Education policy, comprehensive schooling and devolution in the disUnited Kingdom: an historical 'home international' analysis.

This paper places educational devolution in the UK within an historical context. It starts from the premise that the differences within the current educational systems of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland stem not only from the changed educational/political context following devolution but also from established contrasting histories and traditions. The paper combines historical and educational policy analysis to explain how this intra-national variation has come about, concentrating upon the period 1944 to the present day. In the process, it argues that a fusion of history and education policy analysis provides an illuminative method for understanding the multitude of factors that have contributed to the complex contemporary structures of education in the UK. It also suggests that both historians of education and policy sociologists have in the main failed to adopt a so-called 'home-international' approach to the analysis of education policy and have (understandably) been pre-occupied with the English context of educational reform, the effect of which has been to under-estimate the complexity of policy recontextualization in the UK. The paper concentrates particular attention upon debates over selection and comprehensive schooling and observes that, at the beginning of the 21st century, England has effectively ended its association with 'the comprehensive ideal', which in a post-devolutionary era, makes it distinctive from certainly two and possibly three of the other constituent parts of the country. The paper uses historical reference points to theorize about how this situation has come about. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]