W.A.L. Blyth - English Primary Education: Part One

The International Library of Sociology

ENGLISH PRIMARY EDUCATION

A Sociological Description

Part I Schools

by W. A. L. Blyth

First published in 1965 by
Routledge

Reprinted 1998, 2000, 2002
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

1965, 1967 W. A. L. Blyth

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

English Primary Education - Part I: Schools
ISBN 0-415-17762-6
The Sociology of Education: 28 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17833-9
The International Library of Sociology; 274 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17838-X

Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

IN 1963 the Central Advisory Council for Education (England), under the chairmanship of Lady Plowden, was required 'to consider primary education in all its aspects and the transition to secondary education'. Thus, for the first time since the publication of the two reports of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education on The Primary School (1931) and Infant and Nursery Schools (1933), primary education has been singled out for specific official scrutiny. This should stimulate the English educational world in general to 'consider' primary education more closely and to examine its various 'aspects' more carefully.

One of these aspects may be legitimately termed the sociology of primary education. Since 1945, British sociologists have paid increasing attention to education, so that the sociology of education is now an established and expanding field of study and research. Its impact has already been felt on our general habits of thinking about education, and more specifically on the Central Advisory Council's recent reports 15 to 18 (Crowther Report, 1959) and Half our Future (Newsom Report, 1963). Yet it is noticeable that most of the research, and most of the general writing, in the sociology of English education has been confined to secondary and further education, almost as though sociologists thought that life began at eleven-plus. Even Ottaway's pioneering textbook (1953) displayed this emphasis. Ironically perhaps, it was through examination of the problems of secondary education, and particularly those of selection for secondary education, that the attention of sociologists has been increasingly drawn towards primary education too.

Meanwhile, there has been a growing tendency for writers about primary education itself to pay attention to sociological factors, both those associated with the organisation of primary schools as communities, and those more directly related to the home and community background of primary-school pupils. This sociological awareness is particularly evident in books such as those by volumes have been written in the belief that there is a need for a study of this kind, and that it is required now, as an introduction to the sociological 'aspect' of primary education, while the Plowden spotlight is focused on primary schools.

The result is something of a compromise. This is perhaps inevitable, if it is to be of service to the various types of reader who may be interested in the subject: students preparing to teach in primary schools; experienced teachers who appreciate the importance of sociological considerations; teachers and others who themselves wish to pursue some further study or research; and the general public who as parents and citizens recognise the importance of primary education as a social process in English society. But because it is a compromise it concentrates neither on research, nor on a purely theoretical interpretation, nor on practical prescription and advice. Therefore it cannot be appropriately entitled an investigation, nor an analysis, nor a do-it-yourself manual for teachers, though it embodies elements of all three. It is simply a sociological description of English primary education; an account of the whole social process and its institutional framework, including much of the data familiar to the historian or the psychologist or the expert in teaching-method, but seen from the standpoint of a sociologist and presented, I hope, in such a way that its various readers may find in it something of value to them.