English teachers in a postwar democracy : emerging choice in London schools, 1945-1965

Conflicting impulses in education in the twenty years after the Second World War, reflecting opposing positions in English society, led to a choice for teachers of English in schools. Where these impulses were not simply conservative, they involved different attitudes to achieving a fully democratic society—whether by cultivating high standards, in particular literary cultivation, in the ablest students or promoting a common cultural experience across abilities and social classes. The authors have studied three London school English departments in unprecedented detail, one of them an early comprehensive school, using oral history interviews and the collection and analysis of a large body of documents, including teachers' mark books and students' work. The move towards a more inclusive version of English involved not only the comprehensive school teachers, but also some in the grammar school - not least those who set up a new London English teachers association