ABSTRACT
C.Wright Mills (1977) 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 studyrequires historical scope and a full use of historical materials’.1 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.
