Exploring the changing dynamics of social class educational inequality throughout the history of state education in England: an analysis of four policy documents.

This article contributes a historically reflective critical exploration of the relationship between English state education and social class. In analysing selected historically significant policy documents, the article provides insights into the changing dynamics of social class educational inequality in England. Specifically, how across the life course of English education social class has been 'washed out' or 'erased' from policy documentation and either transmuted into different, sometimes unrelated, ideas or ignored altogether. Firstly, an introduction is locates the contemporary significance of social class to education in England. Thereafter, a section contextualises the history of education in England before the policy documents are analysed. These are: Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission (1868), Report of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education (1895), Secondary Education (1938), and Better Schools (1985). All four documents were not only written at times of policy significance and informed significant government policy but represent important trends in their own right. Through analysing these documents, it is clear how the presence of social class in official policy documents transitioned from unproblematically stated to ignored and 'washed out'. In the final section, this pattern observed is assessed through broader dynamics taking place throughout the twentieth century. What is argued is that although social class was increasingly erased from education policy documentation the significance of it remained but was henceforth misrecognised and hidden. The findings indicate how contemporary social inequalities cannot be addressed in any meaningful way without engaging with the historical genealogies of such inequality and appreciating its historic roots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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