ABSTRACT
The 1988 Education Reform Act ignored the important conclusions of Education for All, the 800-page report of the Lord Swann Committee on the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups published three years earlier. The Inner London Education Authority was one of the first local education authorities to develop an equal opportunities policy on race. While different writers have put their own interpretation on the development of authorities' responses, there seems to be general agreement that the main perspectives can be identified as a shift from promoting policies of assimilation and integration to policies focusing on cultural diversity and then, more recently, to policies of equality, social justice and anti-racism. In March 1979, Shirley Williams, Secretary of State for Education in the last Labour government, set up a Committee of Inquiry into the education of children from ethnic minority groups under the chairmanship of Anthony Rampton.
