History and the Sociology of Teacher Trade Unionism

Abstract

When surveying the history of teacher trade unionism, Marx's dictum about history repeating itself, first as tragedy then as farce, readily comes to mind. The idea of learning from past mistakes is not one which has traditionally been heeded by the teachers' unions. Yet Hilda Kean's Challenging the State, a history of the lost socialist and feminist educational experience between 1900 and 1930, asks that they do just that. Coming at a time when the recent frenzy of educational reform has left most of the teaching profession shell-shocked, demoralised and all but defeated, this might just be asking too much. In fact it is difficult to think of any group of workers who have, collectively, shown such a marked proclivity to ignore, let alone absorb, the lessons of their past as organised teachers. There almost seems to be a collective amnesia, a learning block, which prevents teachers educating themselves. How then might we explain this reluctance and inability to learn from the past? In the processes of occupational socialisation the history of teacher trade unionism has undoubtedly been considered a marginal subject. This has been due, in part, to the fact that until recently much of the history was unavailable and that which did exist was often little more than the verbose reminiscences of