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Shena Simon (1883–1972), a leading English socialist and educationist, actively called for the reform of secondary education in the 1930s and 1940s in order to bring the ideal of ‘equality of opportunity’ into the English educational system. This paper explores the continuity and changes in Simon’s proposed reforms in relation to her ideals of social democracy from the appearance of the Spens Report (1938) to the publication of her book,Three Schools or One?(1948). In addition, Simon’s transnational visits to the Soviet Union, the USA and Scotland, as well as the impact of her international and comparative perspectives on different educational systems on her policy agenda, are also examined. It concludes that as many policy issues shown in the current paper continue to be debated, Simon’s democratic ideals and discourses are still relevant in the present and suggest implications for the future of secondary education in England. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Writing in 1927, five leading scholars and administrators of the Australian schooling systems published a book entitled Education in Australia: a comparative study of the educational systems of the six Australian states. These authors wrote of Australian education in a time of great optimism, and one of the key areas of reform they addressed was the introduction of forms of post-primary schooling for a ‘problem’ population of 12–15-year-olds who were not attracted to, or staying with, the high school curriculum which led towards university study. Through the lens of Education in Australia, this paper undertakes a genealogical exploration of the way the adolescent emerged as an object of school reforms in the early twentieth century and shows that these reforms were articulated with discourses of race, social efficiency, science and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article shows the importance of paying attention to the role of professional devices, such as standardised forms, as producers of normality and deviance in the history of education. Our case study focused on the standardised forms used by teachers during child guidance clinic referrals and transfers to special education in northern Finland, from the 1950s to the early 1990s. How standardised forms were constructed and how they guided teachers through their evaluations had important consequences for the children’s diagnoses. A close analysis of the contents and meanings of forms enabled us to assess how criteria for normal and problematic behaviours were defined, as well as to evaluate the underlying professional and institutional practices. During the period studied, the criteria set for “normal” and “deviant” behaviours changed surprisingly little. Children were perceived as psycho-physical organisms who respond to family-related problems, but school environments’ effects, for example, were left unacknowledged. Problems were identified solely as originating within the individual children and their family. Teacher statement forms were used as a tool to ensure cooperation between the child guidance clinic and the compulsory school system. The forms invited the teachers to adopt a psychological approach to childhood development and established child guidance clinics as a leading expert in the process of selecting children for special education. Changes in the forms’ structure reflected differences in perceptions concerning the boundaries of professional fields. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the politicization of the reform of U.S. mathematics curriculum during the mid-20th century, particularly focusing upon the U.S. organization the National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored curriculum popularly known as new math. The author discusses the significance of school curriculum in studying political transformation, particularly during the Cold War, the establishment, implementation, and reaction to new math as a political intervention, and the role of the organization the School Mathematics Study Group (SMSG) director Edward G. Begle.

In the period 1919–1933 the experimental and community schools in Hamburg tried to put into practice a new model of schooling without a set curriculum that was based on providing a considerable amount of freedom for pupils and teachers. These experiences were introduced in the Netherlands by way of magazines published by the New Education Fellowship (NEF) or Dutch journals edited by educationalists and university professors. The Hamburg schools were also visited by Christian Anarchist teachers who were connected with new schools in the Netherlands and who already had experimented with new ways of life in small communities. In this article we describe their experiences in Hamburg. Their observation reports would not trigger a growing interest in a social community type of schooling; in general Dutch teachers, even the socialist ones, did not change their preference for the traditional classroom system of education. More individualistic methods from Montessori and Parkhurst (Dalton Plan), supported by university professors and inspectors of education, were considered to have more potential for changing the classroom system from within. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the context of the international exchange of school reform ideas and concepts, the new schools in Hamburg were recognised as exemplary instances of a revolutionary and forceful reform in the public elementary school systems. Based on studies of transfer and their premise that the transnational transfer of ideas, practices and objects does not occur spontaneously, but requires specific mechanisms of transmission, this contribution explores the circulation and exchange of pedagogical practices and concepts within the discourse of New Education by looking at the example of the Hamburg experimental and community schools (Hamburger Versuchs- und Gemeinschaftsschulen). A key question in this process is how the Hamburg schools could acquire the great international importance they held. The analysis includes both personal and institutional communication networks of the experimental schoolteachers, the international journals and conferences of the New Education Fellowship, school visits and various reports and documentations of the schools produced by foreign visitors. It shows not only the key role that transnational exchange played in the education reform debates of the 1920s, but also offers clues to the cultural patterns and beliefs that influenced the circulation and reception of ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

1This article provides a detailed reconstruction of the processes leading to the formation of the widely influential Birmingham Agreed Syllabus of Religious Instruction (1975). This is contextualised within one of the most significant periods in the history of race relations in the United Kingdom. The authors discuss how this syllabus, and other landmark reforms in religious education (RE) in English schools from the late 1960s, responded to ethnic diversity by promoting supposedly culturally pluralist, multi-faith approaches to RE, which were subsequently perceived as eroding the Christian foundations of British/English national identity. They argue that the vilification of these curriculum reforms by culturally conservative critics was in fact based on an erroneous assessment of the extent to which these renounced the Christian hegemony of RE. They also critique the assumption that the religious clauses of the 1988 Education Reform Act represented a simple transition from culturally pluralist to assimilationist policies for the subject. 1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]