The Gove Legacy: Education in Britain after the Coalition [Hardcover]

Michael Gove was, unquestionably, a pivotal figure in British educational reform during his time as the coalition's Secretary of State for Education. This team of experts, drawn from academia, think-tanks and trade unions, offer an unrivalled early assessment of the impact of Gove, and his reforms, on the British educational landscape.Introduction: The Gove Ascendancy - Michael Gove as Secretary of State for Education; Mike Finn 1. The Gove Legacy in State Education; Brian Lightman 2. The Gove Legacy in Independent Schools: The Making and Unmaking of a Supreme Goviet; Tim Hands 3. The Gove Legacy in the Curriculum: The Case of History; Katharine Burn 4. The Gove Legacy: Where Policy Meets the Pupil; Mick Waters 5. Education Beyond the Gove Legacy: The Case of Higher Education; Roger Brown 5b. Education Beyond the Gove Legacy: The Case of Higher Education (2): Ideology in Action; Mike Finn 6. Opening Doors or Narrowing Opportunities?: The Coalition's Approach to Widening Participation, Social Mobility and Social Justice; Konstanze Spohrer 7. The Gove Legacy and the Politics of Education after 2015; Jonathan Simons 7b. The Gove Legacy and the Politics of Education after 2015 (2): Skills and accountability; Steve Besley 7c. The Gove Legacy and the Politics of Education after 2015 (3): Can the legacy endure?; Louis Coffait Conclusion: The Gove Legacy in Education; Mike Finn

This excellent collection tells us a great deal about government policy-making generally, as well as the specific educational legacy of Michael Gove and the Coalition Government. As someone who was directly involved in one set of reforms, I was intrigued by how much I had forgotten, or never known, about the detail of policy-making and implementation. But I was also deeply impressed by the way in which the authors, from very different perspectives, leave one with a much clearer understanding of how education policy has evolved in England; of major underlying shifts, many of which started well£.