?Is going two days now the pot turn down?: Stories for all

Abstract

For education in the United Kingdom, 1985 was the year of the Swann: the year that the Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups, chaired by Lord Swann, published its 850-page report, significantly titled Education for All. And the month was March, renowned for Mad Hares and Hatters and for the Children's Literature Confefence at Brighton. In this paper, I sought to take a bite out of the Conference theme of “Fantasy Worlds” and chew it over in terms of the Swann Report. In reviewing the oral tradition, folktales, and contemporary fiction, I followed the “two distinct strands” identified by Swann: provision for ethnic minority children and provision for all children in a culturally plural society.