ABSTRACT
Labour returned to power in May 1997 with the mantra ‘education, education, education’, identifying as of one of its central targets further reform and improvement of the education system. The new government quickly proved adept at managing the economy, and the outcome was that through a combination of low interest rates, the reliance on private finance for many major public projects and the enabling of massive and unprecedented levels of individual debt, as well as a growing balance of trade deficit, economic growth was sustained uninterrupted for over a decade. But this growth was achieved only at the cost of a widening gap between rich and poor, despite several government programmes, including ‘sure start’, which were intended to take large numbers of people out of poverty. The educational outcome was, hardly surprisingly, that the significant changes which were made impacted differently on differing elements of society, often being calculated to ensure no erosion of middle-class support for the Blair project, so that, after a decade of Labour in power, it is difficult to identify ways in which the disparities in schooling in modern Britain have been eliminated and all too easy to point to glaring social contrasts in the educational provision. It follows, therefore, that any account of the developing politics of the curriculum during these years is necessarily complex and riddled with contradictions.
