A Technocratic Vision: The Ideology of School Science Reform in Britain in the 1950s

Abstract

Support for school science reform in Britain in the 1950s, focusing on the grammar and `public' (that is, private boarding) schools, was founded upon a technocratic ideology. It emphasized the role of such schools in providing the future leaders of society, but sought also to revise the classic ideology of the nineteenth-century public schools to adapt to new political, social and cultural demands. Sponsors and agencies of reform in the 1950s — including Eric James, the Industrial Fund, the Federation of British Industries, the Incorporated Association of Head Masters, and others — all hoped to equip the future élite with scientific and technological knowledge and skills which would fit them for leading posts in the late twentieth century, rather than the unalloyed classical training that had been deemed appropriate for their Victorian forefathers. The historical roots and associations of the ideology conditioned its growth and characteristics, account for its preoccupation with particular values and groups in society, and explain its eventual failure. In assessing the ideology of school reform in Britain in the 1950s, this historical framework of interpretation is no less important than the theme of `social control', and an awareness of the immediate social, cultural and political milieu.