Histories of Urban Education in the United Kingdom

Abstract

This chapter reviews the published literature on the history of urban education in the UK, discussing the major strengths and limitations of the field as it has developed, and offering some suggestions on its future directions. First, it investigates briefly the origins and early development of the history of urban education as a field in Britain. Secondly, it analyses more fully the relationship between urban society and educational provision, and the historical characteristics of educational reform in different urban contexts, including the significant and distinctive case of London. In doing so, it assesses the contribution of the literature both for urban history more generally, and for urban education as a genre (see also McCulloch, History of urban education in Britain. In Pink W, Noblit G (eds) International handbook of urban education, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 943–958, 2007).