ABSTRACT
This chapter looks beyond the fact of prejudice against ostracized groups, and the forms it takes in attitudes and types of behaviour, to address the crucial question of why it still exists in our society. Insisting on the historical perspective as the proper basis of critical understanding, Kevin Myers and Ian Grosvenor chart a ‘chronology of exclusion’ in the political rhetoric, education policy and practical treatment of ‘outsider’ children and their communities in Britain, throughout the 20th century. This chronology shows the consistent basis upon which the inequality of various children within the UK education system has been assumed – for Jewish children in the 1930s through to the children of refugees and asylum seekers in 2000. It also reveals the tradition of resistance to social, political and cultural alienation, most notably in the development of positive and progressive education systems.
