This article tracks the life-histories of 23 British schoolchildren aged from seven to 12 who were designated as 'lower-attaining' at age seven. Drawing on Self Determination Theory's mini-theory of Causality Orientations, the authors explored whether/how children with a Controlled or Impersonal Orientation approached creative learning differently…

This article -- the second part of a two-part contribution -- offers a number of suggested directions for the historiography of adult education in Britain. It identifies opportunities to address longstanding areas of neglect that have been overshadowed by a focus on the "Great Tradition" of adult education. Although a key theme of recent…

Having limited access to colleges and universities offering women the same educational opportunities available to men, elite women of the 19th century crossed national borders for advanced study and teaching opportunities. The career of Tsuda Umeko, founder of one of the first private institutions of higher education for women in Japan, leader in…

This lecture will revisit nineteenth and twentieth century education policy and politics in the light of the experiences and struggles of a (nowadays) virtually unknown educator activist. Beautiful, tireless, courageous and principled, socialist school teacher Mary Bridges Adams (1855-1939) gave up her life for the Cause. Encouraged by William…

In this article, the author discusses how narratives, which are part of the common currency of the day, have dramatically changed over the years. Grand narratives, which grew exponentially in the mid-nineteenth century, have now been replaced by two different narratives: life narratives and small-scale narratives. He also discusses how small…

In this article the author shares a partial biography of Elizabeth Evans, who became a domestic science teacher in Britain during the First World War. This story begins with a small collection of artefacts--professional letters and personal photographs--which infuse our understanding of teaching and learning and Elizabeth's everyday life nearly a…

Anthony Crosland was the most formative of education ministers in the 1960s whose contribution promoted intellectual activity within the policy discourse. He retains an iconic status for that reason. He provided the intellectual foundations of "revisionism" which emancipated the Labour Party from belief in nationalisation as the way to…