Abstract
This chapter describes and reflects on a long-term research project that has developed an interpretation of the history of secondary education in England in the 1940s and 1950s, following the Education Act of 1944 and the creation of a so-called ‘tripartite’ system of different kinds of secondary schools. In particular, the project examined and tried to explain the Platonic ideals of ‘education for leadership’ that revolved around the Norwood Report of 1943, the curriculum of the secondary schools, and how these were linked over the longer term to the elite traditions of the great public (independent) schools of the nineteenth century. It shows the furtherance of this interpretation in a second phase of the project that took a biographical and social turn. It concludes with a discussion of the nature of this interpretation in terms of social history, the implications of the historical evidence on which it was based, the connections with current issues and concerns, and the relationship with education, history and the social sciences more broadly.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Albisetti, J. (1988). Schooling German girls and women: Secondary and higher education in the nineteenth century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Albisetti, J., Goodman, J., & Rogers, R. (Eds.). (2010). Girls’ secondary education in the western world: From the 18th to the 20th century. New York: Palgrave.
Aldcroft, D. (1992). Education, training and economic performance 1944 to 1990. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Anderson, R. D. (1983). Education and opportunity in Victorian Scotland: Schools and universities. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Anderson, R. D. (1985). Secondary schools and Scottish society in the nineteenth century. Past and Present, 109, 176–203.
Archer, R. L. (1921). Secondary education in the nineteenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Aronowitz, S. (2003). How class works: Power and social movement. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ball, S. (2003). Class strategies and the education market: The middle classes and social advantage. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Banks, O. (1955). Parity and prestige in secondary education: A study in educational sociology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Barnett, C. (1986). The audit of war: The illusion and reality of Britain as a great nation. London: Macmillan.
Bledstein, B. J., & Johnston, R. D. (Eds.). (2001). The middling sorts: Explorations in the history of the American middle class. London: Routledge.
Board of Education. (1926). Report of the consultative committee on the education of the adolescent. London: HMSO (Hadow Report).
Board of Education. (1943). Curriculum and examinations in secondary schools. London: HMSO (Norwood Report).
Bourke, J. (2005). Fear: A cultural history. London: Virago.
Clarke, F. (1923). Essays in the politics of education. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dancy, J. (1965) ‘Technology in a liberal education’, Advancement of Science, October, pp. 379–87.
Dent, H. (1952). Change in English education: A historical survey. London: University of London Press.
Devine, F. (2004). Class practices: How parents help their children to get good jobs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Evans, G. E. (1990). Perspectives on a century of secondary education in Wales. Aberystwyth: University College of Wales.
Evans, G. E. (2008). Examining the secondary schools of Wales, 1896–2000. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Gidney, R. D. (1990). Inventing secondary education: The rise of the high school in nineteenth century Ontario. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Graves, J. (1943). Policy and progress in secondary education 1902–1942. London: Thomas Nelson.
Hailsham, L. (1963). Science and politics. London: Faber.
Harris, J. (1992). Political thought and the welfare state 1870–1940: An intellectual framework for British social policy. Past and Present, 135, 116–141.
Herbst, J. (1996). The once and future school: 350 years of American secondary education. London: Routledge.
Hunt, F. (1991). Gender and policy in secondary education: Schooling for girls, 1902–44. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
James, E. (1951). Education and leadership. London: Harrap.
James, E. (1955). Science and citizenship. School Science Review, 36(130), 324–326.
Kidd, A., & Nicholls, D. (Eds.). (1999). Gender, civic culture and consumerism: Middle-class identity in Britain, 1800–1940. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Kridel, C., & Bullough, R. V. (2007). Stories of the eight-year study: Reexamining secondary education in America. New York: State University of New York Press.
Labaree, D. (1989). The making of an American high school: The credentials market and the central high school of Philadelphia, 1838–1939. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Lowe, R. (1989). Secondary education since the Second World War. In R. Lowe (Ed.), The changing secondary school (pp. 4–19). London: Falmer Press.
Martin, J. (2012). Interpreting biography in the History of Education: Past and present. History of Education, 41(1), 87–102.
McCulloch, G. (1988). A technocratic vision: The ideology of school science reform in Britain in the 1950s. Social Studies of Science, 18(4), 703–724.
McCulloch, G. (1989). The secondary technical school: A usable past? London: Falmer.
McCulloch, G. (1991). Philosophers and kings: Education for leadership in modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCulloch, G. (1994). Educational reconstruction: The 1944 Education Act and the twenty-first century. London: Woburn.
McCulloch, G. (1995). Lessons from the class of 1944?: History as education. In P. Gordon (Ed.), The study of education: Inaugural lectures (Vol. 4, pp. 249–268). London: Woburn.
McCulloch, G. (1998). Failing the ordinary child?: The theory and practice of working class secondary education. Buckingham: Open University Press.
McCulloch, G. (2001). Secondary education. In R. Aldrich (Ed.), A century of education (pp. 31–53). London: Routledge.
McCulloch, G. (2002). Local education authorities and the organisation of secondary education, 1943–1950. Oxford Review of Education, 28(2–3), 235–246.
McCulloch, G. (2004a). From incorporation to privatisation: Public and private secondary education in twentieth-century England. In R. Aldrich (Ed.), Public or private education? Lessons from history (pp. 53–72). London: Woburn Press.
McCulloch, G. (2004b). Documentary research in education, history and the social sciences. London: Routledge.
McCulloch, G. (2006a). Education and the middle classes: The case of the English grammar schools. History of Education, 35(6), 689–704.
McCulloch, G. (2006b). Cyril Norwood and the English tradition of education. Oxford Review of Education, 32(1), 55–69.
McCulloch, G. (2007). Cyril Norwood and the ideal of secondary education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
McCulloch, G. (2008). Parity and prestige in English secondary education revisited. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(4), 381–389.
McCulloch, G. (2011a). The struggle for the history of education. London: Routledge.
McCulloch, G. (2011b). Education policy and practice. In M. Wadsworth & J. Bynner (Eds.), A companion to life course studies: The social and historical context of the British birth cohort studies (pp. 69–90). London: Routledge.
McCulloch, G. (2012). The history of secondary education in History of Education. History of Education, 41(1), 25–39.
McCulloch, G., & Richardson, W. (2000). Historical research in educational settings. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Nature. (1951). leading article, ‘Leadership, education and technology’, 3 November.
Norwood, C. (1929). The English tradition of education. London: John Murray.
Obelkevich, J. (2000). New developments in history in the 1950s and 1960s. Contemporary British History, 13(4), 126–142.
Openshaw, R. (2009). Reforming New Zealand secondary education: The Picot report and the road to radical reform. New York: Palgrave.
Paedagogica Historica. (2004). special issue, Secondary education: Institutional, cultural and social history, 40(1–2).
Paterson, H. M. (1983). Incubus and ideology: The development of secondary schooling in Scotland, 1900–1939. In W. M. Humes & H. M. Paterson (Eds.), Scottish culture and Scottish education (pp. 1800–1980). Edinburgh: John Donald and co.
Plato. (c. 380 BC/1976). The Republic, translated by A.D. Lindsay, new edition, London, Dent.
Power, S., Edwards, T., Whitty, G., & Wigfall, V. (2003). Education and the middle class. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Reese, W. J. (1995). The origins of the American high school. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Richardson, W. (2011). The weight of history: Structures, patterns and legacies of secondary education in the British Isles, c. 1200 – c. 1980. London Review of Education, 9(2), 153–173.
Rudolph, J. L. (2002). Scientists in the classroom: The Cold War reconstruction of American science education. New York: Palgrave.
Sanderson, M. (1994). The missing stratum: Technical school education in England 1900–1990. London: Athlone Press.
Savoie, P., Bruter, A., & Frijhoff, W. (2004). Secondary education: Institutional, cultural and social history. Paedagogica Historica, 40(1–2), 9–14.
Sherington, G., & Campbell, C. (2006). The comprehensive public high school: Historical, contemporary and comparative perspectives. New York: Palgrave.
Silver, H. (1980). Nothing but the present, or nothing but the past? In P. Gordon (Ed.), The study of education: Inaugural lectures (pp. 265–284). London: Woburn.
Silver, H. (1990). Education, change and the policy process. London: Falmer.
Simon, B. (1974). The politics of educational reform, 1920–1940. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Simon, B. (1986). The 1944 Education Act: A Conservative measure? History of Education, 15(1), 31–43.
Simon, B. (1991). Education and the social order, 1940–1990. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Snow, C. P. (1964). The two cultures – And a second look. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thogerson, S. (1990). Secondary education in China after Mao: Reform and social conflict. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
VanOverbeke, M. (2008). The standardisation of American schooling: Linking secondary and higher education, 1870–1910. New York: Palgrave.
Weaver, T. (1955). memo, ‘Secondary technical schools’, 14 January (Ministry of Education papers, National Archives, ED.147/207).
Whitehead, A. N. (1928/1978). Process and reality: An essay in cosmology. New York: Free Press.
Wiborg, S. (2009). Education and social integration: Comprehensive schooling in Europe. New York: Palgrave.
Wiener, M. (1981). English culture and the decline of the industrial spirit, 1850–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wood, R. (1946). minute, 15 April (Ministry of Education papers, National Archives, ED.147/207).
Wright Mills, C. (1959). The sociological imagination. London: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McCulloch, G. (2015). 5.1 A Footnote to Plato: Interpreting the History of Secondary Education in Mid-Twentieth-Century England. In: Smeyers, P., Bridges, D., Burbules, N., Griffiths, M. (eds) International Handbook of Interpretation in Educational Research. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9282-0_42
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9282-0_42
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9281-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9282-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)