Education in a Post‐welfare Society

Citation

Barker, R. (2004), "Education in a Post‐welfare Society", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 74-75. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijem.2004.18.1.74.2

Sally Tomlinson has produced an exceptional book that outlines sharply the link between social policy with regard to welfare provision and education. She constructs a persuasive argument indicating how governments have used a market‐led education system that is not reconcilable with an education system based on social democratic principles, to shape society. The first chapter, covering the period 1945 to 1976, presents the struggles between the forces of social democratic consensus and those of the political right. However, Tomlinson astutely questions the strength and the basis of the social democratic movement in education during this period. The following eight chapters provide a detailed and compelling analysis of the rise of market forces, globalisation and consumerism as an ideology. Seamlessly woven into this analysis is the influence of class, race and gender. Of particular note I felt is chapter five, which considers New Labour’s attitude and policies on education.

Sally Tomlinson’s view that the education system is about social control and helping to produce future consumers who are driven only by their desires is convincing. It is also a timely call for a debate about the nature and purpose of education. This is because, as Freud pointed out, a society full of individuals driven by their uncontrolled desires will result in a dangerous society. As Tomlinson argues, since certainly the late 1970s, education has been increasingly focused by governments on socializing individuals to pursue only their own selfish needs. Whatever the arguments concerning the education system’s ability to create equity and a socially just society during the period 1945 to 1979; there are few educationalists who would argue that this has been its role since the 1980s. Tomlinson, throughout this exceptional book, indirectly asks the question of the reader: Is it acceptable for welfare provision to be used simply as a means of providing a control support system for marginalized groups? Or should it provide a means of establishing equity?

The level of scholarship in the writing of this book is remarkable; it has been a long time since I have come across a book, that to put it quite simply is so well researched. Sally Tomlinson has also clearly gone out of her way to make this book accessible, it is, thankfully, in these days, jargon free. This book will be of great value to students following undergraduate and postgraduate courses in social policy, education, and history courses that cover this period.