This article presents a collection of work that grew out of an international symposium sponsored by the History of Education Society UK and held in Hamburg in 2007. The symposium aimed to contribute to understandings of different approaches to researching the extent to which education has contributed historically to social change in respect of…

Presents questions about the nature of national identity and the role of education in its formation. Explores four texts from the middle and late 20th century. Offers reflections on the problems and possibilities in exploring national identity. Concludes with a discussion of national identity and education in the future. (CMK)

Maintains that accounts of education policy in post-1945 Great Britain may be distorted by the race and ethnic discourses embedded in both the analytical frameworks that historians employ and the primary source materials with which they work. Criticizes a number of key works from the 1960s to the present. (MJP)