Being a historian: an introduction to the professional world of history and History in the making

As historians of education it ultimately befits us, more so perhaps than those working in cognate historical fields, to consider the purpose of our scholarship. The interchanges at the turn of the century between Gary McCulloch and William Richardson in this journal attest to the debate summed up, crudely, between a desire to produce history very much in the Liberal mode ‘for its own sake’ as opposed to that perspective which seeks to argue that there exists a more instrumental purpose for the history of education, notably to influence policy and practice in the present. Part of the reason why this latter point of view remains prescient is due to the very living nature of educational history. The widespread academic critiques for example attached to contemporary neo-liberal administrations’ devotion to testing and ‘standards’ are rooted in a knowing awareness of the past and the dangers of inequalities fostered by selective models of schooling. Similarly, the educational past is also manifested more obviously in the physical aspects of buildings, materials and artefacts many of which, as the work of Ian Grosvenor and Catherine Burke (School, London, 2008) has indicated, can themselves be redolent of ideology and assumptions about learning. Furthermore, it has remained the providence of such related organisations as the Historical Association (alongside its Teaching History journal) and the Schools History Project to understand that policy/practice intersection and to promote history in an array of different forms and in a variety of settings including museums, historic sites, local landscapes and educational initiatives