This is the first full-length study of the life and career of Brian Simon (1915-2002), leading Marxist intellectual and historian of education in twentieth-century Britain. Using documentary sources that have only recently become publicly available, it reveals the remarkably broad range of Simon’s life as student, soldier and school teacher, Communist Party activist, and educational academic, campaigner and reformer. In a sympathetic biography that yet retains critical distance, the authors analyse Simon’s contribution to Marxism and the Communist Party. They explore the influence of both on his work as a historian of education and trace the significance of his Marxist beliefs, political associations and historical approach to the cause of educational reform. In so doing, they consider the full nature and limitations of Simon’s achievements in his struggle for education. Unlike many Marxist scholars he remained loyal to the Communist Party in the 1950s, which damaged his reputation as a public intellectual. Nevertheless, his support for comprehensive education helped to promote egalitarian educational reforms in Britain, although he was later unable to provide sufficient resistance to the 1988 Education Reform Act and to a decline in the position of the comprehensive schools.
In all this, the significance of Simon’s family, and especially his relationship with his wife Joan is to the fore. Joan and Brian forged a formidable 60-year partnership, in politics and the Communist Party as well as in life, that lasted until Brian’s death in January 2002.
Praise for Brian Simon and the Struggle for Education
’A very interesting book for historians of education and the best overall work about the thought and work of Brian Simon.’
Historia y Memoria de la Educación
’9 chapters and two series of beautiful photos which at once plunges us into the dichotomous world of Simon´s life.’
British Journal of Educational Studies
Innehållsförteckning
List of figures
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
1 Brian Simon: an introduction
2 The making of a Marxist intellectual
3 Soldier and schoolteacher in the 1940s
4 Marxism, psychology and pedagogy
5 An emerging public figure
6 Chairman of the National Cultural Committee of the Communist Party
7 Campaign for comprehensive education: 1951–1979
8 Defending comprehensive education: 1979–1990
9 Afterthoughts and last words
Bibliography
Index
Om författaren
Hsiao-Yuh Ku is an associate professor at the National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan. Her research interest is in the English history of education, especially focusing on educational reforms and debates in the twentieth century. She completed a Ph D on the educational ideas of Sir Fred Clarke and their relationship to the 1944 Education Act at the IOE, UCL’s Faculty Education and Society, Her book, Education for Democracy in England in World War II was published by Routledge. She leads a funded research project on the New Right and education.
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