Caroline Benn and comprehensive education: politics, policy and practice in the 1970s
FORUM - Print ISSN 1474-7685 - Online ISSN 2047-7171
Volume 68 Number 3 (2026)
Caroline Benn and comprehensive education: politics, policy and practice in the 1970s
Jane Martin pages 21‑38
DOI: 10.3898/forum.2026.68.3.03
Abstract
This paper examines Caroline DeCamp Benn’s intellectual and practical contribution to the development of comprehensive education in Britain. Published in the centenary year of her birth and 50 years after the first legal requirement to end educational selection, it argues that Benn’s critique of selective schooling was inseparable from her challenge to prevailing assumptions about who was considered ‘intelligent’ or ‘gifted.’ Together, these critiques shaped her conception of equality of educational opportunity and her political efforts to raise educational standards for the majority. By tracing the reforms Benn identified, pursued and defended, the paper recovers the 1970s as a period of hope, possibility and contestation over competing visions of education and its purposes.
To cite this article
Jane Martin (2026) Caroline Benn and comprehensive education: politics, policy and practice in the 1970s, FORUM, 68(3), 21-38 . https://doi.org/10.3898/forum.2026.68.3.03