Hard times for education in England

This paper summarizes a ten-lecture Open Access course in the post-war politics of education in England which can be accessed, together with supporting reading, lecture notes and videos of the lectures via our website at http://radicaled.wordpress.com/. It is submitted to BESA journal in hopes that it will be used by students of education studies and, to help them follow the argument of the course, key concepts are emboldened below. These are generally related as pairs of ‘binaries’ that, while recognizing with Bourdieu the limitations of such ‘paired concepts’, are offered to readers as things to think with; hopefully simplifying reality as much as possible without making it too simple, as Einstein is supposed to have said. For the same reason, citations are kept to a minimum although references can be found in the full lecture notes and supporting materials for the course which are provided on-line. The paper also updates and develops the argument of our 2010 book Lost Generation? New strategies for youth and education (London: Continuum)