Curriculum diversity and social justice education: from New Labour to Conservative government control of education in England

Abstract

A retrospective lens is applied in this chapter to understand former New Labour government’s reasoning for advocating an ethnically diverse curriculum to be delivered in English schools; the role it saw the National Curriculum as playing in British society and in raising the attainment of ethnically diverse groups; together with how such expectations led to the commissioning of two National Curriculum diversity reports. Drawing on social justice perspectives, the chapter discusses how New Labour’s emphasis on recognising ethnically diverse students and British identities in the curriculum was rejected by subsequent Coalition and Conservative governments in favour of the negative positioning of student diversity through the Prevent agenda under the guise of threats to national security. The chapter concludes with discussion of the ‘public good’ and how an ethnically diverse curriculum can enhance the equality both of opportunity and of outcomes.