Endorsements

Education has long been central to the struggle for radical social change. Yet, as social class inequalities sustain and deepen, it is increasingly difficult to conceptualise and understand the possibility for 'emancipatory' education. In Radical childhoods Jessica Gerrard takes up this challenge by theoretically considering how education might contribute to radical social change, alongside an in-depth comparative historical enquiry. Attending to the shifting nature of class, race and gender relations in British society, this book offers a thoughtful account of two of the most significant community-based schooling initiatives in British history: the Socialist Sunday School (est. 1892) and Black Saturday/Supplementary School (est. 1967) movements. The book situates itself within contemporary policy and practice contexts, before turning to critical social theory to consider the possibility for 'emancipatory' education. Offering detailed analyses of archival material and oral testimony, it chronicles the social histories of the initiatives, including their endeavour to create alternative cultures of radical education and their contested relationships to the state and wider socialist and black political movements. Radical childhoods argues that despite appearing to be on the 'margins' of the 'public sphere', these schools were important sites of political struggle. -