Radical childhoods

Book excerpt: At a time when education appears to be simply reproducing social class relations, Radical childhoods offers a timely consideration of how children’s and young people’s education can confront and challenge social inequality. Presenting detailed analysis of archival material and oral testimony, the book examines the experiences of students and educators in two schooling initiatives that were connected to two of the most significant social movements in Britain: Socialist Sunday Schools (est. 1892) and Black Saturday/Supplementary Schools (est. 1967). Analysing across time, the author explores the ways in which these two very different schooling movements incorporated large numbers of women, challenged class and race inequality, and attempted to create spaces of ‘emancipatory’ education independent to the state. It argues that despite appearing to be on the ‘margins’ of the public sphere these schools were important, if contested and complex, sites of political struggle.