ABSTRACT
If schools are to play their part in promoting well-being for all, this only makes sense if the wider society also makes this a priority. In the midtwentieth century, it did so. The post-1945 British ‘welfare state’ helped to reduce the poverty, bad housing, insecurity, ignorance and poor health that had blighted the prospects of the worse-off. Economic developments in the same period also benefited this group as well as others, leading both to improvements in working conditions and opportunities, and also to the reduction of domestic chores through labour-saving devices.
