ABSTRACT
The final example of Statement Archaeology in practice focuses on the 1988 Education Reform Act, taking two statements as its point of departure. The chapter highlights two particular ways in which the Act situates RE as ‘peculiar’: as compulsory but excluded from the compulsory National Curriculum, and as prescribed by statute rather than by order of the incumbent Secretary of State. The excavations here unearth examples of systematic marginalization of various groups, including non-Christians, and an entrenched reluctance by the Secretary of State of the time to depart from the 1944 Act’s provisions on RE. Pressure from the political Right is exposed as a significant influence on the process of amending the legislation, and introducing the two statements with which the chapter begins. The chapter concludes by recognizing the important precedent set in this Act, that—for the first time—has Parliament prescribing the content of a school curriculum subject.
