ABSTRACT
The British context in which Basil Bernstein began writing grew out of the post-war 'age of austerity' which followed the Second World War. In 1945, a Labour Government was elected with a programme of mildly Socialist reconstruction to rebuild British society from the desolation of six years of world war. All social groups having fought side-by-side, the 'we are in it together' spirit of war carried over for a time into an egalitarian impulse within social relations which was expressed in political aspirations. Bearing witness through scholarly examination and exhumation to the experiences of class and region in British schooling became a primary project for a generation of sociologists. Bernstein was, by far, the most persuasive, generative and articulate of this generation. The early work on language and social class became famous, but often in the form of a shorthand misrepresentation.
