ABSTRACT
By the start of the 1960s a number of social changes were making it inevitable that nothing would ever appear quite the same again. The fifties had brought economic security to unprecedented numbers, and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was able to make the claim to the electorate at the end of the decade that they had ‘never had it so good’. Several things followed from this. Increased affluence meant, for most people, greater disposable income. This enabled a more protracted education and a prolonged adolescence for a youth which had more money in its pocket than any previous generation. As the sixties progressed, it began to seem in a range of areas that society was at last throwing off the austerity and the repressed social attitudes which had marked the whole of the early twentieth century. Changes in fashion, in popular culture and in the mass media might have been the icons of these developments, but it should not be forgotten that this was also to become a decade of social and political movements which appeared in some cases to be worldwide in their scope. The protests against the Vietnam War, a greater realisation of the rights of oppressed minorities and ethnic groups, a liberalisation and secularisation of social values and a worldwide student protest movement can all be seen, in one way or another, as outcomes of this fast-changing situation. It is hardly surprising then that what went on in the schools should be seen to be changing swiftly and to be particularly controversial at this time.
