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ABSTRACT OF THESIS This study follows the progress of a key school subject towards its slow, partial fulfilment of the 1940s' aspiration for equality of educational opportunity within the post war reconstruction of Scottish society. Its focus is on 'English' at both the level of public pronouncement and of day-to- day classroom experience - suid on the intricate interactions between these two worlds. Therefore, in addition to analysis of official documentation and school materials, the personal testimony of twenty long-serving participants, practitioners as well as policy makers, is woven into the account. Two factors have helped to elucidate this history: the centralised, uniform nature of the Scottish system; the post-war inheritance of two articulated but competing models of English - the initially dominant Scottish Education Department supported academic syllabus built on knowledge inculcation, national examination and institutional division into 'junior' and 'senior' secondary curricula as against the progressivist alternative of 'the full and harmonious development of the individual' to be sought in 'omnibus' schools. Superficially, 1940-1990 may be viewed as the gradual, orderly movement towards Standard Grade English as a consensual acceptance of the progressivist version, a process facilitated by an opening up of decision-making into a partnership between SED and the profession through such bodies as the Consultative Council and a devolved Examination Board. A detailed investigation of actual practice shows a more ambiguous curricular reality in which pragmatic management and deeply embedded assumptions sustain a contradictory adherence to didactic methodology and rigid assessment procedure. The Scottish experience suggests that curricular change is a necessarily problematic process whose promotion depends upon a sensitive appreciation of its complex rhythms. In Scotland this NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Author's Biographical Outline Since the author has, himself, been part of the scene that he has attempted to reconstruct, it may be helpful to furnish these details - if not to establish credentials, then to forewarn the reader of likely sources of influence and allegiance. Secondary Schooling: Lewes County Grammar School, Sussex, 1953-56 Aberlour High School, Banffshire, 1956-60. Higher Education: Aberdeen University - Honours Degree in English 1960-64 Peterhouse, Cambridge University - Postgraduate research in English 1964-66 Aberdeen College of Education - Teacher’s Certifícate 1966. Professional Career: English teacher, Aberdeen Grammar School, Aberdeen 1967-71 Lecturer, Department of English, Aberdeen College of Education 1971-78 Head of English Department, Aberdeen College of Education 1978-87 Head of Language Department, Northern College, (Aberdeen), 1987-90 Assistant Principal, Northern College (Aberdeen) 1990 to date. Related activity: Member of Fourth and Fifth Central Committees on English 1981-86. Member of Central Support Group, Consultative Council on the Curriculum 1986-88. Gender The pronominal conventions by which to express a proper recognition of the freedom and universality of human experience do not appear to me to have, as yet, settled down: the imperatives of sense and style mean that it is not always possible to use the neutral plural, while repetitions of he/she clutter the movement of the prose. Yet to follow the common practice of adopting 'she' for the teacher and 'he' for 'her' pupil appears to me to help construct assumptions as regards social roleplay that are just as deterministic as any reliance upon the male gender. I have therefore used the masculine and the feminine pronoun throughout the text in a freely interchangeable manner: unless obviously not the case, 'he' and 'she' are to be read as referring to individuals of either sex. Gratitude I have incurred many debts of gratitude in bringing this dissertation to completion. I must, first, thank a number of individuals and institutions who have freely supported my endeavours, by kindly granting access to material, by offering advice and interested comment or in more tangible, personal ways. Among these, I would wish to recognise the assistance given to me by my employer The Northern College of Education under Principal David Adams, in terms of finance and general encouragement; thanks are also due to Colin Peacock and John Lloyd of the Education Department of Stirling University whose tutelage included a number of stimulating professional exchanges as well as valued practical advice, to the Northern College Library giving me the key to their entire stock and for waiving the usual borrowing rules, and to the Education Department of Glasgow University for their permission to consult unpublished iv MEd theses. I am also grateful both to the Scottish Education Department and Senior Chief Inspector John Ferguson for permission to consult and to refer to certain restricted files and to the staff of the Scottish Record Office, West Register House, Edinburgh who handled all requests with unfailing efficiency and courtesy. Most especially, I must express my very considerable gratitude to the twenty interviewees who have provided the necessary human texture and whose rich fund of recollection led me to appreciate more clearly the role of biographical experience in the construction of educational history. Each of them took time to prepare for a lengthy interview, and then to review its results as well as to suffer the event itself. In all cases there was a degree of personal inconvenience and intrusion: while some travelled to meet me, yet more- often unknown to me beforehand - invited me into their own offices or homes where I was able to enjoy hospitality as well as words. To all of them I am deeply indebted. I should also like to thank my friends and colleagues within the Northern College Language Department who over a period of four years cheerfully endured the frequent absences and distractions that my researches inflicted upon them. I owe a particular debt to my secretary at that time Elizabeth Lawrence who worked through several series of complicated handwritten drafts with her usual cheerful and highly professional expertise. Finally, my special and personal thanks are reserved for my family, Kathleen, Jonathan and Matt - whose unstinting support and forbearance have made the whole enterprise possible. iv CONTENTS Page Nos. Abstract of Thesis Notes and Acknowledgements Preface Part 1 1940-1947 Introduction: Towards a Secondary Education for All 1. The Academic Inheritance: Pre War English 2. History and Circumstances - the Meaning of a Scottish Education 3. Secondary Education and the Rhetoric of Change 70 Part 2 1947 -1965 Introduction: Academicism and Inertia 4. Teachers and Inspectors 5. Records and Schemes of Work Part 3 1965 -1977 Introduction: New Systems for Old 6. Central Committees and Local Working Groups 7. Local Development Centres and Central Committees Part 4 1977 -1990 Introduction: Towards a Common Purpose 8. From the Foundation Upwards - English and the Munn and Dunning Reports 9. The SED and the Liberal Uses of Power 10. The Standardisation of Secondary English Part 6 An English Teaching for the 1990s 11. Past Hopes; Future Possibilities 12. English the Scottish Way Postscript A Sense of History Appendices 1,2 Bibliography PREFACE Enifliah: a Study in Decision-Making It was in 1936 that the Scottish Education Department (SED) fírst announced that all schooling after the age of twelve was to be designated ’secondary’/ ! ) Eleven years later, in a celebrated report, its Advisory Council gave the country’s teachers and administrators their post-war goal: ’secondary education’, it agreed, must be dedicated to ’the full and harmonious development of the individual.’^^) ^nd now, in 1990, with the conclusive establishment of the Standard Grade course, it may be said that - at last - all pupils between the ages of twelve and sixteen are, by working towards a common national certificate, able to enjoy the same essential experience of English. The purpose of this study is to explore the drawn out processes of development and resistance that join these events together. In this way ’English’ may act as a means of exploring the themes of change and continuity in one nation’s educational service. The focus of my interest is, however, that of a trained specialist in the subject, my enquiry an expression of a professional concern with the continuing progress of English at secondary school level. But to say even this is to open up complex issues. The specific mix of interpretation, composition, oral work and literary appreciation that makes up the present-day Standard Grade course can only represent a small selection of all the personal, social and cultural activity in which the native tongue engages us. The English of today’s classroom is, in fact, the product of an intricacy of decision-making to which many agents and numerous forces have contributed and have done so over a necessarily long period of time. This is the consideration which has dictated both the density and the length of this study. To serve as an investigation into the forces which have driven today’s English teaching, it has had to be sufReiently detailed to account for the wide range of people and ftuietions which have made up the policy-forming community within modem Scottish education. It has also had to follow their activity over the 60 year apan which it has taken the country to work through the perplexities of power, of participation and of practical realisation with which the task of fashioning a secondary English education that could, truly, be for all has confronted its educationists. Tlie Search Ibr Evidence: Department, Profession, Teachers The first step was to examine the intentions and the actions of those who have been placed at the centre of Scottish decision-making. These included the continuing work of the officers of the SED, especially that of its Inspectors of Schools (HMIs) as well as the Reports of ad hoc bodies such as the influential Munn and Dunning Committees which enquired into curricular and assessment structures in the mid 1970s.