Full Description
Richard Aldrich, Emeritus Professor of History of Education, retired in 2003 after a 30-year career at the Institute of Education, where he continues to serve as Public Orator. In his scholarship, Aldrich has particularly emphasised the importance of historical perspectives and the relationship between the educational past, politics and policy-making. This wide-ranging volume of ten essays, by fellow historians of education who have been privileged to work closely with Aldrich, takes up the theme of history, politics and policy-making, examining such diverse themes as motherhood, gender, race, school curricula and inspection, the teaching of reading, approaches to educating gifted children, economic and historical perspectives on educational policy-making, university politics and national security. Controversies about politics and policy-making are to be found in each of these chapters, which demonstrate how an understanding of the historical past may help us to set in context current educational issues.The volume includes an introduction that pays tribute to Aldrich's leadership of the educational history field in the UK and overseas and a comprehensive listing of his major writings.
Contents
Foreword by Geoff Whitty Introduction by David Crook and Gary McCulloch 1 Mothers of sons, mothers of daughters: the ambiguous figure of the mother in eighteenth-century educational discourse by Michele Cohen 2 Educational policy-making: economic and historical perspectives by Vincent Carpentier 3 'The Member for Education': the life and times of the University of London's final Member of Parliament, Sir Ernest Graham-Little (1867-1950) by David Crook 4 Gender and policy in Birmingham, 1902-44 by Ruth Watts 5 Policy formation and the work of His Majesty's Inspectorate, 1918-45 by Peter Gordon 6 The 'liberal hour'? The Wilson government, race relations, immigrant youth and education, 1965-8 by Dennis Dean 7 Who decides what children learn and how they should learn it? The recent historical experience of the United Kingdom by Roy Lowe 8 Sowing the seeds for the National Literacy Strategy: reading debates in England, 1968-79 by Roger Openshaw and Janet Soler 9 Sorting out the 'children of gold': the policy and politics of gifted education in England by Wendy Robinson 10 Securing our future? National security and the history of education by Gary McCulloch Richard Aldrich: publications 1973-2006
