This article draws on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century teaching manuals, reports of Her Majesty's Inspectors, history textbooks ("readers"), other administrators' and teachers' accounts, policy documents and pupils' reminiscences to refute common and generalised assessments of the period (often by those…

This paper utilises an interpretivist framework and recent developments in practice theory to examine the conditions which influence practices of socialising into the role of school principal in Trinidad and Tobago. The results indicate that for the 11 early career primary school principals, role socialisation occurs within complex "practice…

The mechanics' institute movement of the British Isles has been underrated by some historians, who have argued that many of the institutes were attended by the middle and upper classes. In any case, they state that by the 1850s, they were declining in both popularity and usefulness. This paper questions these assumptions, concentrating on the…

Neoliberal agendas have acted to limit the agency of groups and of individuals through both the imposition of boundaries and through setting up rigorous systems of accountability which together act to codify behaviours. Such systems do not so much remove freedom as influence conceptions about the alternatives available. In this article we outline…

In the Kingdom of Bavaria, the capital city, Munich, created in 1873 positions as "Oberlehrer"--a head teacher in primary schools ("Volksschulen") responsible for one school for boys and one school for girls. The mere existence of these male "Oberlehrer" challenged for the first time the exclusive power of Catholic and Lutheran clerics in the…

The appropriateness of history in primary schools is yet again questioned in the Rose Review ("The Times," 8 December 2008). This age-old debate was in part silenced with the subject's inclusion for all pupils in the National Curriculum, but is raging once more. The Office for Standards in Education (OfSTED) has cautioned that history is becoming…

This paper attempts a comparative analysis of classification and framing relationships as they are exemplified in the four papers presented in this Special Issue. In particular, it interrogates Bernstein's assertion that education is simply a relay for power relations external to it and examines approaches to educational leadership and…

It is common in the literature to refer to British colonial education policy as if it were "a settled course adopted and purposefully carried into action", but in reality it was never like that. Contrary to popular belief, the size and diversity of the empire meant that no one really ruled it in any direct sense. Clearly some kind of authority had…

In the United Kingdom, television for schools is 50 years old in 2007. The anniversary provides a reason to undertake an exploratory history of school broadcasting, an area that has received very little attention from historians of British education. The first part of this article examines the origins of school radio broadcasting, focusing…

This article traces the way in which a study by a practitioner researcher into the experience of identity is interwoven into everyday practice, and impacts on the future development of the self and how research is framed. I am a woman, a headteacher, a wife, a mother, and this range of identities, together with the labels and the expectations in…

This article examines continuity and change in the management of gender with specific reference to infant mistresses, whose quest for autonomous control of their own departments in the largest South Australian primary schools threatened the maintenance of patriarchal authority in and through the administration of state schooling. The complex…

Certification tests for elementary teachers in Ontario were introduced in 1871 and in 2002. Although the provincial government's stated goals for the testing programs were similar, the 2002 program was opposed by the initial teacher education programs and the teachers' associations, but the 1871 program was not. The authors argue that much of this…

Virtually all writings about "Methodist involvement" in state-provided English education use Wesleyan material. It is the most accessible and it is complete: every year there is a report from the Wesleyan Education Committee to the Conference. Official information on the attitudes of the other British Methodist churches to elementary education can…

The official baptism of primary education offered in the "Hadow Report" of 1926 signalled a new beginning for "elementary" education. The indication that primary education would form the basis of a progressive and continuing education until the age of 14 was an important statement of intent. However, if Hadow signified the baptism of primary…

Boys' underachievement has to some extent been attributed to the feminisation of the teaching profession. The authors understand the concept of feminisation to mean in the first instance an increase in the number of women teachers in primary schools as a proportion of the total work force. The evidence the authors have for this pragmatic…