Tom Woodin

From the early 1970s, working class writing and publishing in local communities rapidly proliferated into a national movement. New literary and historical work challenged dominant cultural ideas and practices. This book is the first full evaluation of these developments which opens up new perspectives on culture, class and identity over the past fifty years. The origins of this cultural explosion are traced in the context of international shifts in class politics, civil rights, personal expression and cultural change. The actual written output is analysed through a number of lenses, looking at the work of writing workshops, young people, older people and adult literacy groups. Understanding the creative energy of these groups, and the individuals within them, provides crucial insights into everyday working class life often hidden from mainstream commentators. A number of thematic chapters explore the way audiences consumed this work, the learning of writers on a cultural journey, the fierce debates over identity, class and organization as well as the reception of this work within the broader institutional frameworks of the Arts Council among others. This book is accessibly written but engages with a wide range of scholarly work in History, Education, Cultural studies, literature and sociology. As such it will be an important book for both students and lecturers as well as the interested reader.

Literature, Culture and Community

Working-Class Writing and Publishing in the Late Twentieth Century

Richard Aldrich

The history of the UCL Institute of Education is one of persistent renewal. Since its founding in 1902 as the London Day Training College, through its establishment as a university institute and merger with UCL, the IOE has constantly grown into new areas of learning and social research. As a locus for leadership, it has exerted influence upon the nature and direction of education nationally and internationally. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, the connections between internal history and external historical developments are sensitively teased out. The result is an elegantly written history, characterised by substantial scholarship and analysis, and enlivened by illustrations and anecdote. The pages of this book are peopled with some of the most influential, and at times controversial, figures of education, including Sidney Webb, Cyril Burt, Susan Isaacs, Sophie Bryant, Richard Peters, Basil Bernstein, Ann Oakley, Celia Hoyles and Stephen Ball. Two new chapters extend Richard Aldrich’s text to 2020. These examine the extraordinary years of growth in the early 2000s, followed by a period of consolidation, merger with UCL and subsequent expansion. The IOE is unique in successfully pursuing a world-leading research agenda while also supporting a wide range of teacher education, having an impact in London, across Britain and the world.

Tom Woodin

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