Schooling in Decline Books of related interest from Macmillan Knowledge and Ideology in the Sociology of Education Gerald Bernbaum Towards the Comprehensive University Robin Pedley The Doctrines of the Great Educators (Fifth Edition) Robert Rusk and James Scotland Education and the Political Order Ted Tapper and Brian Salter Race, Education and Identity Gajendra K. Verma and Christopher Bagley (eds) Schooling in Decline Edited by Gerald Bernbaum ISBN 978-0-333-23294-1 ISBN 978-1-349-16050-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16050-1 © William Anthony, Robin Barrow, Gerald Bernbaum, Gerry Fowler, David Pyle, David Reeder, Tom Whiteside 1979 Reprint of the original edition 1979 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. First published in 1979 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Delhi Dublin Hong Kong Johannesburg Lagos Melbourne New York Singapore and Tokyo British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Schooling in decline. I. Educational sociology - Great Britain I. Bernbaum, Gerald 370.19'3'0941 LCI9I ISBN 978-0-333-23293-4 ISBN 978-0-333-23294-1 Pbk. This book is sold subject to the standard conditions of the Net Book Agreement. The paperback edition of this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Contents Notes on Contributors vii Editorial Introduction GERALD BERNBAUM The Demand for Education 17 DAVID PYLE 2 The Politics of Education 47 GERRY FOWLER 3 Growth and Decline: Dilemmas of a Profession 91 TOM WHITESIDE and GERALD BERNBAUM 4 A Recurring Debate: Education and Industry 115 DA VID REEDER 5 Progressive Learning Theories: the Evidence 149 WILLIAM ANTHONY 6 Back to Basics 182 ROBIN BARROW Notes and References 205 Index 233 Notes on Contributors WILLIAM ANTHONY has taught in the Universities of Durham, Auckland New Zealand, Hull and Leicester, and has written numerous articles in journals of educational psychology. His special field of interest is research on activity and discovery methods. ROBIN BARROW is Lecturer in Education at the University of Leicester, having previously taught at the City of London School. He has been visiting Professor of the Philosophy of Education at the University of Western Ontario. His books include Plato, Utilitarianism and Education, Athenian Democracy and Common Sense and the Curriculum. GERALD BERNBAUM is Professor of Education at the University of Leicester. He has served as a research consultant to O.E.C.D. He is author of Social Change and the Schools, 1918-44 and Knowledge and Ideology in the Sociology of Education. GERR Y FOWLER is Labour M.P. for The Wrekin and has been Minister of State, Privy Council Office. He has lectured at Pembroke, Hertford and Lincoln Colleges, Oxford, and the University of Lancaster, and has held the positions of Dean of Hertford College, Assistant Director of Huddersfield Polytechnic and Professor of Education at the Open University. He is author of Education in Great Britain and Ireland and Decision-making in British Education, and has made numerous contri butions to educational journals. DAVID PYLE is Lecturer at the University of Leicester and has worked as an economist at the Home Office. He has written numerous articles on the economics of education in Urban Education, Sociology and Social and Economic Administration. Vlll Notes on Contributors DAVID REEDER is Lecturer at the University of Leicester. He has taught in schools and in colleges of education, and is a leading figure in the study of urban history in Britain. He is editor of The Vocational Aspects oj Education and Urban Education in the 19th Century. TOM WHITESIDE is Lecturer in the Sociology of Education at the University of Leicester. He has taught at Bristol Polytechnic, and has contributed widely to educational journals. He is author of The Sociology oj Educational Innovation. Editorial Introduction Gerald Bernbaum In preparing this volume of essays, one of the first problems that arose was the decision concerning its title. In recommending Schooling in Decline I found that I provoked an immediate response not only from the potential contributors, but also from the publishers. Nor were they anxious merely about stylistic niceties; they were concerned lest the vofume might be seen as yet another of the contemporary attacks upon the practice of education and those who work in schools, and thus linked, in a simple fashion, to a set of emergent, but essentially reactionary, educational ideologies. To write in favour of these ideologies would almost certainly be to deny the value of virtually all recent educational changes and hence fail to understand both their socio.historical origins and their significance in contemporary society. The contributors to this volume reject most of the current 'one dimensional' debate about such topics as progressivism, educational innovation, comprehensive schools, standards and the like, not because they regard the subject matter of the debate as unimportant, but because they wish to adopt a more complex and subtle approach to the issues involved. In so doing, of course, they similarly reject many of the confident assertions of a decade or so ago, assertions which emphasised the personal fulfilment to be achieved through education, and which associated in a simplistic fashion specific educational changes with the more general elevation and reconstitution of the wider society. It is, therefore, because the authors have doubts about the rhetoric of the educational debate of both the early 19 60s and the late 1970S that I was able to persuade them that the theme I had in mind for the book, which is expressed in the title, accurately reflects the perspectives that collectively we wished to develop. Essentially, the educational story of the last few years is one of a retreat from optimism and a decline not only in the value placed upon education but also in the scale of the 2 Schooling in Decline enterprise. This retreat and decline must be seen in the context of the aspirations which characterised those associated with educational policies in the 1950S and 19 60s. During this period liberal dogmas urged variously that in advanced industrial societies educational expansion and change could be used as the vehicle for bringing about the worthwhile objectives of greater economic efficiency and wider social justice. Similarly, in underde veloped societies educational provision was seen as the key condition for the 'take-off' of economic development and for the maintenance of Western forms of parliamentary democracy. Over more recent years we have, in Feuer's telling phrase, become 'de-ideologised'. There is a more widespread recognition that the simple aspirations of the 1960s are no longer applicable to the conditions that now pertain. Most especially what has altered our thinking has been die transformation in the fates of the Western societies. It is probably the recognition of these wider societal changes that distinguishes the present contributors from other commentators in the educational debate. Too many take what might be termed a 'Whig historian's' view ofthe recent past. They choose too readily for discussion those parts of the educational system which have apparent contemporary significance, and look for explanation of change almost exclusively within the framework of the educational system itself. To do this, however, is to neglect important social and economic elements in the determination of educational policies and innovation and hence to fail to understand both the dynamic of change and its significance. Educational discussions are particularly prone to these deficiencies precisely because of the absence of acceptable empirical evidence which might assist, at least a little, in helping to resolve disputed ideological claims. The period of educational expansion and educational optimism was associated, in the Western societies, with rapid economic growth. As such, therefore, it permitted a perhaps unique conjunction of estab lished educational ideologies which, in part at least, became translated into educational policies. In discussing this period of optimism from which I will wish to argue that schooling has declined, I will adapt the arguments of Karl Mannheim who urged that it is our notions of the past and the future which serve as organising principles in our attempts to understand the social world.l I wish to emphasise the ways in which myths about the past, and hopes about the future, may serve to distort and contravene evidence of what for the moment, I will term, a more scientific kind. Moreover, I am attracted by Parsons' argument2 that