An Educational War on Poverty : American and British Policy-making 1960–1980

The Silvers examine the shift of attention in Britain from social class and the secondary school to poverty and the primary and preschool stage, and use extensive archive and interview material to analyse in-depth transatlantic interactions, similarities and differences in systems and policies.

This book analyses the parallel, different and related aspects of the discovery of poverty in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the role of education in the American 'war on poverty' from 1964, and in Britain from the appointment of the Plowden committee on primary schools. It examines changes in policy emphases, the relationship between research and policy, and the transatlantic interactions and silences involved. Based on archival and interview material the book offers new insights into the role of the Plowden committee in shifting attention from social class to poverty, and it discusses in both the American and British contexts the concepts and theories involved in the changing fortunes of the educational war on poverty in the 1960s and 1970s. An Educational War on Poverty represents a major contribution to the study of the recent social and educational history of Britain and the United States, and the range and depth of research, will make it an essential reference source for scholars and policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic.