Public or Private Education?

This collection of essays, edited by the distinguished historian of education Richard Aldrich, examines past, present and future relationships between the private and public dimensions of knowledge and education. Following the introduction, it is divided into three sections:* key themes and turning points in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries* examples from the twentieth century of non formal education with particular reference to girls and women, the care and education of pre-school children, sex education and family history* an analysis of the private and public dimensions associated with globalization and international education and of examples drawn from Australia and the USA.This book will become required reading not only in respect of contemporary and historical debates about private and public spheres in education, but also with reference to the wider themes of the creation, diffusion and ownership of knowledge.

Part 1 1. Gender and the Private/Public Debate on Education in the Long Eighteenth Century, Michele Cohen 2. Changing the Boundaries - the Voluntary System, Private Popular Education and the Battle for Useful Knowledge, c.1830s-c.1860s, Dennis Dean 3. From Incorporation to Privatisation: Public and Private Secondary Education in Twentieth-Century England, Gary McCullough Part 2 4. Round and Round the Mulberry Bush - the Balance of Public and Private in Early Education and Childcare in the Twentieth Century, Helen Penn 5. Birds, Bees and General Embarrassment - Sex Education in Briain, from Social Purity to Section 28, Lesley A. Hall 6. Domestic Science - the Education of Girls at Home, Susan Williams 7. Family History and the History of the Family Richard Aldrich Part 3 8. Changing Conceptions of Public and Private in American Educational History, William J Reese 9. Public Commitment and Private Choice in Australian Secondary Education, Geoffrey Sherington 10. Public, Private and Globalised International Education, Peter Leuner and Mike Woolf.