Cultural Revolution in Education - Case Study Example

Discuss the impact on British Society of the ‘cultural revolution’ of the 1960 The 1960s were a time of greater disregard for the establishment, with a satire boom led by people who were willing to attack their elders. Pop music became a dominant form of expression for the young, and bands like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were seen as leaders of youth culture. Youth-based subcultures such as the mods, rockers, hippies and skinheads became more visible.1 Reforms in education led to the effective elimination of the grammar school. The rise of the comprehensive school was aimed at producing a more egalitarian educational system, and there were ever-increasing numbers of people going into higher education. When social historians refer to "The Sixties", it is rare that they are talking about the decade in its entirety or that decade exclusively. For example, some claim that the sixties began, as a cultural phenomenon, in 1963. A convincing case can be made in support of this. Events such as the assassination of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King's "Dream Speech", the debut albums of both The Beatles and Bob Dylan immediately appear as cultural turning points. 1963 appears to be the point at which civil rights, counter/youth culture and a new, somewhat alien mentality began to emerge into the mainstream consciousness. In spite of this, Marwick has argued that it is impossible to view the phenomenon in a "hermetically sealed" time frame, and that it truly began in the late fifties, and came to its conclusion in the early seventies. This is compatible with the idea that 1963 was important, indeed Marwick suggests it marks the beginning of the "High Sixties", but we must also acknowledge the gathering momentum of change in the years leading up to this point. Thus, the period of the Long Sixties I will be discussing here refers to 1958-1974. A far more difficult definition comes with the terms "cultural" and "revolution". To further complicate matters, when the two are used together, we can turn them into a proper noun, as with Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. Thus, it is important for us to differentiate between that Cultural Revolution, and Cultural Revolution in the far broader terms we are describing here. Was this a collective movement towards a universalistic revolution, or were individuals campaigning for their own singular interests? So what is a revolution, and, perhaps more pertinently, what is a culture? Revolution is a term which appears with startling regularity in world history, and has been applied to many different things. In this case, revolution refers to a paradigm shift in the way in which people live. Not surprisingly, a shift in culture is far harder to measure than a change in the means of production. What is it that we mean by culture? Over the past two decades there has been much debate on the precise meaning of culture. Culture has, in the common lexicon, come to mean what we might more specifically refer to as "high-culture", the realm of literature, classical music and theatre, and generally the domain of the refined, educated middle and upper classes. In terms of equality and liberalization regarding women, the law perhaps changed at a faster rate than it has before or since. In 1967, a range of laws were passed that changed the rights of women, and thus their lifestyle, forever. The Family Planning Act, made contraception widely and freely available to all women. This revolutionized the power of women to have children when, and with whom, they chose. In addition, the sexual freedom that contraception afforded women (equal to that of men), profoundly altered sexual life in Britain forever. Moreover, the Abortion Act legalized abortion of pregnancies up to twenty eight weeks in development, and was an incredible catalyst in changing the lives of women. Two years later, the Divorce Reform Act reconfigured the way in which people perceived marriage, as it now allowed divorce under the looser condition of the "irretrievable breakdown of marriage", which greatly empowered women to end marriages. It also provided Legal Aid to women applying for divorce, which meant it was no longer beyond the means of the poor. Following this Act, the rate of divorce approximately doubled. One of the criticisms leveled at the "permissiveness" of the era is the legacy it left in terms of single parent families and rising divorce rates. But can we label such trends "moral decline", or were they merely the by-products of an increasingly liberated female population? By 1964, half a million women were making use of the contraceptive pill, perhaps enabling an attitude towards recreational sex equal to that of men. On the other hand, Geoffrey Gorer's survey (April-May 1969, "Sex and Marriage In England Today") found that 40% of couples did not make use of birth control, and of the 19% of married women using the pill, they were mostly from "younger and wealthier" groups. Gorer also found an immense variety in attitudes towards sexual behavior, although there was a slow movement, particularly in the middle classes, of changing social mores. The influence of the feminist movement (which initially emerged from the |United States of America United States), also began to effect the attitudes of many women, albeit those from predominately educated, middle class backgrounds. Combined with increasing numbers of women entering higher education, this led to an increasing awareness of the repression of women in the traditionally patriarchal society. The introduction of labor saving devices meant that women were no longer tied to the household, and had greater amounts of free time. This shift in perspective was epitomized by the Equal Pay Act of 1970 (although this did not become compulsory until 1975). The low unemployment rate and growth of service industries following World War II led to an increasing demand for women in the workplace. How does this suggest a cultural revolution? I would argue that as women's role in society fundamentally changed, from mother and wife to salary-earner so did their function in our culture. The Long Sixties represents perhaps the move away from patriarchal culture, what Marwick referred to as "the end of Victorianism", and toward a more egalitarian model (e.g. the changing role of women in the workplace). The corner stone of any significant cultural change must surely come from education. If one thing could characterize the changing nature of education during this period, it would be the shift toward a more egalitarian system. In 1944 the Butler Act had set up the Tripartite system as the basis under which state schools would operate in Britain. At the time, this was seen as a revolutionary measure, as it promised an education tailored to young people of all abilities and backgrounds. The principle was that with each person taking standardized tests at the age of eleven, the education system would progress towards a state of equality. However, over the twenty one years that followed its instatement, it became clear that the system was based not only on raw intellectual ability, but the outcome of the system also reflected the class system it was supposed to disintegrate. Additionally, the so called "parity of esteem" that was alleged to exist between grammar, secondary modern and technical schools, (that each would be treated with equal prestige and value) was widely regarded by employers and the general public as fallacy. Not only were secondary moderns under funded in comparison to grammar schools, but were regarded by the public as inferior. There was a far lower proportion of people to emerge from them with qualifications, and for many professions and Universities, a grammar school education was all but a prerequisite. One could argue that this system meant that children of privilege, but limited ability, would be similarly treated to their working class counterparts. But it could not be this simple. Children from wealthy backgrounds who "failed' the Eleven Plus test were often simply entered into fee paying schools, were they got the same, if not greater, standard of education that they would at a grammar school. In this way, privilege could be perpetuated from generation to generation. This was seemingly the case until 1965, when Harold Wilson's recently elected Labor government instituted the Comprehensive school system. The principle here was that instead of Tripartite gradual movement towards social change, the creation of a single type of institution, the Comprehensive school, would bring about a an education system that was entirely meritocratic, in which the trappings of status and upbringing meant nothing, and the most naturally gifted students would be rewarded. Indeed, in many ways, this was a success. From 1957 to 1967, the percentage of people who attended Universities from working class backgrounds rose by a staggering 130% (HMSO, 1969), and the Labor government did its best to keep pace with demand, creating modernistic "Polytechnics". It was not, however, the revolution that some may have hoped for. Some grammar schools were allowed to exist alongside comprehensives at the discretion of local councils, and such authorities were perhaps inevitably, in the more affluent areas of the country, reinforcing the idea that such education was primarily the domain of the wealthy. Private education, and most significantly public schools, were allowed to continue, with all the class divisiveness that that implies. To this day, a disparity of academic achievement based upon background exists at all levels of the education system (people from middle class backgrounds are more likely to leave school with qualifications, and go on to higher education), although certainly not the degree to which it was present prior to these changes. While following governments have indeed experimented, to a very minor extent, with the system, it is still largely intact from the mid-sixties. When considering religion during the 1960's, many people tend to immediately think of often esoteric, occasionally wildly extreme cults and movements which seemed to proliferate in this era. Indeed, we cannot ignore the rising eminence of "New Age" spiritualism during the period, and the exponential growth in "alternative lifestyles". The increasing availability of travel and foreign literature allowed people greater access to the traditions of other cultures. Nevertheless, the snowballing decline in Church attendance far outweighed this. From 1961 to 1971, the number of baptisms per year fell by 65,000, and the number of confirmations decreased by 80,000 (National Census, 1971). What is the explanation for this sudden slump? Could it be that New Age cults successfully lured away previously dedicated churchgoers in their thousands? While certainly some did convert, the real phenomena that took place were the secularization of society. Why then did such changes take place? One could argue that the Long Sixties was a very scientific period. The Ban the Bomb symbol became perhaps the iconic image of the decade. Indeed, the existential rationality that pervaded intellectual circles of the time must surely have been seeping into mainstream culture in subtle, yet powerful ways (towards the end of the Sixties, popular music, such as The Beatles` "Strawberry Fields Forever", began to tackle such issues). Could faith exist in an age were cynicism and nihilism (symptomatic of the paranoia of the Cold War) were becoming cultural traits? Youth culture also provided young people with ready alternatives to religious devotion. John Lennon was doubtless exaggerating when he claimed his band to be "bigger than Jesus", but the fanatical fervor that "Beatle mania" invoked should not be underestimated as a cultural force. So, it would seem that Britain over the course of the period, despite its reputation as being a very "spiritual" decade, was a nation in which religion was declining; "we are a post - Christian era" wrote Theodore Roszak in 1969. The social implications of this, as to whether it was an important step in the personal liberation, or the first step in Britain's moral undoing, is very much a matter of individual interpretation and outlook. While these arguments certainly make a compelling case for the occurrence of a cultural revolution it implies that all elements of society were affected by the changes that occurred. Some historians have proposed that instead the Sixties represented a period of continuity. For example, for much of the working class, life did not significantly change over the Long Sixties. Much of the mainstream press, particularly the tabloids (often the best indicator of mass opinion) remained staunchly reactionist, and it would be incredulous to argue that by the early 1970's the majority of Britons had developed an enlightened attitude to homosexuality, race or even women's rights. As Christopher Rowe observed, "There was not much of a social revolution happening at, for example, the Women's Institute Flower show in Dunster, the hunt in Northampton shire, or among the men playing dominoes in the Working Men's Club in Rockdale." Rowe has a valid point, but has evoked archetypal bastions of conservatism and tradition, and these would not represent the entire nation. It is misleading to suggest that the Sixties marked the beginning of many social movements. The women's liberation movement, for example, had its origins pre-First World War. Most damaging, perhaps, to the assertion that a revolution took place is the relatively fast withdrawal of many of the values that it promoted. By 1979, Margaret Thatcher won an election with an image and agenda akin to the early 1950's. Some historians therefore argue that the events of the Sixties could be seen as short term cultural trends, rather than long term social change. While revolution seems an ultimately inappropriate term for the phenomena that occurred, it is crucial that we do not underestimate the gravity of the changes that took place during the Long Sixties. Read More