ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the faltering of the social democratic construction of schooling during the particular circumstances of the early 1970s. It engages, inevitably, with the proclamation of ‘crisis’ prevalent in so many areas, from government statements to the popular dailies. But for education there were specific difficulties, which could not simply be reduced to the new, crude and monotonously reasserted ‘logic’ which connected a general social crisis to a need for ‘cuts’ throughout the social services.
