ABSTRACT
The previous chapter has shown how part of the social transformation associated with industrialization was a changing perception of the role of the state. During the nineteenth century it was gradually conceded that voluntary and philanthropic effort alone were insufficient and that the state should play some role in tackling social problems and in producing responsible citizens. One of the most important aspects of this process was the state’s intervention in education. This chapter will look at the way the education of the ‘masses’ as workers and citizens became socially constructed as the solution to problems of social order and national efficiency in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In doing so, the chapter aims to:
■ Question common-sense assumptions about compulsory education as a normal and natural part of childhood.
