Across the Great Divide? Culture, Economic Life and the Rethinking of Education Policy
ABSTRACT The article alms to initiate a dialogue between educational positions which have previously existed in mutual isolation. It defines these positions – which it terms ‘culturalism’ and ‘economism’ — and seeks to identify their influence on policy and practice in England in the period since 1944; it further examines the ways in which these positions have been modified and developed under Conservative rule in the years since 1979. It argues that, whereas ‘culturalist’ thinking has moved further away from issues arising in economic life, ‘economism’ has been able to approach those issues of meaning and value previously imagined to be the domain of the cultural. It examines, critically, the contribution of aspects of post‐Fordist theory to this elaboration. The article concludes by suggesting ways in which each orientation can benefit from an engagement with the other's position, and by pointing to ways in which such a dialogue might be educationally productive.