ABSTRACT
Lowe is remembered as the author of the Revised Code, a nineteenthcentury attempt to raise the standards attained in state education by relating payment to schools’ results. The contempt implied in this rhetorical question of his is congruent with the neglect that, with occasional exceptions, has characterized social policy ever since. Even Gladstone’s witty riposte (‘Lancashire’) does not look so funny from ‘the bottom’. Although this chapter focuses on the classroom and school contexts-the places where pupils’ behaviour may be operated upon-it is essential to keep pupils’ domestic circumstances in mind. Pupils’ perception and interpretations of their school experiences, the schema they bring with them, are rooted in their domestic lives. In the same way, our understanding and interpretations are rooted in ours, and few of us have had the misfortune to sample life at the bottom. The belief that many of us entertain, that life has improved for everyone, is just not supported by the facts. In Britain, relative poverty has actually increased since 1980, with the poorest half of the population seeing its share of the national income shrink. This decline in standards was felt disproportionately by children, with the proportion living in poverty doubling over the period from 1980 to 1987. In the hackneyed but depressingly accurate phrase, ‘The rich got richer and the poor got poorer’ (Ian Gilmour, former Conservative minister, quoted in Ward, 1994).
