ABSTRACT
In reflecting upon taxonomies of primary education, Cunningham (1988) suggests that Richard’s classification of the four contrasting views of primary education discussed in this section places the Plowden report very much within the liberal romantic tradition, yet he argues that:
the Plowden Report could also be said to have embraced aspects of the ‘social democratic’ view, i.e. — ‘School as a means of realizing social justice’. There is something of a natural continuity between these now, though the latter also represented a challenge to ‘liberal romanticism’ arising from the changing social circumstances in which the primary curriculum was delivered in the later 1960s, (p. 3)
The extract from the Plowden report (1967) which follows emphasises the ‘social democratic’ principles which underpin the report. The research project on Educational Priority areas undertaken by Halsey (and included as pages of this publication) suggested that despite difficulties of definition, EPAs were socially and administratively viable and a means of applying principles of positive discrimination.
