Cunningham Steve - Schools out!: the hidden history of Britains school student strikes

Childhood in general and schooling in particular are often seen as things that are done to children. Based on meticulous research, Cunningham and Lavalette correct this imbalance, detailing five waves of school student strikes. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of education and childhood.

Alan Gibbons, multi-award winning author

A truly revelatory account of school kids rebellion and political dissidence. Schools Out! is both rigorous and captivating; inspiring reading in these dark days.

John Newsinger, Professor of History, Bath Spa University

This is a path-breaking book. Famous episodes like Burston have been celebrated before but no one has tried to cover the stories of school kids resistance from 1889 to Stop the War. Extensively researched and told with passion it is a real page turner. An unusual claim to make for a piece of social history!

John Charlton, socialist historian and activist, author of It Just Went Like Tinder and father of six dissenting children!

The history of school student protest is hidden and yet it has played a part in all the big upsurges in struggle over the last 100 years. This book shows how school students have played a living, breathing role in working class history. It will be a fascinating read for teachers and all those who work with school students and young peopleit emphasises the role young people can play in shaping their own worlds.

Jess Edwards, Joint Divisional Secretary, Lambeth NUT

Public rhetoric on childhood has recently been overwhelmingly negative. Children are invariably said to be menaced by traffickers, internet pornographers, incompetent parents, bad teachers and clothing manufacturers eager to sexualise them. They are also widely held to be uninterested in politics. This admirable book confronts these dreary misrepresentations. Michael Lavalette and Steve Cunningham, known for their important work on child labour, show here how children have long been, and continue to be, active on their own account, politically aware and prepared to defy their teachers in the face of perceived injustice. The book is readable and impressive in its historical and cross cultural compass and its a worthy contribution to a literature through which children are becoming no longer hidden from history or excluded from political consideration. I strongly recommend it.

Stephen Wagg, Professor at Leeds Beckett University and co-editor Thatchers Grandchildren? Politics and Childhood in the 21st Century

Although childrens agency, participation and rights have become well-established conceptual touchstones in the discourses of the social sciences, they are rarely applied in ways that genuinely unsettle conventional understandings of child-adult relations and/or the power of social institutions. Not so with this book. By analysing both historical and contemporary manifestations of childrens agential capacities to organise student strikes, Cunningham and Lavalette challenge received orthodoxies and provoke new ways of thinking. Schools Out! is a mustread for any scholar or student of childhood and youth studies.

Professor Barry Goldson, Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, The University of Liverpool

Schools Out!

The Hidden History of Britains School Student Strikes

Steve Cunningham and Michael Lavalette

Published by Bookmarks Publications

c/o 1 Bloomsbury Street

London WC1B 3QE

Designed and typeset by Peter Robinson

Printed by Melita Press

ISBN 978-1-910885-17-8 (pbk)

978-1-910885-18-5 (Kindle)

978-1-910885-19-2 (ePub)

978-1-910885-16-1 (PDF)

About the authors

STEVE CUNNINGHAM is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Central Lancashire. He jointly authored Social Policy and Social Work (Sage) and Sociology and Social Work (Sage). His research interests are focused on welfare history, poverty and social security, the sociology of welfare, asylum and immigration policy, child labour and childrens rights.

MICHAEL LAVALETTE is Professor of Social Work at Liverpool Hope University and national coordinator of the Social Work Action Network. He is the author of Capitalism and Sport: Politics, Protest, People and Play (Bookmarks), Radical Social Work Today (Policy Press), Race, Racism and Social Work (Policy Press) and Adult Social Care: Critical and Radical Debates in Social Work (Policy Press). He is a member of the Socialist Workers Party.

WE HAVE been collecting material on student school strikes, on and off, for 15 years. We published our first piece on this just as the 2003 strikes against the Iraq war began. We suddenly found ourselves being interviewed in the press and radioour 15 minutes of fame. But quickly interest in the subject dissipated and we were once again ploughing a lonely furrow.

We would like to thank various people who, over the years, have offered support, help and various sources. Thanks to Jo Cunningham, Laura Penketh, Ron Lavalette, John Charlton, John Newsinger, Stephen Wagg, Barry Goldson, Jim McKechnie, Sally Campbell, Tony Staunton, Rahul Patel, Sandy Hobbs, Judith Orr and Charlie Kimber at the SWP national office and Hannah Sell at the Socialist Party national office. Particular thanks to Lina Nicolli at Bookmarks and Eileen Short, Peter Robinson and Carol Williams who were all involved on the production side.

We would particularly like to thank those who gave their time to talk to us and share their memories of their time as school student activists. Thanks to Steve Marsh, Rehad Desai, Erika Laredo, Dave Kersey, Chris Fuller, Angela McCormick, James Doleman, Keir McKechnie, Tom Kay, Nancy Taaffe, Lois Austin, Hannah Sell, Henna Malik, Mike Morris, Weyman Bennett and Dave Gibson. In 2003 a number of school strikers agreed to be interviewed. Their insights inform . We would like to thank each of them (identified by their first names only in the chapter) for giving their time and talking to us in the midst of those heady days. Finally, Jimmy Ross and Jock Morris talked to us about their experiences as activists in the teachers union and their relationship with school student strikers.

Socialist Worker gave us access to their photo-library; thanks to Judith Orr and Ken Ollende for their help with this. Both Sam Ziesler at the Salford Working Class Movement Library and Darren Treadwell at the Peoples History Museum, Manchester were very helpful in directing us to key sources.

Finally wed like to thank the University of Central Lancashire and Liverpool Hope University for small grants allowing us to travel, to access archives and carry out interviews with former school student rebels.

Our title has similarities to the campaign group Schools OUT UK. After discussion with the group we both decided there was no clash but we asked them to write a few words to describe their excellent work. We are grateful to Sue Sanders, chair of Schools OUT UK, for the following:

Schools OUT UK is a charity that has been working for over 40 years to Educate OUT prejudice by making LGBT people in all their diversity visible and safe. We have to that end initiated www.the-classrom.org.uk which has over 50 lesson plans for all ages across the curriculum and that usualises LGBT themes, Embedded February as www.lgbthistorymonth.org.uk and introduced The LGBT National History Festival.