Covering the period from the height of Empire to Brexit and beyond, this book shows how the vote to leave the European Union increased hostilities towards racial and ethnic minorities and migrants. Concentrating on the education system, it asks whether populist views that there should be a British identity - or a Scottish, Irish or Welsh one - will prevail. Alternatively arguments based on equality, human rights and economic needs may prove more powerful. It covers events in politics and education that have left most white British people ignorant of the Empire, the often brutal de-colonisation and the arrival of immigrants from post-colonial and European countries. It discusses politics and practices in education, race, religion and migration that have left schools and universities failing to engage with a multiracial and multicultural society.

Covering the period from the height of Empire to Brexit and beyond, this book shows how the vote to leave the European Union increased hostilities towards racial and ethnic minorities and migrants. Concentrating on the education system, it asks whether populist views that there should be a British identity - or a Scottish, Irish or Welsh one - will prevail. Alternatively arguments based on equality, human rights and economic needs may prove more powerful. It covers events in politics and education that have left most white British people ignorant of the Empire, the often brutal de-colonisation and the arrival of immigrants from post-colonial and European countries. It discusses politics and practices in education, race, religion and migration that have left schools and universities failing to engage with a multiracial and multicultural society.

Things fall apart when empires crumble. This time, we think, things will be different. They are not. This time, we are told, we will become great again. We will not. In this new edition of the hugely successful Rule Britannia, Danny Dorling and Sally Tomlinson argue that the vote to leave the EU was the last gasp of the old empire working its way out of the British psyche. Fuelled by a misplaced nostalgia, the result was driven by a lack of knowledge of Britain's imperial history, by a profound anxiety about Britain's status today, and by a deeply unrealistic vision of our future.

As a universal experience school provokes strongly-held opinions. The views of teachers, parents, pupils compete with those of educational theorists, social engineers and ideologues. Although undoubtedly much improved since the time of Beveridge, the provision of education remains beset with challenges. Sally Tomlinson's engaging, and at times personal, journey through Britain's postwar experience of schooling and education reform draws on her many years of working in the sector. She explains how legacies of different systems and countless policy initiatives have led to the persistence of social inequalities, entrenching them in society and perpetuated by the power dynamics that they create between class, race and gender. Furthermore, she shows how the increasing mania for testing, targets, choice and competition, which has made schools into a marketplace and young people into consumers, threatens to undermine schools as a place where citizens can share learning and the democratic values that are needed as much today as they were in Beveridge's time.

This volume presents the first comparative analysis of racial attitudes in the formal schooling of both Britain and its former dominions and colonies. The various contributions examine the issue right across the British imperial experience – with case studies ranging from Canada, Ireland, East and South Africa, through the Indian subcontinent to Australia and New Zealand. Racial indoctrination is considered from the perspective of both colonizer and colonized. The central theme throughout is that a racial hierarchy was taught through both curriculum and text in schools throughout the former British Empire.

British culture after Empire is the first collection of its kind to explore the intertwined social, cultural and political aftermath of empire in Britain from 1945 up to and beyond the Brexit referendum of 2016, combining approaches from the fields of history, English and cultural studies. Against those who would deny, downplay or attempt to forget Britain’s imperial legacy, the various contributions expose and explore how the British Empire and the consequences of its end continue to shape Britain at the local, national and international level. As an important and urgent intervention in a field of increasing relevance within and beyond the academy, the book offers fresh perspectives on the colonial hangovers in post-colonial Britain from up-and-coming as well as established scholars.

How successful has Britain been in accommodating racial, religious and cultural diversity in the education system? Have there been contradictory policies that have encouraged migrant labour, while urging immigration control? Has the introduction of market principles to education created further problems for ethnic minorities? This book provides crucial information on key educational issues, events and conflicts in Britain from the 1960s to the present day, as the education system has attempted to incorporate racial and ethnic minorities and educate young people to live in an ethnically diverse society. It uses examples such as political and media reactions to Afro hairstyles in the 1970s through to hijabs and niquabs today, to illustrate how misplaced are the simplistic arguments that blame multiculturalism or minorities for segregation or lack of community cohesion. Race and Education: Policy and Politics in Britain describes how over the decades schools, teachers, parents, local communities and local authorities have worked towards the incorporation of minority children into the education system. It asserts that negative and contradictory policies by governments and a continued climate of hostility to those variously labelled as immigrant, ethnic minority, or non-white has made this extremely difficult. The book sets educational issues and events within a wider social and political context, taking account of national and global influences, and changing political beliefs and actions over the years. Sally Tomlinson argues that debates needs to focus less on dress and more on the educational, housing and employment problems, symptomatic of the continued poverty in many minority areas that works against social cohesion. Race and Education: Policy and Politics in Britain is an invaluable resource for all those concerned with education and social policy, especially students and professionals working in education, sociology and social policy.