Current debates around diversity of provision and schooling often overlook the extensive and persuasive criticisms levelled at the system of academic selection that prevailed following the Second World War; by the 1960s the eleven plus was variously accused of being inaccurate; emotionally destructive; unfair and detrimental to democracy. The individual’s emotional and intellectual engagement with their own schooling, and the attitudes towards education it effects, are at the heart of this paper; which explores the ideas around selective versus comprehensive education in the period between 1945 and 1965, through the biographies of three Secretaries of State for Education. It examines the interaction between the (increasingly strong) evidence against academic selection, the growing political will to introduce comprehensive schools, and the prevailing educational and political discourse which was fiercely protective of the grammar schools.

This article examines the dynamics of school strikes during September 1911. It argues that the rapidly expanding strike ‘wave’ can best be explained by analyzing processes endogenous to the strikes themselves; this requires connecting micro-level interactions to aggregate level outcomes. This work utilizes both the analytical concepts associated with threshold models of collective behaviour and the study of social networks in relation to strike activity. Extensive biographical data reveals the interdependence of decisions to engage in strike activity. Initial preferences for striking are shown to be heterogeneous amongst the student population. The accounts demonstrate that the networks within which students were located, information about striking gained through media sources, and the presence of trade union activity were all important mechanisms in the spread of strikes within and between locations.

The question of why teaching has not wholly been recognised as having professional standing has long been contested, as teachers have fought to gain independence of action and public standing. By exploring the life histories of Frances Buss, founder of the Association of Headmistresses, and Edward Thring, founder of the Headmasters’ Conference, this article aims to provide a historical perspective on the personal, professional and occupational identity of educators. Taking a biographical approach, this article argues that it is the differences in ‘types’ of teachers and the lack of a cohesive ‘teacher identity’ that have hindered the formation of a unified occupational group so necessary for professional recognition.

The years 1870–1914 saw a significant migration to Britain of poor and often illiterate eastern European Jews. The move from their original ‘heim’ (home) to a new life and home in England was seen as a potential threat by the long-established middle and upper class Anglo-Jewish community, and as a cause of concern to a British government worried by national issues such as unemployment, poverty and the perceived need to produce a healthier and better educated workforce to serve the Empire. Accounts suggest, however, that despite a brooding climate of anti-Semitism, the newly arrived Jews were keen to assimilate, participating enthusiastically in the developing system of universal compulsory schooling and making the most of the educational opportunities on offer. This article focuses on the Jewish immigrant community in London’s East End. It uses a range of life documents to examine the tendencies to assimilation in the late-Victorian and Edwardian period, but attempts to understand the process not just from the viewpoint of academics and contemporary establishment figures, but from the perspective of the Jewish immigrants and their London-born children. This auto/biographical methodology challenges a traditional understanding of education as being solely ‘formal schooling’ and introduces a perspective which recognises the influences on a newly arrived community of other less formal associational spaces such as clubs, societies, centres of entertainment, self-study groups and political organisations. The article ends by exploring the similarities between the experiences of these immigrant Jews and more recently arrived communities to London’s East End, raising the question of what actually constitutes ‘assimilation’.

This paper considers developments in state secondary education in England from the debate on the 1944 Education Act to the publication of Circular 10/65 which established comprehensive education as ‘official’ government policy in 1965. The period starts with the development of a ‘tripartite’ system of different types of secondary schools and ends with the start of official reorganisation on the basis of a single type of school designed for all abilities and aptitudes. The historical cast of education reforms are examined through the lens of biography: contrasting published contemporaneous accounts by pupils and teachers with the story of my secondary education at one of the early London comprehensive schools. The English selective system, the historical effect of class and the effect of ‘cultural capital’ and social reproduction (Bourdieu, 1977) on the educational attainment of children of the time are examined valuated and considered. It is contended that failure to address the underlying cause, namely education organised by class, by introducing comprehensive institutions at the inception of mass secondary education, has been responsible for the failure to create a system that encouraged an increase in social mobility, the consequences of which, are still evident to this day.

The 1920s have not been in vogue with historians of education since the 1980s, when the questions being asked – of curriculum control, teacher professionalism, and the role of trade unions – were seen to have particular contemporary significance. As a result, scholarship in this area now feels somewhat outmoded, chiefly because of the dominance of a ‘top-down’ model of control in much of the analysis. This article attempts to gain a new perspective on one of the key issues of this period, the radical politicisation of teachers, through a comparison of stated government policy and the experiences of teachers themselves. This reveals perspectives that complicate and challenge the dominant narrative of the exercise of control in the education system in this period and suggests further avenues for research using a biographical methodology.

Headmaster only became a viable career option in England during the nineteenth century - and this study of professional identity and professionalizing education aims to find unifying features in the life stories of four pioneering and prominent Victorian headmasters. While teachers had already established their vocation during the eighteenth century, professional headship only became a necessity when the demands of the middle classes fuelled a boom in public schooling and a subsequent increase in the schools’ sizes. The popular schools had to be run efficiently and profitably by men and women of reputation, charisma and energy. Within a few years the stereotype of the omnipotent, slightly eccentric headmaster was firmly established – overall much faster than a professional code or even an agreement of the head’s official role in school and community. It will be concluded here that individual careers mattered greatly at the time of schooling’s anarchic growth, since the new professionals needed role models for the definition of a professional standard. The biographies show that commercially successful schools had to provide education beyond subject teaching: a clearly defined school ethos and morale proved to be as important as academic performance. The research also shows that the headmasters under investigation greatly relied on their predecessors for guidance and the establishment of privileges, duties and codes of conduct.