said that it had a poor reputation she pointed out that having a ‘good reputation’ and an ‘outstanding’ from Ofsted like her school, beat other schools with ‘shiny new buildings’ and ‘new purpose built grounds’. On a number of occasions Mrs Wyn also mentioned how she had been contacted by a number of parents wanting to move their child out of Ravenswood’s primary school because they were unhappy with both the school and the other pupils. This, she added, did not help the school’s reputation amongst other parents. The reputation of Holywells High School was also seen as poor. One resident laughingly spoke about how awful the reputation of Holywells was that if you even mentioned the name people replied with ‘Arrrgghh!’.

Claire and Andrew Parkinson, two Ravenswood residents, spoke at length about Ravenswood’s primary school in particular, as they had spent considerable time choosing a school for the eldest daughter who at the time was attending St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in the centre of Ipswich.

Claire: ‘I actually hung around the play areas around the [Ravenswood’s] school, before

she started school and I spoke to some of the parents. One women said that her son was at the pre-school nursery and she said ‘I don’t mind him being there, but he is not going to the main school’ and then she said ‘Don’t worry about the other children, but watch out for the parents’. I did look around the school, and I got a very bad impression of the school myself. So, it was not like I completely dismissed it without speaking to people

187

and having a look myself. [...] I went into the reception class and there were big signs saying ‘NO SWEARING IN THE CLASSROOM’’.

Andrew: ‘Nobody would choose that school. If you were the sort of person who wanted

to choose a school you wouldn’t choose that school, but if you didn’t care what school your child went to then you would go to Ravenswood!’

Andrew and Claire Parkinson, Resident Interview, 20th October 2009

It is evidently clear that for Andrew and Claire both the reputation and the image of Ravenswood’s primary school put them off from sending their daughter there. Furthermore, it is also clear that the choice making process is considered to be important, worthy of considerable effort. Describing her choice making process Claire recalled how she spent time visiting the school, time in the local play areas around the school and time speaking to other parents, arguably fuelling existing concerns over schooling options. Furthermore, the quote highlights the complexity of the notion of ‘choice’. Andrew suggests that people like them – people who care about their child and their child’s education - would not send their child to Ravenswood Community Primary School. First of all, this assumes that anyone who sends their son or daughter to the school does not care about their child – which is unfounded. Additionally, in Section 6.5 of this chapter, the concepts ‘choosers’ and ‘non-choosers’ (Ball et

al, 1995, p56; Golding and Hausman, 1999, p481) were introduced, suggesting that parents

either decide to actively choose a school for their child or not. Andrew, in this quote, accuses parents who send their child to Ravenswood’s school to be non-choosers. In light of this comment the chapter suggests that this dualistic definition over choice is too simplistic, failing to recognise how some parents may have limited power to be a chooser rather than the desire to be a non-chooser. Parents in the Ravenswood area do not uniformly have the same capacity to make such a choice about which school they send their children to. Some will be constrained by factors such as the financial resources to pay for travel to another school, or the time to get their child to a school further afield.

This study acknowledges the way Ravenswood parents, such as Andrew and Claire, identify and socially construct some parents and their children, as ‘different’ from themselves simply based on their behaviour. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Skeggs (1997) refers to these behaviours as ‘signifiers of class’ (p4). This means that Andrew and Claire want to ensure that spatial distance is maintained between themselves, including their children and these ‘others’,

188

thereby directly undermining the intentions of social mix policy which seek to create and maintain social proximity through local services use such as schools.

Later, through discussion with Andrew and Claire, it became clear that they believed that these ‘other’ parents and children were from the neighbouring housing areas of Gainsborough and Priory Heath. However, they were not the only Ravenswood residents to make such connections. Patricia Bainbridge who lives near the main entrance to Ravenswood Community Primary School spoke disparagingly of the behaviour she witnessed daily from the school’s pupils.

‘You ought to stand there (points to front of her house) when those kids are going to school, because the language is utterly atrocious... the kids from the council estate’.

Patricia Bainbridge, Resident Interview, 20th October 2009.

In this case, school image and perception of pupils is seen to relate directly to where the pupils are believed to be from, arguably based on the socio-economic status of these other neighbourhoods. Much like the arguments presented in the previous chapter, evidence presented in this chapter suggests that these ideas are again based on stereotypes and prejudice. For Patricia the fact that children were coming from one of the nearby local authority housing estates formed the basis for understanding their behaviour. Furthermore her derogatory tone suggested that she sees them as different from her and her family and therefore to be avoided. Other Ravenswood parents, such as Sophie Evans, mentioned the behaviour of pupils ‘smoking and stuff’ whilst travelling to and from the closest schools to Ravenswood and how she did not want her daughter to experience it. Again parallels with Elias and Scotson’s (1994) study of Winston Parva can be seen here, as individuals from one particular part of the suburb were stigmatised as different, and given a bad reputation. This was rationalised on the basis of their behaviour which was considered abnormal and therefore deviant. Moreover, these concerns around school image and reputation operate to maintain social divisions between different social groups rather than support spatial proximity, a key ambition of the social mix agenda.

Section 6.5 of this chapter has noted several aspects which parents take into consideration when deciding which schools to send their children to. Current literature in this field has pointed towards three key parental concerns; the socio-economic status of a school, the

189

academic performance of a school, and a school’s reputation and image. In this section it has been shown that all of these were important for Ravenswood parents in their choice making process. This research challenges these assumptions, however, and argues that these terms do in fact serve to hide and even legitimise what can be a form of prejudice against some children. Parents in Ravenswood were in fact greatly concerned about ensuring that their child did not come into contact with young people who were from Gainsborough and Priory Heath, or in their own terms ‘the council estates’, illustrating their mixophobia. This echoes the arguments presented in the previous chapter on the consequences of the wider context on public space use in Ravenswood, and the implications this has for the aspirations of social mix policy. Children resident beyond the boundaries of Ravenswood are indiscriminately stereotyped or socially constructed as deviant and to be avoided. Although some literatures noted that parents may have concerns over the ‘type’ of children also attending the school, no previous literature has suggested how perceptions about residential areas form the basis of this concern. In fact even though the Ravenswood development is a mixed tenure housing area, with some families living in social housing, only one couple living in Ravenswood suggested that these families and their children should also be avoided within the context of schools. This idea is explored in greater detail in the following chapter; Boundaries and the scale of social mix.

Given that social mix policy assumes people will use their nearest services, including schools, the research highlights significant findings for the policy agenda. This study has shown a major obstacle to ensuring that social encounters amongst people from different backgrounds are generated and maintained within the contexts of schools. Policy assumes, naively, that children will be sent to their nearest school regardless of circumstance. In Ravenswood, however, this is not the case. Instead, parents from affluent backgrounds decide to send their children to schools further afield, creating mono-culture schools both inside and outside the Ravenswood area. Moreover, through sharing such concerns through ‘terror talk’, parents work to spread and maintain such anxieties throughout the area.