ABSTRACT
The very small group of people who started research in the field of school effectiveness in the early to mid-1970s were in many ways a highly unusual group compared to those who usually conducted conventional educational research in Britain. Michael Power and colleagues (1967, 1972), whose publication of an article which impertinently asked whether there were Delinquent Schools in Tower Hamlets resulted in them being ejected from those same schools, were members of a Medical Research Council Social Medicine Unit. Dennis Gath (1977) was a child guidance consultant in a hospital setting. Michael Rutter (1979) was a child psychiatrist. As for myself, I had been appointed as a member of the Medical Research Council scientific staff to see if it was possible to undertake work into school differences and school effects in South Wales which had been impossible for Michael Power to complete in London.
