Social Change and English, 1945-1965

• In Event: Intersecting the Global and Local: Education and Nation Building

Abstract

This paper reports findings from a major three-year project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and entitled Social Change and English, 1945-1965. The project investigated the transformation in English language and literature teaching in three London secondary schools in the 20 years after the Second World War. The research makes extensive use of interviews with surviving teachers and former pupils, together with the study of unpublished documents and materials. The immediate post-war period is often presented as a moribund era, dominated by textbooks containing dry-as-dust grammatical exercises and literature lessons focusing on the appreciation of ‘remote’ authors. But we argue that the ‘New English’ emerged in the immediate post-conflict climate of democratic optimism and cultural renewal.

Authors

• David Crook, Brunel University

• John Hardcastle, University of London