ABSTRACT
C. Wright Mills argued that ‘the production of historians may be thought of as a great file indispensable to all social science’ and that ‘every social science – or better, every well-considered social study – requires historical scope and a full use of historical materials’ (Wright Mills, 1977, pp. 161-162). If we use these criteria it is plain that most of our studies of schools, certainly in relation to curriculum, are not ‘well considered’; the great file indispensable to all social science has proved eminently dispensable.
