This article examines documentation from a previously unpublished architectural survey of English comprehensive secondary school music classrooms, conducted between 1976 and 1978 by a team of Department of Education and Science architects led by David and Mary Medd on behalf of a Schools Council music curriculum research project directed by John…

This essay proposes a feminist research agenda on the history of women teachers' experiences in the latter stages of their career and life. Drawing on extant histories of white women elementary and secondary teachers in the largely Anglo, western world (centred on the United States, Canada, England, Australia and Ireland), the essay explores the…

The origins of the charitable status of elite schools in England is a neglected topic. This article reconstructs the debate on the funding of schools which led to the establishment of the Charity Commission in 1853 and argues that it was the obdurate refusal of the Anglican Church to surrender its control of secondary education which first delayed…

Shena Simon (1883-1972), a leading English socialist and educationist, actively called for the reform of secondary education in the 1930s and 1940s in order to bring the ideal of 'equality of opportunity' into the English educational system. This paper explores the continuity and changes in Simon's proposed reforms in relation to her ideals of…

As educational opportunities for women and girls expanded in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, science and domestic subjects were increasingly linked. This article draws upon research from the history of education and women's history to examine how schools contributed to contemporary constructions of housework. It takes two case studies: the…

Fifty years after the production of Circular 10/65, which confirmed comprehensive education as the national policy for secondary education in England and Wales, it is possible to trace the idea of comprehensive education from the 1940s to the 1960s, to understand the position of the Labour Party in its development, and to assess the nature of the…

This article focuses on Kasuya Yoshi's comparative text, "A Comparative Study of the Secondary Education of Girls in England, Germany and the United States, With a Consideration of the Secondary Education of Girls in Japan," published by Teachers College, Columbia in 1933. The article explores the gendered construction of comparative…

The League of Nations Union (LNU) was one among the many organisations, in different countries, that promoted internationalist education among the young in the interwar years. But it was a particularly large and prominent one and appealed to a wide cross-section of teachers and pupils in English schools. LNU junior branches were established in…

Late nineteenth-century German-English rivalry changed attitudes in Hamburg. Previously, the once fiercely independent city and its burgeoning mercantile middle class had developed an Anglophilia that justified Hamburg being labelled a "London suburb" and "the most British town on the Continent". The affinity for all things…

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…

This paper examines the connections between the school building programme in England and the raising of the school leaving age (ROSLA) from 14 to 15 in 1947 and then to 16 in 1972. These two major developments were intended to help to ensure the realisation of "secondary education for all" in the postwar period. The combination led in…

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…

This article aims to contribute to the field of textbook research by exploring a new approach in textbook analysis. Inspired by Michael Rothberg's concept of multidirectional memory, this article examines multidirectional narratives in history textbooks: narratives that combine different histories, places and times in a productive way. They…

R.H. Tawney (1880-1962), a leading English economic historian and prominent socialist, was vigorously involved in educational reconstruction during the Second World War. For Tawney, the war was a war for social democracy. His ideals of social democracy formed a basis for his case for Public (independent) School reform and free secondary education…

This paper is concerned with the recent history of science curriculum reform in England, though it traces these developments back to the mid-nineteenth century. It first reviews approaches to science in the curriculum until the mid-1960s, identifying the curricular settlement of the postwar years and the beginning of the so-called "swing from…