This work provides an overall review and analysis of the history of education and of its key research priorities in the British context. It investigates the extent to which education has contributed historically to social change in Britain, how it has itself been moulded by society, and the needs and opportunities that remain for further research in this general area.

Gary McCulloch (Institute of Education, University of London), Joyce Goodman (University of Winchester), William Richardson (University of Exeter) – IntroductionRosemary O’Day (Open University) – Perspectives on the emergence of learned professions in England, 1500-1800Deirdre Raftery (University College Dublin), Jane McDermid (University of Southampton), Gareth Elwyn Jones (University of Wales Swansea) – Social change and education in Ireland, Scotland and Wales: a review of scholarship in nineteenth century schoolingMichael Sanderson (University of East Anglia) – The history of education and economic history – the good neighboursHarold Silver – Higher education and social change: purpose in pursuit?Tom Woodin (Institute of Education, University of London) – Working class education and social change in nineteenth and twentieth century BritainJoyce Goodman – Social change and secondary schooling for girls in the ‘long 1920s’: European engagementsJane Martin (Institute of Education, University of London) – Gender, politics and the revisioning of education historiesPhilip Gardner (University of Cambridge) – The ‘life-long draught’: from learning to teaching and backFelicity Armstrong (Institute of Education, University of London) – Disability, education and social change since 1960William Richardson – British historiography of education in international context at the turn of the century, 1996-2006Jonathan Rose (Drew University, USA) – The history of education as the history of readingIan Grosvenor (University of Birmingham) – From the ‘eye of history’ to ‘a second gaze’: the visual archive and the marginalised in history of education