The purpose of this paper is to encourage re‐reading and re‐evaluation of a series of educational polemics published in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s, the Black Papers. These works proposed, for the most part, avowedly conservative views on education: condemning so‐called “progressive” teaching methods and the re‐organisation of secondary schools in the UK (especially England) into non‐selective comprehensives. It is argued, however, that much said and written about the Black Papers since has concentrated only on selected “high profile” contributors, to the neglect of other contributors, often anonymous, whose comments were sometimes more measured/thoughtful.
The work proceeds first by re‐visiting the facts surrounding the writing of the Black Papers and their critical reception. It then analyses the nature of the contributors and describes selected essays not usually referred to when the Black Papers are discussed by historians and others.
The work finds that the Black Papers are often infuriatingly and unhelpful polemical in nature but that much written about them since has concentrated only on selected contributors, ignoring others who were more measured.
The work is perhaps the first critical re‐reading of the Black Papers in any depth in several decades. It does not simply dismiss them as hysterical rants by ill‐informed authors and suggests that they re‐pay careful attention, despite their often polemical nature.
