The Exclusive Pursuit of Social Inclusion

Fast-forwarding a century or more I began to study a new subject ‘environmental studies’ not unlike the science of common things in that it grew from its origins as a working class inclusionary subject to begin to claim the status of ‘a proper subject’. In the book, School Subjects and Curriculum Change I show how this new subject highly suited to comprehensive schools and with real inclusionary potential was systematically blocked from becoming a broad-based A level ‘academic’ subject (5). In Britain only a subject accepted as ‘academic’ can be resourced as a high status ‘proper subject’.

This position of hierarchy for ‘academic’ subjects in fact represented a history of subjects linking to social hierarchy and social exclusion. The dominance of academic subjects goes back to the battle over which subjects should be prioritised in the new secondary schools at the start of the twentieth century. In 1904 Morants Secondary Regulations handed victory to the public school cum grammar school vision of education and school subjects. Hence the academic subject was built on a clear foundation of social exclusion for such schools never catered for more than 20% of pupils. In effect the ‘bottom’ 80% were sacrificed and the top 20% promoted by the prioritisation of the ‘academic tradition’. A contemporary noted of the 1904 Regulations that the academic subject-centred curriculum was “subordinated to that literary instruction which makes for academic culture, but is of no practical utility to the classes for whom the local authorities should principally cater”.

In the comprehensive schools whilst new curriculum initiatives developed new subject categories such as environmental studies, but also community studies, urban studies, womens studies and social studies, the stranglehold of the academic tradition remained. This effectively blocked other traditions in subjects which stressed those vocational and pedagogic traditions likely to promote social inclusion. The very process of becoming a school subject therefore purges subject knowledge of its inclusionary characteristics. Layton shows this exclusionary effect with his evolutionary profile of the traditional subject. In the first stage.

The callow intruder stakes a place in the timetable, justifying its presence on grounds such as pertinence and utility. During this stage learners are attracted to the subject because of its bearing on matters of concern to them. The teachers are rarely trained specialists, but bring the missionary enthusiasms of pioneers to their task. The dominant criterion is relevance to the needs and interests of the learners.

In the interim second stage:

A tradition of scholarly work in the subject is emerging along with a corps of trained specialists from which teachers may be recruited. Students are still attracted to the Study, but as much by its reputation and growing academic status as by its relevance to their own problems and concerns. The internal logic and discipline of the subject is becoming increasingly influential in the selection and organisation of subject matter.

In the final stage:

The teachers now constitute a professional body with established rules and values. The selection of subject matter is determined in large measure by the judgements and practices of the specialist scholars who lead inquiries in the field. Students are initiated into a tradition, their attitudes approaching passivity and resignation, a prelude to disenchantment (6).

The central place of ‘academic’ subjects is ensconced in our secondary schools, so therefore is an in-built pattern of social prioritising and exclusion. The process outlined above shows clearly that school subject groups tend to move progressively away from social relevance or vocational emphasis. High status in the secondary school tends to focus on abstract theoretical knowledge divorced from the workaday world or the everyday world of the learner. To these high status academic subjects go the main resources in our school systems: the better qualified teachers, the favourable sixth form ratios and the pupil deemed most able. The link is now strengthened by New Labour initiatives in terms of targets, tests and league tables. In this way a pattern of social prioritising built on exclusive pursuits found itself at the heart of a programme of social inclusion. Such a central contradiction and a range of other exclusionary devices inherited unknowingly or unthinkingly, have contributed to the abject failure of New Labour policies to further social inclusion. It is urgently to be hoped that the next time policies are formulated relevant educational research in the area will at least be consulted and considered.