Gary McCulloch

Choice and equity in education

The tradition of choice choice in the early 1980s a new choice of school? choice for all after 1988? who makes choices? choice for inequity? choice in the USA.

‘Disciplines Contributing to Education?’ Educational Studies and the Disciplines

This article explores disciplinary approaches to educational studies over the past fifty years, in particular those developed by exponents of the ‘foundation disciplines’ of history, philosophy, psychology and sociology. It investigates the establishment of the disciplines during the first half of the period, and their consolidation, survival, and adaptation since the 1970s in a rapidly changing educational and political context. The nature of the contribution of the disciplines, both separately and together, to the study of education is assessed. The article also considers the role of the disciplines in stimulating a pluralist and eclectic approach to the study of education, as opposed to the notion of a unitary and autonomous field of knowledge represented as ‘educational research’.

The secondary technical school : a usable past?

History and policy resistance and reform the new secondary education prep schools of industry meeting grounds of teachers the Crowther concept pioneers of the alternative road? TVEI - comparison and contrasts history as policy? the city technology college.

The struggle for the history of education

1. Introduction 2. The Struggle for Social Progress 3. The Struggle for Social Change 4 The Struggle for Social Equality 5. The Struggle for Educational Reform 6. The Struggle for Theory and Methodology 7. The Struggle for New Directions 8. The Struggle for the Future 9. Conclusion

Privatising the Past? History and Education Policy in the 1990s

A fundamental shift has taken place in the relationship between images of the past and educational policy making. In the 1930s and 1940s, a shared public past was incorporated in State policy to denote gradual evolution towards improvement in education and in the wider society. This consensual image has become fractured and less comforting especially since the 1970s. In particular, it has divided into a largely alienated or estranged public past, and personalised images of a reassuring and nostalgic ‘private past’. This privatising of the past has exerted an increasing influence in education policy in the 1980s and 1990s, reflecting the concurrent trend towards an emphasis on ‘choice and diversity’ in education.

Curriculum Reform, Educational Change and School Improvement

In many countries and throughout the modern era of educational change, curriculum innovation has been regarded as an essential strategy for educational reform. Yet, as Gary McCulloch argues in this chapter, the positive impact of planned curriculum reform has been at best equivocal. In reflecting on the recent history of educational change in England and Wales he first considers curriculum reform in relation to the role of schools, and then the changing position of teachers. McCulloch focuses on the different strategies that have been devised to promote curriculum reform in this context and the tensions and contradictions that have developed as a result. In particular, he examines the strategies of ‘independence’ and ‘absorption’ in relation to specific curriculum initiatives in order to assess their relative impact both in terms of educational change and with respect to the more limited aim of school improvement. Later in the chapter he compares the espousal of teacher freedom’ so characteristic of the reforms of the 1960s, with the emphasis on control and accountability in the reforms of the 1990s. McCulloch concludes the chapter by assessing the relative importance of these issues for curriculum reform for school improvement.

Introduction: theory, methodology, and the history of education

This special issue of History of Education is concerned with the ways in which we engage as historians of education with theoretical and methodological problems. It seeks to advance our understanding of theoretical and methodological considerations relating to the history of education. This is an ambitious project. There is a very large range of problems, both ‘theoretical’ and ‘methodological’, that affect the work of historians of education, and the papers in this collection will only be able to touch on a few of these. Nevertheless, in doing so, we believe that they will be able to demonstrate two outstanding issues that are pivotal for the history of education, as for other forms of history. First, they underline the importance of an awareness of theory and methodology in the work of the historian; that these are not optional extras but are integral to the historian’s craft. Second, they suggest that theory and methodology are best considered not as distinct or separate categories, but in their relations with each other. In all of these assertions, we take our cue from the advice of C. Wright Mills in his classic study The Sociological Imagination. With regard to the importance of theory in history, Mills argued that although history was highly theoretical in its very nature, many historians displayed a ‘calm unawareness’ of this that he found impressive but unsettling. According to Mills, the historian cannot avoid interpretation and selection in seeking an understanding of the past, ‘although he may attempt to disclaim it by keeping his interpretations slim and circumspect’. He continued:

Raising the participation age in historical perspective: policy learning from the past?

The raising of the participation age (RPA) to 17 in 2013 and 18 in 2015 marks a historic expansion of compulsory education. Despite the tendency of New Labour governments to eschew historical understanding and explanation, RPA was conceived with the benefit of an analysis of previous attempts to extend compulsion in schooling. This paper assesses the value of a historical understanding of education policy. The period from inception to the projected implementation of RPA is an extended one which has crossed over the change of government, from Labour to Coalition, in 2010. The shifting emphases and meanings of RPA are not simply technical issues but connect to profound historical and social changes. An analysis of the history of the raising of the school leaving age reveals many points of comparison with the contemporary situation. In a number of key areas it is possible to gain insights into the ways in which the study of the past can help to comprehend the present: the role of human capital, the structures of education, in curriculum development and in terms of preparations for change.

Introduction: Disciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity and Educational Studies – Past, Present and Future

ABSTRACT This editorial introduction reviews the notions of disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity and their implications for an understanding of educational studies. It examines differences between multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, also raising issues about boundary work around and across the disciplines. It discusses the question of whether education is a discipline, together with the role of the so-called ‘foundation disciplines’ of psychology, sociology, history and philosophy in underpinning educational studies.

Empires overseas and empires at home : postcolonial and transnational perspectives on social change in the history of education

Taylor and Francis CPDH_A_438639.sgm 10.1080/003092 0903384619 P edagogica Historica 0 30-9230 (pri t)/1477-674X (online) Original Article 2 09 & Francis 45 6 00De ember 2009 rofess r Joyc G od an Jo c .Goodm @winchester.ac.uk This collection of work grew out of an international symposium sponsored by the History of Education Society UK and held in Hamburg in 2007. The symposium aimed to contribute to understandings of different approaches to researching the extent to which education has contributed historically to social change in respect of “empires overseas” and “empires at home”. This twin focus on “empires overseas” and “empires at home” also reflects more recent developments in historiography away from the uni-directional flows from “centre” to “periphery” that has framed much colonial and imperial history and studies of education and empire.1 In particular, research published under the auspices of the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE) has taken forward international study of the history of education and empire. The current collection brings together many of these emerging developments in the international field. It represents historiographical debates within the history of education that engage with broader historical research and recent insights in the social sciences. It is also very timely, as it seeks to contribute to a new phase of global scholarship that, while remaining conscious of the difficult challenges of transnationalism and the postcolonial era2 and the legacy of 9/11, attempts to draw