Abstract
In 1963 no right-thinking politician or pundit would have dissented from this judgement: Noel Annan was doing little more than expressing a commonplace thought with uncommon eloquence. The British establishment (political as well as cerebral) subscribed to a progressive consensus which had been invented between the wars (mainly by R. H. Tawney) and revised in the 1950s (notably by Tony Crosland). It wanted to abolish the 11-plus, to expand higher education, and to liberalise teaching; and it regarded education not only as a good in itself but also as a powerful instrument of social reform and public enlightenment.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes and References
Noel Annan, The Guardian (19 February 1963).
The literature based on these assumptions is immense. For a representative sample see Harold Silver (ed.), Equal Opportunity in Education (London, 1973): 108–259.
Michael Sanderson, Educational Opportunity and Social Change in England (London, 1987): 122–7.
James S. Coleman, Equality of Educational Opportunity (New York, 1966).
Frederick Mosteller and Daniel P. Moynihan, On Equality of Educational Opportunity (New York, 1972).
V. G. Cicirelli, ‘The Impact of Head Start on Children’s Cognitive and Affective Development’, Westinghouse Learning Corporation (Washington DC, 1969) (the Westinghouse Report).
Christopher Jencks (and Marshall Smith, Henry Acland, Mary Jo Bane, David Cohen, Herbert Gintis, Barbara Heyns, Stephen Michelson), Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family on Schooling in America (New York, 1972).
Julian Le Grand, The Strategy of Equality: Redistribution and the Social Services (London, 1982).
Robert E. Goodin and Julian Le Grand, Not Only the Poor: The Middle Classes and the Welfare State (London, 1987).
Charles Murray, Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980 (New York, 1984).
Nathan Glazer, The Limits of Social Policy (Cambridge, Mass., 1988).
C. B. Cox and A. E. Dyson, ‘Introduction’, in Cox and Dyson (eds), The Black Papers on Education (London, 1971): 9.
C. B. Cox and Rhodes Boyson, ‘Background’ Black Paper 1977 (London, 1977): 13.
A. E. Dyson, ‘Culture and Anarchy. 1869–1969’, The Critical Quarterly (1969).
Amis, ‘Pernicious Participation’, The Black Papers on Education (1971): 172.
Terry Ellis, Jackie McWhirter, Dorothy McDolgan and Brian Haddow, William Tyndale; The Teacher’s Story (1976).
Robin Auld QC, William Tyndale Junior and Infants Schools Public Inquiry (July 1976): 274, para. 838.
Neville Bennett, Teaching Styles and Pupil Progress (London, 1976).
Arthur R. Jensen, ‘How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement’, Harvard Educational Review, 39 (1969): 2–3.
Richard Herrnstein, ‘I.Q.,’, The Atlantic, 228 (1971): 56, 58.
Eysenck, Race, Intelligence and Education (London, 1971): 140.
Eysenck, ‘The Rise of the Mediocracy’ in Psychology is About People (London, 1972): 160–99.
Jeffrey Gray, ‘Why Should Society Reward Intelligence?’ The Times (8 September 1972).
See, for example, M. Hunt, ‘The intelligent man’s guide to intelligence’, Playboy, 18 (February 1971): 94–6, 106, 191–4.
L. Edson, New York Times Magazine (31 August 1969): 10–11. For discussions see 21 and 28 September issues.
Jensen, Genetics and Education (London, 1972): 14.
John W. Meyer, ‘The Charter: Conditions of Diffuse Socialisation in Schools’, in W. Richard Scott, Social Processes and Social Structures: An Introduction to Sociology (New York, 1970) especially 565, 568, 572.
James S. Coleman, The Adolescent Society: The Social Life of the Teenager and its Impact on Education (New York, 1961): 318.
Quoted in Ken Jones, Right Turn: The Conservative Revolution in Education (London, 1989): 22.
For an amusing account of progressive education run wild see Jonathan Miller, ‘Led Astray’, in Brian Inglis (ed.), John Bull’s Schooldays (London, 1961): 101–4.
Quoted in Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (London, 1989): 425.
Robert Jackson, ‘The Higher Education Funding Debate: Some Conclusions Drawn’, paper delivered to a Centre for Policy Studies Conference (9 May 1989): 10.
Dawn Gill and Les Levidow (eds), Anti-Racist Science Teaching (London, 1987).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1990 Adrian Wooldridge
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wooldridge, A. (1990). Education: From Boyle to Baker. In: Clark, J.C.D. (eds) Ideas and Politics in Modern Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20686-5_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20686-5_10
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-51551-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-20686-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)