In 2018 the UK government launched a £50 million scheme to fund the expansion of existing grammar schools provided that they increase efforts to attract more pupils from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. This initiative assumed that grammar school attendance boosts the educational attainment and the higher education progression rates of…

Changes to the structure of English education because of decentralisation policy, particularly since 2010, have resulted in the creation of large groupings of schools -- multi-academy trusts, organisations with multi-level governance structures, set out in schemes of delegation. Although the government has demanded absolute clarity on the role and…

This paper focuses on school choice and diversity in the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) in historical context. Drawing on primary and secondary documentary sources it assesses continuity, change and divergence, before addressing existing diversity and school choice, and academic outcomes. The 1944 Education Act and associated…

Religious education was established as a compulsory curriculum requirement in all schools by the 1944 Education Act. It was intended to provide instruction to all pupils in the basic tenets of the Christian faith and ensure that every successive generation of pupils understood the role of Christianity in British history and the national sense of…

This article re-visits contestation and critique over the nationwide introduction of comprehensive secondary schools in post-war England. In so doing, it considers the contribution of scholar-activist Caroline Benn (1926--2000) and a network of progressive educators who were challenging ideas about fixed ability or potential and aspiring to build…

This critical policy analysis investigates the opinions and activities of Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education (SACREs) in England. It uses a critical approach to educational policy to examine the diffuse power structure of SACREs and give voice to those local councils. Using data gathered in an online survey of SACREs, conducted…

This paper explores the impact of selection by ability in schooling systems on individual lives. It draws on narratives collected with a group of 18 people (accessed through a local U3A group) who were at school in Britain in a period from the 1940s through to the 1960s. This period saw significant changes in society and to schooling following the…

To explain the inequalities in access to a discrete good G across two populations, or across time in a single national context, it is necessary to distinguish, for each population or period of time, the effect of the diffusion of G from that of unequal outcomes of underlying micro-social processes. The inequality of outcomes of these micro-social…

This paper explores 'home-school' transport in contemporary schooling contexts in England. Home-school transport is a complex issue lying between government departments, policy frameworks, research and professional disciplines. It is complicated further by commercial and private interests alongside social and public ones. Informed by an…

This article examines John Newsom's contributions to non-fiction BBC radio and television coverage of education, poverty, and social disadvantage from 1934 to 1971. The correspondence and scripts concerning his BBC broadcasts for a domestic UK-based audience and an overseas audience are used as source material. Newsom is well known among…

Challenges for students who are "first-in-family" to attend university have been discussed within widening participation discourse. However, in the UK, "first-in-family" or first-generation students have frequently been conflated with those experiencing poverty or from lower socio-economic groups. This research integrated…

This article is based on an inaugural professorial lecture given by Jane Martin at the University of Birmingham on 3 December 2014. It grew out of research in progress on the life and work of the leading educational reformer, Caroline Benn, wife of one of the most prominent and controversial post-war socialists in Britain, Tony Benn.

Fred Clarke (1880-1952), an English educationist, emerged as a leading figure with his liberal approach alongside such key figures as R. H. Tawney and Cyril Norwood in the reform leading to the 1944 Education Act. Many of his reform proposals, which were provided by the new Act, reflected his ideals of liberal democracy. Nevertheless, his…

The review of the National Curriculum and the centenary of the First World War have emphasised an orthodox patriotic and nostalgic historical ideal. The British coalition Conservative-Liberal government has aligned itself with the centenary commemorations of the First World War, while the war as social and political history may be in danger of…

This article revisits the three decades following the end of World War Two--a time when, following the 1944 Education Act, local education authorities (LEAs) were the key agencies responsible for running the education system across England. For the first time, there was a statutory requirement for LEAs to secure adequate facilities for further…