Professional Documents
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Gary McCulloch
To cite this article: Gary McCulloch (2012) The history of secondary education in History of
Education , History of Education, 41:1, 25-39, DOI: 10.1080/0046760X.2011.644884
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History of Education
Vol. 41, No. 1, January 2012, 25–39
In the first 40 years of its existence, History of Education has included a steady
stream of articles on the history of secondary education. This paper will examine
the nature of these articles, the aspects of secondary education which they have
emphasised, and the overall contribution of the journal to our understanding of the
history of secondary education over this time. It will also assess the current state of
the field and the potential for further research in this area in the future.
From 1972 to 2011, over 120 articles fully or largely on aspects of the history
of secondary education were published in History of Education. This constituted a
significant corpus of work over this period as a whole. In analysing this extensive
set of research, following an initial review of these articles, it seems helpful to iden-
tify 10 key topics or sub-areas. These topics are the secondary school curriculum,
examinations, pre-nineteenth-century developments in secondary education, religion,
public schools (in the British context, that is, private education), grammar and
endowed schools, individual schools, secondary education for girls, international
and national studies, and secondary education policy. As key topics, while they
have certainly overlapped each other and many articles have contributed to more
than one, they have been addressed very differently over the years. They demon-
strate highly consistent and substantial production in some areas, while others have
received only scant or sporadic attention. Furthermore, some themes were popular
in the first part of the period before going into decline, while others began slowly
before attracting a growth in interest over the past two decades. It is possible that
other specialised journals have taken precedence in some areas, but History of
Education was established as a key journal in relation to topics in the history of
*Email: g.mcculloch@ioe.ac.uk
education from a very early stage. At the same time, this literature as a whole has
highlighted some general issues that merit broader reflection, for example in relation
to progressive education, citizenship and social mobility.
In analysing the output of the journal in this way, it is important to take into
account the broader context of its work. A general framework for this might well
be that provided by the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim, who pointed out
in his classic study of the history of secondary education in France that the institu-
tions of secondary education were best understood in relation to their history. It was
their history, as he argued, that explained their aims and ideals, and also the depth
of the dilemmas that confronted them.1 It is apt to recall that Durkheim’s historical
study was intended to help comprehend the fate of secondary education at a time
when it was ‘intellectually disorientated’ between ‘a past which is dying and a
future which is still undecided’.2 He argued that while traditional faith in classics as
the basis for secondary education had been shaken, there was nothing new to put in
its place.3 Moreover, he warned, aspects of the past were prone to disappear even
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when they could and should have become familiar features to help guide present
and future developments.4 As in Durkheim’s time, over the past 40 years secondary
education has undergone many fundamental changes, both in Britain and around
the world, and the writing of its history was generated in the light of this rapidly
changing present. Indeed, writings on the history of secondary education over this
time may be interpreted not only for what they reveal about the past, but for what
they tell us about the present.
The history of secondary education as represented in History of Education has
also been related to bodies of literature that were built up elsewhere, in terms of
other contributions in this particular area, the more general development of the his-
tory of education as a field, and overarching trends in research in education, history
and the social sciences. So far as this historiographical context was concerned, the
history of education faced increasing challenges to what had appeared a strong posi-
tion at the time when History of Education was launched, while becoming more
diverse in the range of its research, and generally more willing to engage with
methodological and theoretical approaches from across history and the social sci-
ences.5 This paper will seek to identify future directions that may be able to build
further on these recent developments in the field.
1
E. Durkheim, The Evolution of Educational Thought: Lectures on the Formation and
Development of Secondary Education in France (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1977),
8.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid., 10.
4
Ibid., 13.
5
G. McCulloch, The Struggle for the History of Education (London: Routledge, 2011).
History of Education 27
reform both in Britain and in many other countries around the world, representing a
protracted debate over key issues and priorities.
In 1972, secondary education in the UK was embarking on a set of innova-
tions that were to have far-reaching consequences. The Labour Government of
the 1960s had promoted the development of comprehensive schools for all
pupils in the state system over 11 years of age, rather than the differentiation
between grammar schools, technical schools and non-selective modern schools
that had been the dominant pattern since the Education Act of 1944. The Con-
servative Government elected in 1970 had attempted to resist this nationwide
trend towards comprehensive schools, but its secretary of state for education and
science, Margaret Thatcher, found herself nevertheless obliged to approve large
numbers of applications to become comprehensive schools. By the end of her
tenure in office, there were over 2000 comprehensive schools in England and
Wales, with about 60% of pupils.6 At the same time, the school leaving age in
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the United Kingdom was raised as from the 1972–1973 school year from 15 to
16, representing a further significant growth in secondary education, part of the
‘framework for expansion’ that was celebrated in the Education White Paper of
1972.7
The following 40 years, within the UK, witnessed first the consolidation of com-
prehensive schooling as the dominant pattern of secondary education, but then a
succession of reforms that provided a renewed emphasis on specialisation and dif-
ferentiation. Under Conservative Governments from 1979 to 1997, and then Labour
Governments from 1997 to 2010, secondary education became a principal focus for
initiatives designed to improve standards, and which led to much stronger control
being exerted to facilitate further change.8 In different parts of the world, too, sec-
ondary education came under increasing pressures, notably as the basic model of
comprehensive education for all was challenged through alternative strategies of
provision.9
These contemporary debates were reflected in the historiography of secondary
education, as more or less settled accounts of secondary education that represented
its history in terms of gradual change and improvement over the long term became
invaded by doubts and contentions over rival nostrums. At the same time, the his-
tory of education responded to broader developments in social history which
became a specialised academic field in Britain from the 1950s and 1960s.10 R.L.
6
See D. Crook, ‘Missing, Presumed Dead? What Happened to the Comprehensive School
in England and Wales?’, in The Death of the Comprehensive High School?: Historical,
Contemporary, and Comparative Perspectives, ed. B. Franklin and G. McCulloch (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 152.
7
Department of Education and Science, Education: A Framework for Expansion (London:
HMSO, 1972).
8
See e.g. G. McCulloch, ‘Education Policy and Practice’, in A Companion to Life Course
Studies: The Social and Historical Context of the British Birth Cohort Studies, ed. M. Wads-
worth and J. Bynner (London: Routledge, 2011), 69–90, for an overview of these develop-
ments.
9
See e.g. C. Campbell and G. Sherington, The Comprehensive Public High School: Histori-
cal Perspectives (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); and Franklin and McCulloch, eds,
The Death of the Comprehensive High School? (2007).
10
See J. Obelkevich, ‘New Developments in History in the 1950s and 1960s’, Contemporary
British History 13, no. 4, (2000): 126–42; D. Cannadine, Making History, Now and Then:
Discoveries, Controversies and Explorations (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
28 G. McCulloch
11
R.L. Archer, Secondary Education in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1921); J. Graves, Policy and Progress in Secondary Education
1902–1942 (London: Thomas Nelson, 1943); see McCulloch, Struggle for the History
of Education, especially Chapter 2 on the history of education as a story of social
progress.
12
O. Banks, Parity and Prestige in Secondary Education: A Study in Educational Sociology
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955). See also A.H. Halsey, ‘The Relation Between
Education and Social Mobility with Reference to the Grammar School since 1944’ (PhD the-
sis, University of London, 1954); and G. McCulloch, ‘Parity and Prestige in English Second-
ary Education Revisited’, British Journal of Sociology of Education 29, no. 4 (2008):
381–89.
13
B. Simon, The Politics of Educational Reform, 1920–1940 (London: Lawrence & Wishart,
1974).
14
F. Hunt, Gender and Policy in Secondary Education: Schooling for Girls, 1902–44 (Lon-
don: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991).
15
Examples include R. Lowe, ‘Secondary Education since the Second World War’, in The
Changing Secondary School, ed. R. Lowe (London: Falmer Press, 1989), 4–19; G. McCul-
loch, ‘Secondary Education’, in A Century of Education, ed. R. Aldrich (London: Routl-
edge, 2001), 31–53; G. McCulloch, ‘From Incorporation to Privatisation: Public and
Private Secondary Education in Twentieth-century England’, in Public or Private Educa-
tion?: Lessons from History, ed. R. Aldrich (London: Woburn Press, 2004), pp. 53–72; W.
Richardson, ‘The Weight of History: Structures, Patterns and Legacies of Secondary Edu-
cation in the British Isles, c. 1200–c. 1980’ (2011), London Review of Education 9, no.
2:153–73.
16
For Scotland, see e.g. H.M. Paterson, ‘Incubus and Ideology: The Development of
Secondary Schooling in Scotland, 1900–1939’, in Scottish Culture and Scottish Edu-
cation, 1800–1980, ed. W.M. Humes and H.M. Paterson (Edinburgh: John Donald,
1983); R.D. Anderson, Education and Opportunity in Victorian Scotland: Schools
and Universities (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983); R.D. Anderson, ‘Secondary
Schools and Scottish Society in the Nineteenth Century’, Past and Present 109
(1985): 176–203.
17
See for example G.E. Evans, Perspectives on a Century of Secondary Education in Wales
(Aberystwyth: University College of Wales, 1990); G.E. Evans, Education and Female
Emancipation: The Welsh Experience, 1847–1914 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press,
1990); G.E. Evans, Examining the Secondary Schools of Wales, 1896–2000 (Cardiff: Univer-
sity of Wales Press, 2008).
History of Education 29
18
For example D. Allsobrook, Schools for the Shires: The Reform of Middle-Class Edu-
cation in Mid-Victorian England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986); and
M. Bryant, The London Experience of Secondary Education (London: Athlone Press,
1986).
19
For instance, W.A.L. Vincent, The Grammar Schools: Their Continuing Tradition,
1660–1714 (London: John Murray, 1969); W. Reid and J. Filby, The Sixth: An Essay in
Education and Democracy (Lewes: Falmer Press, 1982); G. McCulloch, The Secondary
Technical School: A Usable Past? (London: Falmer Press, 1989); G. McCulloch, Philoso-
phers and Kings: Education for Leadership in Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991); G. McCulloch, Failing the Ordinary Child?: The Theory and
Practice of Working Class Secondary Education (Maidenhead: Open University Press,
1998); M. Vlaeminke, The English Higher Grade Schools: A Lost Opportunity (London:
Woburn, 2000).
20
J. Roach, A History of Secondary Education in England, 1800–1870 (London: Longman,
1986); J. Roach, Secondary Education in England 1870–1902: Public Activity and Private
Enterprise (London: Routledge, 1991).
21
E.C. Mack, Public Schools and British Opinion, 1780–1860: An Examination of the Rela-
tionship between Contemporary Ideas and the Evolution of an English Institution (London:
Methuen, 1938); E.C. Mack, Public Schools and British Opinion since 1860: The Relation-
ship between Contemporary Ideas and the Evolution of an English Institution (London:
Methuen, 1941).
22
See J. Honey, Tom Brown’s Universe: The Development of the English Public School
in the Nineteenth Century (London: Millington Books, 1977); and J.A. Mangan, Athleti-
cism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1986).
23
An early example was M. Waring, Social Pressures and Curriculum Innovation: A
Study of the Nuffield Foundation Science Teaching Project (London: Methuen, 1979) ;
also e.g. M. Price, ed., The Development of the Secondary Curriculum (London: Croom
Helm, 1986).
24
I. Goodson, Social Histories of the Secondary Curriculum: Subjects for Study (London:
Falmer Press, 1985); G. McCulloch, E.W. Jenkins and D. Layton, Technological Revolu-
tion?: The Politics of School Science and Technology in England and Wales since 1945
(London: Falmer Press, 1985); B. Cooper, Renegotiating Secondary School Mathematics: A
Study of Curriculum Change and Stability (London: Falmer Press, 1985); B. Woolnough,
Physics Teaching in Schools 1960–85: Of People, Politics and Power (London: Falmer
Press, 1988); P. Medway and I. Goodson, eds, Bringing English to Order: The History and
Politics of a School Subject (London: Falmer Press, 1990).
30 G. McCulloch
25
D. Labaree, The Making of an American High School: The Credentials Market and
the Central High School of Philadelphia, 1838–1939 (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1989); W.J. Reese, The Origins of the American High School (New Haven; Yale
University Press, 1995); J. Herbst, The Once and Future School: 350 Years of
American Secondary Education (London: Routledge, 1996); C. Kridel and R.V.
Bullough Jr, Stories of the Eight-Year Study: Reexamining Secondary Education in
America (New York, State University of New York Press, 2007); J.L. Rudolph, Scien-
tists in the Classroom: The Cold War Reconstruction of American Science Education
(New York: Palgrave 2002).
26
R.D. Gidney, Inventing Secondary Education: The Rise of the High School in Nineteenth
Century Ontario (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990); S. Thogerson, Second-
ary Education in China after Mao: Reform and Social Conflict (Aarhus: Aarhus University
Press, 1990); J.S. Albisetti, Secondary School Reform in Imperial Germany (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, n.d.); J.S. Albisetti, Schooling German Girls and Women: Sec-
ondary and Higher Education in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University
Press; 1988).
27
Paedagogica Historica 40, nos 1–2 (2004), Special Issue, ‘Secondary Education: Institu-
tional, Cultural and Social History’.
28
P. Savoie, A. Bruter and W. Frijhoff, ‘Secondary Education: Institutional, Cultural and
Social History’, Paedagogica Historica 40, nos 1–2 (2004): 14.
29
M. VanOverbeke, The Standardisation of American Schooling: Linking Secondary and
Higher Education, 1870–1910 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2008); G. McCulloch, Cyril
Norwood and the Ideal of Secondary Education (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007);
G. Sherington and C. Campbell, The Comprehensive Public High School: Historical,
Contemporary, and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); R.
Openshaw, Reforming New Zealand Secondary Education: The Picot Report and the Road
to Radical Reform (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
30
S. Wiborg, Education and Social Integration: Comprehensive Schooling in Europe (New
York:Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); J.C. Albisetti, J. Goodman and R. Rogers, eds, Girls’
Secondary Education in the Western World: From the 18th to the 20th Century (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
History of Education 31
significantly declined over the period as a whole in the amount of attention that this
topic received from authors. On the other hand, the history of girls’ secondary edu-
cation and of policy issues in secondary education, after attracting scant interest in
the first two decades of the journal’s life, became increasingly prominent in its third
and fourth decades.
By far the most dominant topic in the area of secondary education over this 40-
year span was the history of the curriculum. Nearly 50 articles were devoted to this
topic, including 20 in the final decade. Most of these papers concentrated on a particu-
lar subject in the curriculum, with only a few attempting a broader approach. In the
first few years, the well-known historian Charles Webster published a preliminary sur-
vey of the literature on the grammar school curriculum in the sixteenth century.31 In
the following decade, Nanette Whitbread assessed the early twentieth-century
curriculum debate in England, and there were later treatments of curriculum access in
Australia and of the high school curriculum in Detroit, USA.32 By comparison with
these somewhat rare sorties into the general domain of the curriculum, investigations
of specific subjects were highly popular. No fewer than 18 papers discussed aspects
of the secondary science curriculum, and attention was also given to mathematics,
English, history, geography, Latin, modern languages, music, embroidery, military
education and religious education.
The journal’s frequent inclusion of articles on the secondary science curricu-
lum is an interesting example of its contribution to the wider literature on the his-
tory of secondary education. This was an especially common theme in the
journal’s first decade, when eight papers were published around this topic. These
were all substantial treatments of key developments and issues, mainly in the con-
text of Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, by leading historians of
science education. For example, David Layton analysed the educational work
of the Parliamentary Committee of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, Tony Mansell discussed the influence of medicine on science
31
C. Webster, ‘The Curriculum of the Grammar Schools and Universities: A Critical Review
of the Literature’, History of Education 4, no. 1 (1975): 51–68.
32
N. Whitbread, ‘The Early Twentieth Century Secondary Curriculum Debate in England’,
History of Education 13, no. 3 (1984): 221–33; R. Teese, ‘Scholastic Power and Curriculum
Access: Public and Private Schooling in Postwar Australia’, History of Education 24, no. 4
(1995): 353–67; B. Franklin, ‘Community, Race, and Curriculum in Detroit: the Northern
High School Walkout’, History of Education 33, no. 2 (2004): 137–56.
32 G. McCulloch
Other subjects in the secondary school curriculum were treated more sparingly.
Mathematics education was surprisingly rare as a topic with only three substantial
articles featured over 40 years.38 The English curriculum was also largely absent,
with only occasional appearances.39 Latin and the classics, too, received scant
33
D. Layton, ‘The Educational Work of the Parliamentary Committee of the British Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science’, History of Education, 5, no. 1 (1976): 25–39; A.L.
Mansell, ‘The Influence of Medicine on Science Education in England, 1892–1911’, History
of Education 5, no. 2 (1976): 155–68; E.W. Jenkins, ‘The Development of School Biology,
1918–1945’, History of Education 8, no. 1 (1979): 59–73; M. Waring, ‘Background to Nuf-
field Science’, History of Education 8, no. 3 (1979): 223–37.
34
R.J. Palmer, ‘The Influence of F.W. Sanderson on the Development of Science and Engi-
neering at Dulwich College, 1885–1892’, History of Education 6, no. 2 (1977): 121–30; A.
J. Flintham, ‘The Contribution of Arthur Smithells, FRS to Science Education’, History of
Education 6, no. 3(1977): 195–208.
35
E.W. Jenkins, ‘The Association for Science Education and the Struggle to Establish a Pol-
icy for School Science in England and Wales, 1976–81’, History of Education 27, no. 4
(1998): 441–59; J. Collins, ‘Of Sheep’s Pluck and Science Exhibitions: The Professional
Life of Mother Bernard Towers RSM (1883–1963)’, History of Education 38, no. 5 (2009):
649–66; J. Hallstrom, ‘“To Hold the Subject’s Territory”: the Swedish Association of Biol-
ogy Teachers and Two Curricular Reforms, 1960–1965’, History of Education 39, no. 2
(2010): 239–59.
36
J. Donnelly, ‘The “Humanist” Critique of the Place of Science in the Curriculum in the
Nineteenth Century and its Continuing Legacy’, History of Education 31, no. 6 (2002):
535–55; J. Donnelly and J. Ryder, ‘The Pursuit of Humanity: Curriculum Change in English
School Science’, History of Education 40, no. 3 (2011): 291–313.
37
Although see for example D.P. Newton, ‘A French Influence on 19th and 20th Century
Physics Teaching in English Secondary Schools’, History of Education 12, no. 3 (1983):
191–207.
38
M. Price, ‘Mathematics in English Education 1860–1914: Some Questions and
Explanations in Curriculum History’, History of Education 12, no. 4 (1983): 271–84;
D. Harding, ‘Mathematics and Science Education in Eighteenth Century Northampton-
shire’, History of Education 1, no. 2 (1972): 139–59; P. Elliott, ‘“Improvement,
Always and Everywhere”: William George Spencer (1790–1866) and Mathematical,
Geographical and Scientific Education in Nineteenth-century England’, History of Edu-
cation 33, no. 4 (2004): 391–417.
39
An important recent contribution in this area is P. Medway and P. Kingwall, ‘A Curricu-
lum in its Place: English Teaching in one School, 1946–1963’, History of Education 39, no.
6 (2010): 749–65.
History of Education 33
40
Exceptions were C. Mooney, ‘Vanquishing the Hydra-headed Monster: the Struggle to
Establish the Classical Curriculum in New South Wales Schools, 1788–1850’, History of
Education 26, no. 4 (1997): 335–52; W. Wraga, ‘Latin Literacy Redux: The Classical
Investigation in the United States, 1921–1924’, History of Education 38, no.1 (2009):
79–98.
41
S. Bayley and D. Yavorsky-Ronish, ‘Gender: Modern Languages and the Curriculum in
Victorian England’, History of Education 21, no. 4 (1992): 363–82; S. Bayley, ‘The Direct
Method and Modern Language Teaching in England, 1880–1918’, History of Education 27,
no. 1 (1998): 39–57; M. Benson, ‘Port-Royal and the Nineteenth Century Paradigm Shift in
Language Teaching’, History of Education 31, no. 6 (2002): 521–34; M. Tomalin, ‘“The
Torment of Every Seminary”: The Teaching of French in British schools, 1780–1830’ His-
tory of Education 40, no. 4 (2011): 447–64.
42
For example, B.J. Elliott, ‘The League of Nations Union and History Teaching in Eng-
land: A Study in Benevolent Bias’, History of Education 6, no. 2 (1977): 131–41; G.
Wegner, ‘Affirmation of a Tradition: the German-American Dialogue over the Curriculum
in West German Secondary Schools, 1950–1955’, History of Education 21, no. 1 (1992):
83–96; B. Vanhulle, ‘The Path of History: Narrative Analysis of History Textbooks – A
Case Study of Belgian History Textbooks (1945–2004)’, History of Education 38, no. 1
(2009): 263–82.
43
P. Knight, ‘Subject Associations: The Case of Secondary Phase Geography and
Home Economics, 1976–94’, History of Education 25, no. 3 (1996): 269–84; P.
Elliott and S. Daniels, ‘“No Study so Agreeable to the Youthful Mind”: Geographi-
cal Education in the Georgian Grammar School’, History of Education 39, no. 1
(2010): 15–33.
44
A. Jacobs and J. Goodman, ‘Music in the “Common” Life of the School: Towards an Aes-
thetic Education For All in English Girls’ Secondary Schools in the Interwar Period’, History
of Education 35, no. 6 (2006): 669–87; S. Woodall, ‘William Horsley: Music Master at Miss
Black’s Boarding-School for Young Ladies, 1828–1940’, History of Education 38, no. 2
(2009): 169–89; R. Freathy, ‘The Triumph of Religious Education for Citizenship in English
Schools, 1935–1949’, History of Education 37, no. 2 (2008): 295–316; S. Wood, ‘Women’s
Work or Creative Work?: Embroidery in New South Wales High Schools’, History of Educa-
tion 38, no. 6 (2009): 779–89.
45
J. Roach, ‘Examinations and the Secondary Schools, 1900–1945’, History of Education 8,
no. 1 (1979): 45–58.
46
P.R. Sharp, ‘The Origin and Early Development of Local Education Authority Scholar-
ships’, History of Education 3, no. 1 (1974): 36–50; D. Muller, ‘The Qualifications Crisis
and School Reform in Late Nineteenth Century Germany’, History of Education 9, no. 4
(1980): 315–31; B.J. Elliott, ‘History Examinations at 16 and 18 Years in England and
Wales between 1918 and 1939’, History of Education 20, no. 2 (1991): 119–29; Brooks, V.,
‘The Role of External Examinations in the Making of Secondary Modern Schools in Eng-
land, 1945–65’, History of Education 37, no. 3 (2008): 447–68.
34 G. McCulloch
gence testing attracted surprisingly little interest, with only two papers published on
this topic.47 One might have expected a higher return of articles in this area, espe-
cially in view of the important role of examinations in selection and in ideals and
practices of merit in modern societies, and there could be scope for greater attention
to be given to examinations in future work.
An example of a topic in the history of secondary education where there was a
high level of interest initially which dwindled in later years is that of the origins of
secondary education before the nineteenth century. As many as 13 articles were
published in the journal on different aspects of this in the first decade, and only six
in the subsequent three decades combined. In the 1970s, several studies explored
Tudor and Stuart developments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.48 Atten-
tion was also given to endowed schools and private classical schools in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries.49 The study of secondary education in the
Elizabethan Reformation declined sharply in the pages of the journal from the
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1980s onwards. After two papers on this topic were published in 1982, the only
one after this date was by Joan Simon, herself a veteran in the field, in 1994.50
Eighteenth-century dissenting academies were occasionally revisited for study,51 but
on the whole these early developments were pursued only rarely.
Another topic that suffered from a general lack of attention, especially in the
third and fourth decades, was religion. Some interesting contributions were pub-
lished in this regard, for example on Irish Anglican secondary schools in the later
nineteenth century and on John Russell as a theologian and rationalist.52 This was
scant recognition for a dimension that was historically deeply rooted in secondary
education, and together with the decline of interest in pre-nineteenth-century devel-
opments it appeared to betoken a shift in concerns towards the recent and the
secular.
47
J. Stocks, ‘Objective Bees in Psychological Bonnets: Intelligence Testing and Selection for
Secondary Education in Scotland between the Wars’, History of Education 29, no. 3 (2000):
225–38; D. Thom, ‘Politics and the People: Brian Simon and the Campaign Against Intelli-
gence Tests in British Schools’, History of Education 33, no. 5 (2004): 515–29.
48
For example, R. O’Day, ‘Church Records and the History of Education in Early Modern
England 1558–1642: A Problem in Methodology’, History of Education 2, no. 1 (1973):
115–32; R. Tittler, ‘Education and the Gentleman in Tudor England: The Case of Sir Nicho-
las Bacon’, History of Education 5, no. 1 (1976): 3–10; ‘The Education of English Gentle-
men 1540–1640’, History of Education 6, no. 2 (1977): 87–101.
49
For instance, A. Smith, ‘Endowed Schools in the Diocese of Lichfield and Coventry
1660–99’, History of Education 4, no. 2 (1975): 5–20; M. Wallbank, ‘Eighteenth Century
Public Schools and the Education of the Governing Elite’, History of Education 8, no. 1
(1979): 1–19; J. Simon, ‘Private Classical Schools in Eighteenth Century England: a Critique
of Hans’, History of Education 8, no. 3 (1979): 179–91.
50
R.D. Croft, ‘Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and the Education of the English Clergy, 1533–
1553’, History of Education, 11, no. 3 (1982): 155–64; J. Anglin, ‘Frustrated Ideals: The
Case of Elizabethan Grammar School Foundations’, History of Education 11, no. 4 (1982):
267–79; J. Simon, ‘The State and Schooling at the Reformation and After: From Pious
Causes to Charitable Uses’, History of Education 23, no. 2 (1994): 157–69.
51
M. Mercer, ‘Dissenting Academies and the Education of the Laity, 1750–1850’, History of
Education 30, no. 1 (2001): 35–58; D. Reid, ‘Education as a Philanthropic Enterprise: The
Dissenting Academies of Eighteenth Century England’, History of Education 39, no. 3
(2010): 299–317.
52
K. Flanagan, ‘The Shaping of Irish Anglican Secondary Schools, 1854–1878’ History of
Education 13, no. 1 (1984): 27–43; R. Brooks, ‘John Russell: Theologian Turned Rationalist
Educator’, History of Education 22, no. 4 (1993): 335–51.
History of Education 35
On the other hand, there was continuing interest evidenced in elite forms of
private education, especially in the English public schools and their international
influence, and in the local endowed and grammar schools. So far as the public
schools were concerned, several papers concentrated on aspects of their environ-
ment and cultural authority in their Victorian pomp. The athleticism that was so
much a feature of the Victorian public schools was the focus of one paper, and
their buildings provided the basis for another study.53 J.A. Mangan’s important
work on the ‘imperial diffusion’ of the public school ethos was published in the
journal at an early stage,54 while the lasting effects of this around the world in
the twentieth century in different kinds of secondary schools were also rehearsed
in some depth.55 The Victorian grammar schools were also highlighted in a
number of papers by Allsobrook, Fletcher, McCulloch and others, with their
local middle-class roots a matter of sustained discussion.56 However, much less
attention was accorded to working-class forms of secondary education for the
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53
N.J. Humble, ‘Leaving London: A Story of Two Public Schools and Athleticism, 1870–
1914’, History of Education 17, no. 2 (1988):149–62; W. Whyte, ‘Building a Public School
Community, 1860–1910’, History of Education 32, no. 6 (2003): 601–26.
54
J.A. Mangan, ‘Eton in India: The Imperial Diffusion of a Victorian Educational Ethic’,
History of Education 7, no. 2 (1978): 105–18.
55
See for example G. McCulloch, ‘Imperial and Colonial Designs: The Case of Auckland
Grammar School’, History of Education 17, no. 4 (1988): 257–67.
56
D. Allsobrook, ‘The Reform of the Endowed Schools: The Work of the Northamptonshire
Educational Society, 1854–1874’, History of Education 2, no. 2 (1973): 35–55; S. Fletcher,
‘Co-education and the Victorian Grammar School’, History of Education 11, no. 2 (1982):
87–98; G. McCulloch, ‘Education and the Middle Classes: The Case of the English Middle
Classes, 1868–1944’, History of Education 35, no. 6 (2006): 689–704.
57
An exception was G. McCulloch and L. Sobell, ‘Towards a Social History of the Second-
ary Modern Schools’, History of Education, 23, no. 3 (1994): 275–86.
58
For example, Mangan, ‘Eton in India’; E. Cowie, ‘Stephen Cawtrey and a Working-class
Eton’, History of Education 11, no. 2 (1982): 71–86.
59
P. Searby, ‘The New School and the New Life: Cecil Reddie (1858–1932) and the Early
Years of Abbotsholme School’, History of Education 18, no. 1 (1989): 1–21; M. Tozer,
‘“The Readiest Hand and the Most Open Heart”: Uppingham’s First Missions to the Poor’,
History of Education 18, no. 4 (1989): 323–32; P. Gronn, ‘An Experiment in Political Edu-
cation: “V.G.”, “Slimy” and the Repton Sixth, 1916–18’, History of Education 19, no. 1
(1990): 1–21; R. Brooks, ‘In a World Set Apart: The Dalton Dynasty at King Alfred School,
1920–62’, History of Education 27, no. 4 (1998): 421–40; C. Watkins, ‘Inventing Interna-
tional Citizenship: Badminton School and the Progressive Tradition between the Wars’, His-
tory of Education 36, no. 3 (2007): 315–38.
36 G. McCulloch
Institut d’Etudes Politiques were also closely analysed,60 as was the Ghanaian
school for future leaders, Achimota School.61 Less favoured schools were not
featured as often, but the pioneering comprehensive school Kidbrooke School in
London was the subject of one paper, as were Hiram’s Hospital and the ‘Maison
Paternelle’ in France.62
If such individual exemplars and case studies were topics of perpetual fasci-
nation, we may also observe aspects of the history of secondary education
whose stock rose significantly over the past 40 years in terms of the attention
given to them in History of Education. National studies outside England consti-
tuted one topic of this kind, as the Anglocentric and localised work of the ear-
lier issues gradually gave way to a diverse range of European and globally
based examples. There were relatively few studies of Scotland throughout the
period, however,63 and even fewer specifically on Wales.64 Within Europe,
France was the favourite subject for study, including research on the relationship
between France and England.65 Other national studies within Western Europe
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60
M. Bradley, ‘Scientific Education for a New Century: The Ecole Polytechnique, 1795–
1830’, History of Education 5, no. 1 (1976): 11–24; V. Karady, ‘Scientists and the Social
Structure: Social Recruitment of Students at the Parisian Ecole Normale Supérieure in the
Nineteenth Century’ , History of Education 8, no. 2 (1979): 99–108; R.J. Smith, ‘The Social
Origins of Students of the Ecole Libre and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, 1885–1970’, His-
tory of Education 17, no. 3 (1988): 229–38.
61
S. Yamada, ‘“Traditions” and Cultural Production: Character Training at the Axhimota
School’, History of Education 38, no. 1 (2009): 29–50.
62
D. Limond, ‘Miss Joyce Lang, Kidbrooke and “The Great Comprehensive Debate”, 1965–
2005’, History of Education 36, no. 3 (2007): 339–52; J. Fletcher, ‘Hiram’s Hospital Revis-
ited: A Further Exploration of a By-way of Early Victorian History’, History of Education
23, no. 1 (1994): 75–88; J. Ramsland, ‘La Maison Paternelle: “A College of Repression” for
Wayward Bourgeois Adolescents in 19th and Early 20th Century France’, History of Educa-
tion 18, no. 1 (1989): 47–55.
63
Exceptions included D. Limond, ‘Only Talk in the Classroom: “Subversive” Teaching in a
Scottish School’, 1939–40’, History of Education 29, no. 3 (2000): 239–52; L. Moore,
‘Young Ladies’ Institutions: The Development of Secondary Schools for Girls in Scotland,
1833–c. 1870’, History of Education 32, no. 3 (2003): 249–72.
64
G.E. Jones, ‘1944 and All That’, History of Education 19, no. 3 (1990): 235–50.
65
For example, R.D. Anderson, ‘French Views of the English Public Schools: Some Nine-
teenth Century Episodes’, History of Education 1, no. 3 (1973): 159–72; Newton, ‘A French
Influence’.
66
For example, M. Clarke, ‘Educational reform in the 1960s: the introduction of compre-
hensive schools in the Republic of Ireland’, History of Education 39, no. 3 (2010): 383–
99; Vanhulle, ‘The Path of History’; S. Wiborg, ‘Why is There No Comprehensive Edu-
cation in Germany?: A Historical Explanation’, History of Education 39, no. 4 (2010):
539–56; L. Johansson and C. Florin, ‘“Where the Glorious Laurels Grow...”: Swedish
Grammar Schools as a Means of Social Mobility and Social Reproduction’, History of
Education 22, no. 32 (1993): 147–62.
67
A. Byford, ‘Between Literary Education and Academic Learning: The Study of Literature
at Secondary School in Late Imperial Russia (1860s–1900s)’, 33, no. 6 (2004): 637–60.
History of Education 37
inquiries in these countries.68 Nevertheless, these remained for the most part
national rather than comparative or cross-cultural studies, with few articles
attempting systematic comparison of two or more countries.69
In terms of specific topics that grew in popularity in the second half of the per-
iod, two appear to stand out. The first is that of secondary education for girls,
engaging with new work in women’s history and seeking to understand the gender
inequalities that had been so striking and resilient in secondary education. In the
1970s and 1980s, there were a few pioneering articles mainly on girls’ secondary
education published by leaders in this field such as Joan Burstyn, Carol Dyhouse
and Marjorie Theobald.70 These helped prepare the way for several further works,
especially in the final decade of the period, on a range of related aspects,71 which
appeared likely to mark the beginning of a more sustained phase of growth for this
area of research in future years. By comparison, there continued to be little work
published on the secondary education of ethnic groups, with the exception of
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occasional case-studies, and there was a clear need for further detailed investigation
of this area.72
The second ‘new’ area related to secondary education policy issues and initia-
tives. In the first two decades of the journal’s work such articles were rare, and
there was little discussion of the role of the central State in secondary education. In
the context of an increasingly active State presence in secondary education towards
the end of the twentieth century, several articles examined the significance of such
State activity. Some of these examined aspects of policy reports such as the Taunton
Report of 1868, the Bryce Report of 1985, the Hadow Report of 1926, the Spens
68
See W. Reese, ‘American High School Political Economy in the Nineteenth Century’, His-
tory of Education 27, no. 3 (1998): 255–65; T. Terakawa and W.H. Brock, ‘The Introduction
of Heurism into Japan’, History of Education, 7, no. 1 (1978): 35–44; Mangan, ‘Eton in
India’; L. Crawford, ‘The Development of Secondary Education in Hong Kong, 1945–71’,
History of Education, 24, no. 1 (1995): 105–21; C. Campbell, ‘State Policy and Regional
Diversity in the Provision of Secondary Education for the Youth of Sydney, 1960–2001’,
History of Education 32, no. 5 (2003): 577–94; McCulloch, ‘Imperial and Colonial
Designs’.
69
J. Goodman, ‘Social Change and Secondary Schooling for Girls in the “Long 1920s”:
European engagements’, History of Education 36, nos 4–5 (2007): 497–510, is an interesting
survey of girls’ secondary education in Europe.
70
C. Dyhouse, ‘Social Darwinistic Ideas and the Development of Women’s Education
in England, 1880–1920’, History of Education 5, no. 1 (1976): 41–58; J. Burstyn,
‘Women’s Education in England during the Nineteenth Century: A Review of the Lit-
erature, 1970–1976’, History of Education 6, no. 1 (1977): 11–19; M. Theobald, ‘The
Accomplished Woman and the Propriety of Intellect: A New Look at Women’s Edu-
cation in Britain and Australia, 1800–1850’, History of Education 17, no. 1 (1988):
21–35.
71
For example, J. Goodman, ‘Constructing Contradiction: The Power and Powerlessness of
Women in the Giving and Taking of Evidence in the Bryce Commission, 1895’, History of
Education 26, no. 4 (1997): 287–306; S. Spencer, ‘Reflections on the “Site of Struggle”:
Girls’ Experience of Secondary Education in the late 1950s’, History of Education 33, no. 4
(2004): 437–49; M. Cohen, ‘Language and Meaning in a Documentary Source: Girls’ Cur-
riculum from the Late Eighteenth Century to the Schools Inquiry Commission, 1868’, His-
tory of Education 34, no. 1 (2005):77–93.
72
One such was B. Mouser, ‘African Academy – Clapham 1799–1806’, History of Educa-
tion 33, no. 1 (2004): 87–103.
38 G. McCulloch
Report of 1938 and the Norwood Report of 1943.73 They also encompassed inter-
pretations of secondary education under the Education Act of 1944 in particular
respects like local development plans, campus schemes, and outdoor education.74
There were also a few studies of more recent policies, including papers on Labour
Party and Conservative Party policies over secondary education.75 A few significant
contributions were made to understanding the debates around comprehensive school
reorganisation in the 1960s, notably by Brian Simon.76 Nevertheless, it was intrigu-
ing that few articles offered detailed insights into the intense phase of reform from
the 1970s onwards, the period during which the journal itself began to be published
and developed so strongly.
3. Concluding reflections
It is evident that History of Education featured a broad range of detailed research
on many different aspects of the history of secondary education in the first four dec-
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ades of its publication, and that overall it made a strong and distinguished contribu-
tion to an understanding of this history. During a period of burgeoning interest in
many different countries on the history of secondary education, displayed in many
books and articles that provided critical studies, History of Education was to the
fore in many respects in highlighting key areas for further inquiry. It was especially
active in the history of the secondary school curriculum, most obviously in science
education, but it was also particularly strong on elite forms of secondary education
such as in the public schools and grammar schools, and by its fourth decade it was
also generating important new work on girls’ secondary education and the history
of secondary education policies. In these areas especially, the journal generated a
sense of purpose and identity in which articles built on earlier work to promote
new and more detailed understandings. In terms of broader themes in the history of
education, this literature also contributed strongly to understanding progressive edu-
cation, education for citizenship, and the relationship between education and social
mobility.
There were also some areas in which the contribution of History of Education
to the history of secondary education was less apparent. Although it included many
articles on the history of the secondary school curriculum, there were a number of
73
For example, G. McCulloch, ‘Sensing the Realities of English Middle-class Education:
James Bryce and the Schools Inquiry Commission, 1865–1868’, History of Education 40,
no. 5 (2011): 599–613; R.C. Lilley, ‘Attempts to Implement the Bryce Commission’s Rec-
ommendations and the Consequences’, History of Education 11, no. 2 (1982): 99–111; J.
Firmager, ‘The Consultative Committee under the Chairmanship of Sir Henry Hadow: The
Education of the Adolescent’, History of Education 10, no. 4 (1981): 273–81; G. McCul-
loch, ‘“Spens v. Norwood”: Contesting the Educational State?’, History of Education 22, no.
2 (1993): 163–80.
74
Jones, ‘1944 and All That’; B.D. Robinson, ‘Campus Schemes of Secondary Education in
England and Wales, 1952–82’, History of Education 25, no. 4 (1996): 387–400; L. Cook,
‘The 1944 Education Act and Outdoor Education: From Policy to Practice’, History of Edu-
cation 28, no. 2 (1999): 157–72.
75
D. Crook, ‘Edward Boyle: Conservative Champion of Comprehensives?’, History of Edu-
cation 22, no. 1 (1993): 49–62; M. Francis, ‘A Socialist Policy for Education?: Labour and
the Secondary School, 1945–51’, History of Education 24, no. 4 (1995): 319–35.
76
B. Simon, ‘The Politics of Comprehensive Reorganisation: A Retrospective Analysis’, His-
tory of Education 21, no. 4 (1992): 355–62.
History of Education 39
academic school subjects such as physics and mathematics, and more arts-based
subjects, especially English, that were less well represented than others. Examina-
tions received only sporadic treatment, while religion and the early development of
secondary education lacked sustained attention. Working-class secondary education
and secondary education for ethnic groups were also areas that required further
detailed investigation, as did secondary education policy and practice in the most
recent decades of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Overall, the history of secondary education in History of Education provided
much evidence of a continuing loss of coherence and purpose in the secondary
school, to which Emile Durkheim had alluded at the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury. The classics and religion had been largely supplanted, but in their place there
crowded in a wide range of subjects and competing priorities for attention. Despite
these new developments, however, elite groups seemed to maintain their cultural
and political authority, and social reproduction remained as prominent as social
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mobility. It seems likely that such historical problems will demand further opportu-
nities for study in future issues of the journal. Such work, following on from the
researches of the past generation of detailed research in History of Education,
should also enable new syntheses of the history of secondary education to be pro-
duced as extended texts and monographs. The next 40 years may well offer chal-
lenges and opportunities that differ significantly from those of the past, but the
scholarship of recent years has begun at least to trace out the lines for new research
to follow.
Notes on contributor
Gary McCulloch is the Brian Simon Professor of the History of Education at the Institute of
Education, University of London. He is a former President of the History of Education
Society (UK) and a previous editor of History of Education. His recent published works
include Cyril Norwood and the Ideal of Secondary Education (2007) and The Struggle for
the History of Education (2011).