ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a retrospective evaluation of the Ruskin speech and considers its significance twenty-five years on within the context of the subsequent politics of education during the period. One of its major aims is to consider how far the speech provided the discursive political framework within which debates over education policy and practice were framed between 1976 and 2001. An attempt is made, therefore, to assess continuity and change with regard to educational reform during the period as a whole. Labour’s victory at the 1997 election is particularly important in this respect, in that it provides an opportunity in this chapter and at various points throughout the book to analyse the extent to which ‘New’ Labour either continued or departed from many of the ideas initiated at Ruskin and from policies initiated by Conservative administrations between 1979 and 1997.
