Brian Simon and the Struggle for Education

  1. Gary McCulloch 3
  2. Antonio F. Canales 2
  3. Hsiao-Yuh Ku 1
  1. 1 National Chung Cheng University, Min-Hsiung, Taiwan
  2. 2 Universidad Complutense de Madrid
    info

    Universidad Complutense de Madrid

    Madrid, España

    ROR 02p0gd045

  3. 3 UCL Institute of Education London

Publisher: UCLPress

ISBN: 9781787359826 9781787359833

Year of publication: 2023

Type: Book

Abstract

This is the first full-length study of the life and career of Brian Simon (1915-2002), leading Marxist intellectual and historian of education in twentieth-century Britain. Using documentary sources that have only recently become publicly available, it reveals the remarkably broad range of Simon’s life as student, soldier and school teacher, Communist Party activist, and educational academic, campaigner and reformer. In a sympathetic biography that yet retains critical distance, the authors analyse Simon’s contribution to Marxism and the Communist Party. They explore the influence of both on his work as a historian of education and trace the significance of his Marxist beliefs, political associations and historical approach to the cause of educational reform. In so doing, they consider the full nature and limitations of Simon’s achievements in his struggle for education. Unlike many Marxist scholars he remained loyal to the Communist Party in the 1950s, which damaged his reputation as a public intellectual. Nevertheless, his support for comprehensive education helped to promote egalitarian educational reforms in Britain, although he was later unable to provide sufficient resistance to the 1988 Education Reform Act and to a decline in the position of the comprehensive schools.In all this, the significance of Simon’s family, and especially his relationship with his wife Joan is to the fore. Joan and Brian forged a formidable 60-year partnership, in politics and the Communist Party as well as in life, that lasted until Brian’s death in January 2002.