ABSTRACT
In the post-Second World War years in western Europe a new cycle of educational reform was initiated. Social, economic and demographic pressures combined to put structural reform on the agenda not only of popular movements and political groups but also of governments and educational policy-makers in several countries. Such corporatist and centralised political systems seem to be able to bring about institutional change more rapidly and more fully than pluralist political systems such as those found in England and Wales. The movement to comprehensive schools in England and Wales involved a change from a selective system that has been consistently viewed as perpetuating class differences. The changeover from selective to comprehensive schooling has been a proving ground for theories of educational policy-making in Britain, with the leading authorities finding in comprehensive reorganisation in Britain a pluralist and indeterminate interplay between policy and practice, centre and periphery. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
