ABSTRACT
Underlying this chapter is the question of why things turned out as they did in the years following the passage of the Education Reform Act in 1988. Whilst it may appear that once the Act was in force the die was cast, in reality the nature of the new educational settlement which emerged was the result of a series of messy compromises and power struggles between a range of interest groups which determined the nature of both what was to be taught and classroom practice into the twentyfirst century. What follows is my attempt to describe and explain this process.
