ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1,1 sought to trace the development of state secondary education in the United Kingdom from its confused beginnings to the National Curriculum of the present day. I have argued that, throughout that time, education has been characterized by stasis rather than change, and that the National Curriculum, far from being the maelstrom of 10 years of constant change as claimed by the teachers' unions, has actually consolidated a type of education and a concomitant pedagogy that has hardly altered at all in nearly 130 years. Neither have the twin purposes of a state education: to prepare the school-leaver for her cultural and economic roles in a democratic society based upon a capitalist economy, that is, to equip her with the skills of citizenship and the workplace.
