Challenging beginning teachers’ misconceptions of the effects of poverty on educational attainment in an initial teacher education programme in England

Evidence from both empirical research studies and statistical analyses has repeatedly shown that the most economically disadvantaged students have the poorest educational outcomes in England Consecutive governments in the United Kingdom have expressed concerns over both ‘social mobility’ and the failure to educate the poor and most disadvantaged in society. However, the policy response in England, the only UK jurisdiction where education remains the concern of the central government, has been to combine a neoliberal policy of diversification in types of school and compensatory reforms aimed at disadvantaged students with a neo-conservative drive towards a more traditional curriculum and more rigorous testing (Burn & Childs, 2016). At the same time, the government discourse that has often blamed schools and teachers and exhorted schools to do more without providing the necessary resources has only increased the pressure on disadvantaged children. Moves by the current government to supposedly increase social mobility through more selective state schools is likely to exacerbate inequality (Andrews, Hutchinson & Johnes, 2016).