A ‘break with tradition’ in interwar teacher education

British teacher education in the interwar years was a contested field, dominated numerically by women but regulated by the Board of Education. The traditional perception of women’s residential training colleges was that they were autocratic and socially isolated. By focusing on Gipsy Hill Training College (GHTC), the first specialist training college for nursery school teachers, and its foundation principal, Lillian de Lissa, I challenge this perception. I explore the relationships between young women students’ social worlds, teacher educators’ understandings, teacher education curriculum and GHTC’s institutional culture. The main argument is that under de Lissa’s leadership GHTC was a socially and educationally progressive and democratic institution that focused on shaping students’ identities as women, teachers and citizens.     

A non‐statutory framework for religious education: issues and opportunities

This paper considers issues in religious education that ought to be addressed by the recent non‐statutory framework for England. It outlines problematic features of the current situation and paints a generally welcoming picture of the educational opportunities afforded by this new initiative.     

Our enemy's enemy

This article focuses on representations of Britain to occupied France by the BBC French Service via its flagship programme Les Français parlent aux Français [The French speak to the French]. It first examines the establishment of the service and the formulation of a British propaganda strategy on occupied France. It then explores the service's efforts to foster French belief in Britain as France's friend and ally, and to rationalise key issues and incidents which challenged that narrative. Simultaneously, it positions French Service endeavours alongside the propaganda delivered on French national radio, known as Radio Vichy, in order to explore the exchanges about Britain between French propagandists who spoke on behalf of different Frances. In so doing, the article provides a close reading of the original French Service broadcasts which covers a larger corpus of material than has hitherto been documented in published collections, and which extends existing knowledge on the topic.