ABSTRACT
In this study I have described particular aspects of life in a particular school interspersed with considerations of the influence on those aspects of institutional and external factors. In this final chapter I want to draw these themes together and also point to the implications for educational practice. The overall connecting theme has been posited as one of division. Some divisions are promoted by factors external to the school, such as social class and the technological nature of society;1 others by institutional elements. Teacher, pupil and parent perspectives both reflect and promote those divisions, while teacher and pupil strategies and adaptations are the expression of them, consolidating and promoting in turn. I will argue that divisions arise from different sources, that some are less deeply-rooted than others, that influence is injected into the dividing at various levels, and that these levels are not necessarily inextricably linked with each other. On the one hand, there is the press of powerful forces in society, but on the other, a range of choices for the individual teacher. In the interstices of the prevailing system, as evidenced at Lowfield, lie the opportunities for change.
