Reinventing the Past: the Case of the English Tradition of Education

This paper explores the linkages between national identity and educational traditions, and the range and flexibility of the incarnations of tradition. It investigates in detail three versions of a specifically English tradition in education that have been generated at different times in England over the past century. These are Cyril Norwood's account of the English tradition in the 1920s, Fred Clarke's portrayal of education and social change in the 1940s, and the ideals of teachers' professional autonomy as they were articulated in the post-war period. In each instance the 'tradition' developed as responses to contemporary challenges and threats, and asserted particular images of the past to justify a given approach to present and future changes. These representations of the national tradition have thereby established sets of values and principles drawn from idealised versions of the educational past that provided guidelines for reform, and the direction and guide-lines of change.