Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Slum Schools, Civil Servants and Sociology: Educational Priority Areas, 1967–72

  • Chapter
Governing Post-War Britain

  • 125 Accesses

Abstract

In 1963, Edward Boyle appointed Lady Bridget Plowden to look into the state and future of primary education, reputedly having being impressed while he sat next to her at a dinner party.1 There were far deeper reasons behind the appointment, which mirrored the commissioning of the Schools Survey: the growing clamour around the idea of education as both an efficient use of public money and as one effective way of creating a more equal society, and the nagging fear that British children were being ill-served by their schools. The final Plowden Report of October 1966 was one of the most far-reaching reports ever submitted to the Ministry of Education, and one that in considering schools in poorer urban areas issued a famous rallying call to reform:

We have … seen schools caught in … vicious circles and read accounts of many more … We noted the grim approaches; incessant traffic noise in narrow streets; parked vehicles hemming in the pavement; rubbish dumps on waste land nearby; the absence of green playing spaces …; tiny play grounds; gaunt looking buildings; often poor decorative conditions inside; narrow passages; dark rooms; unheated and cramped cloakrooms; unroofed outside lavatories; tiny staff rooms; inadequate storage space …; inadequate space for movement and for PE; meals in classrooms; art on desks; music only to the discomfort of others in an echoing building … insufficient display space; attractive books kept unseen in cupboards for lack of space to lay them out … sometimes all around, the ingrained grime of generations.2

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. CACE, Children and their Primary Schools, London, HMSO, 1967, pp. 50–1.

    Google Scholar 

  2. CACE, Half Our Future, London, HMSO, 1963, pp. 17–26.

    Google Scholar 

  3. B. Jackson and R. Rae, Priority: How We Can Help Young Children in Educational Priority Areas: A Report for the Association of Multi-Racial Playgroups, Cambridge, Association of Multi-Racial Playgroups, 1969, p. 3.

    Google Scholar 

  4. P. Brown, A.H. Halsey, H. Lauder and A.M. Wells, ‘The Transformation of Education and Society’, in P. Brown, A.H. Halsey, H. Lauder and A.M. Wells (eds), Education: Culture, Economy and Society, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 27–31.

    Google Scholar 

  5. M. Loney, Community against Government: The British Community Development Project 1968–78, London, Heinemann, 1983, pp. 18–25. I am grateful to John Welshman for this reference.

    Google Scholar 

  6. C. Bagley, ‘Immigrant Children: A Review of Problems and Policy in Education’, Journal of Social Policy 2, 1973, p. 303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. G. Smith, ‘Whatever Happened to Educational Priority Areas?’, Oxford Review of Education 13, 1987, p. 26; ‘More Nursery School Places’, The Guardian, 12 January 1972.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. M. Mayo, ‘The History and Early Development of CDP’, in R. Lees and G. Smith (eds), Action-Research in Community Development, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975, pp. 7–10.

    Google Scholar 

  9. I. Dale, Labour Party General Election Manifestos, 1900–1997, London, Politico’s, 2000, pp. 115, 143.

    Google Scholar 

  10. P. Widlake, ‘Educational Priority Areas: Action Research’, in M. Chazan (ed.), Compensatory Education, London, Butterworth, 1973, pp. 88–9.

    Google Scholar 

  11. C. Adelman, ‘Kurt Lewin and the Origins of Action Research’, Educational Action Research 1, 1993, pp. 8–9, 16;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. N. Wein, ‘The Education of Disadvantaged Children: An International Comparison’, Educational Research 13, 1970, p. 13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. H. Silver and P. Silver, An Educational War on Poverty: American and British Policy-Making, 1960–1980, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 229–30. See CACE, Primary Schools, pp. 45–6, 119–20, 124.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  14. A. Briggs, Michael Young: Social Entrepreneur, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001, pp. 189–90.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  15. See M. Young and P. McGeeney, Learning Begins at Home, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968, pp. 119–30.

    Google Scholar 

  16. H. Perraton, ‘Michael Young and Education’, Contemporary British History 19, 2005, p. 304.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. G. Smith and T. Smith, ‘A.H. Halsey: Oxford as a Base for Social Research and Educational Reform’, Oxford Review of Education 32, 2006, p. 114.

    Google Scholar 

  18. P. Cunningham, ‘Early Years Teachers and the Influence of Piaget: Evidence from Oral History’, Early Years 26, 2006, esp. pp. 8, 10. I owe this reference to Isobel Urquhart.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. J. McVicker Hunt, Intelligence and Experience, New York, Ronald Press, 1961, pp. 362–3; see Silver and Silver, War on Poverty, pp. 34–5.

    Google Scholar 

  20. A.R. Jensen, Educability and Group Differences, London, Methuen, 1973, p. 365.

    Google Scholar 

  21. B.S. Bloom, A. Davis and R. Hess, Compensatory Education for Cultural Deprivation: An Introduction, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965, pp. 2–4, 17–18;

    Google Scholar 

  22. see Bloom’s work on ‘environment and education’ in B.S. Bloom, Stability and Change in Human Characteristics, New York, Wiley, 1964, e.g. pp. 188–93.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Schools Council, Compensatory Education: A Report, London, Schools Council, 1969, pp. 7–10.

    Google Scholar 

  24. J. Welshman, ‘From Head Start to Sure Start: Reflections on Policy Transfer’, Children and Society 24, 2010, p. 90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. See the suggestive comments in M. Bulmer, ‘Sociology in Britain in the Twentieth Century: Differentiation and Establishment’, in A.H. Halsey and W.G. Runciman (eds), British Sociology seen from Without and Within, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 40–6.

    Google Scholar 

  26. G. Smith and T. Smith, ‘From Social Research to Educational Policy: 10/65 to the Education Reform Act 1988’, in C. Crouch and A. Heath (eds), Social Research and Social Reform: Essays in Honour of A.H. Halsey, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992, pp. 249–52.

    Google Scholar 

  27. J.E. Floud, A.H. Halsey and F.M. Martin (eds), Social Class and Educational Opportunity, London, Heinemann, 1956, esp. pp. 71–81, 87–95, 118–27.

    Google Scholar 

  28. P. Willmott, Adolescent Boys of East London, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966, p. 81;

    Google Scholar 

  29. see M. Young and P. Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957, pp. 144–52.

    Google Scholar 

  30. R. Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life, London, Chatto and Windus, 1957, esp. pp. 238–49. See T. Smith, ‘From Educational Priority Areas to Area-Based Interventions: Community, Neighbourhood and Preschool’, Oxford University Department of Social Policy and Social Work Discussion Paper 2007/07, 2007, p. 6.

    Google Scholar 

  31. A.H. Halsey, No Discouragement: An Autobiography, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1996, p. 124.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  32. D. Donnison, ‘Policies for Priority Areas’, Journal of Social Policy 3, 1974, pp. 131–2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. J. Payne, Educational Priority, vol. 2: EPA Surveys and Statistics, London, HMSO, 1974, figs A (1)–A (2), pp. 8–9, A (5)–A (6), pp. 12–13, fig. A (10), p. 20.

    Google Scholar 

  34. G. Smith (ed.), Educational Priority, vol. 4: The West Riding Project, London, HMSO, 1975, pp. 8–11.

    Google Scholar 

  35. A.H. Halsey (ed.), Educational Priority: EPA Problems and Policies, vol. 1, London, HMSO, 1972, pp. 62–5.

    Google Scholar 

  36. G. Smith and T. Smith, ‘Whatever Happened to EPAs? Part 2: Educational Priority Areas — 40 Years On’, Forum 49, 2007, tables I–III, pp. 150–1. See the earlier discussion of emergent new data sets, all unavailable in the late 1960s,

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. in G. Smith, ‘Urban Education: Current Position and Future Possibilities’, in M. Barber and R. Dann (eds), Raising Educational Standards in the Inner Cities, London, Cassell, 1996, pp. 34–40.

    Google Scholar 

  38. T. Lovett, The Role of School Managers in Educational Priority Areas, Liverpool EPA, 1970, p. 11.

    Google Scholar 

  39. E. Midwinter, Home and School Relations in Educational Priority Areas, Liverpool EPA, 1970, p. 8.

    Google Scholar 

  40. T. Lovett, An Experiment in Adult Education in the EPA, Liverpool EPA, 1971, esp. pp. 28, 33, 41–4.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Ibid., pp. 4–6. On the exhibition itself see K. Pulham, ‘The Great Exhibition 1970’: An Account of a School/Community Experiment, Liverpool EPA, 1971, pp. 3–8.

    Google Scholar 

  42. See esp. H. Acland, ‘Research as Stage Management: The Case of the Plowden Committee’, in M. Bulmer (ed.), Social Research and Royal Commissions, London, Allen and Unwin, 1980, esp. pp. 48–9; H. Acland, ‘Does Parent Involvement Matter?’, New Society, 16 September 1971.

    Google Scholar 

  43. P. Marris and M. Rein, Dilemmas of Social Reform, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967, pp. 225, 228.

    Google Scholar 

  44. D.P. Moynihan, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding, New York, Free Press, 1969, pp. 132–8, 153–6, 203.

    Google Scholar 

  45. Community Development Project Inter-Project Editorial Team, Gilding the Ghetto: The State and the Poverty Experiments, London, CDP, 1977, p. 63.

    Google Scholar 

  46. E. Midwinter, Educational Priority Areas: The Philosophic Question, Liverpool EPA, 1970, p. 4.

    Google Scholar 

  47. G. Whitty, ‘Revisiting School Knowledge: Some Sociological Perspectives on New School Curricula’, European Journal of Education 45, 2010, pp. 28–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. R.N. Rapoport, ‘Three Dilemmas in Action Research’, Human Relations 23, 1970, pp. 505–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. A. Sinfield, Literature, Politics and Culture in Post-War Britain (2nd edn), London, Athlone Press, 1997, pp. 56–7.

    Google Scholar 

  50. J. Welshman, From Transmitted Deprivation to Social Exclusion: Policy, Poverty, and Parenting, Bristol, Policy Press, 2007, pp. 34–9.

    Google Scholar 

  51. K.G. Banting, Poverty, Politics and Policy: Britain in the 1960s, London, Macmillan, 1979, p. 134.

    Google Scholar 

  52. O. Banks, ‘The Sociology of Education, 1952–1982’, British Journal of Educational Studies 30, 1982, p. 23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. C. Chitty, Education Policy in Britain, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp. 40–7.

    Google Scholar 

  54. K. Watson, ‘Education and Opportunity’, in F. Carnevali and J.-M. Strange (eds), Twentieth-Century Britain: Economic, Cultural and Social Change, Harlow, Pearson, 2007, fig. 22.3, p. 359.

    Google Scholar 

  55. S.V. Ward, Planning and Urban Change (2nd edn), London, Sage, 2004, pp. 135–7.

    Google Scholar 

  56. I. Plewis, ‘Inequalities in Education: Targets and Education Action Zones’, Radical Statistics 68, 1998, pp. 71–2.

    Google Scholar 

  57. T. Sefton, A Fair Share of Welfare: Public Spending on Children in England, CASE Report 25, London, CASE, 2004, figs 6–7, p. 18, and table 6, pp. 56–7.

    Google Scholar 

  58. Social Exclusion Unit, The Impact of Government Policy on Social Exclusion Among Children Aged 0–13 and their Families, London, HMSO, 2004, p. 56.

    Google Scholar 

  59. Cm 4045, Bringing Britain Together: A National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal, London, HMSO, 1998, pp. 56, 70.

    Google Scholar 

  60. S. Power and S. Gewirtz, ‘Reading Education Action Zones’, Journal of Education Policy 16, 2001, pp. 45–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. G. Evans, Educational Failure and Working Class White Children, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 6–14.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  62. C. Bryson, A. Kazimirski and H. Southwood, Childcare and Early Years Provision: A Study of Parents’ Use, Views and Experiences, Harlow, Pearson, 2006, table 7.23, p. 212, tables 7.25–7.27, pp. 216–18.

    Google Scholar 

  63. J. Hills, ‘After the Turning Point’, in J. Hills (ed.), New Inequalities: The Changing Distribution of Income and Wealth in the United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 1996, fig. 1.1, p. 3; A. Gosling, S. Machin and C. Meghir, ‘What Has Happened to the Wages of Men since 1966?’, in Hills (ed.), Changing Distribution, fig. 6.4, p. 146.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  64. Wilkinson and Pickett, Spirit Level, fig. 8.4, p. 109; R. Wilkinson and K. Pickett, ‘The Problems of Relative Deprivation: Why Some Societies Do Better than Others’, Social Science and Medicine 65, 2007, fig. 2, p. 1970;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. J.D. Willms, ‘Literacy Proficiency of Youth: Evidence of Converging Socioeconomic Gradients’, International Journal of Educational Research 39, 2003, fig. 1, p. 249.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. J.D. Willms, ‘Quality and Inequality in Children’s Literacy: The Effects of Families, Schools and Communities’, in D.P. Keating and C. Hertzman (eds), Developmental Health and the Wealth of Nations, New York, Guilford Press, 1999, pp, 87–8.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oxford Brookes University, UK

    Glen O’Hara (Reader in the History of Public Policy)

Authors
  1. Glen O’Hara
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 2012 Glen O’Hara

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

O’Hara, G. (2012). Slum Schools, Civil Servants and Sociology: Educational Priority Areas, 1967–72. In: Governing Post-War Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230361270_10

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230361270_10

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-31155-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-36127-0

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation