The school subject of English as an emancipatory project, countering the neoliberal repression, a case study from England.

This paper considers the nature of English as a school subject in England in relation to its history as an emancipatory subject. In neoliberal times, ‘Can English still claim to be an emancipatory subject for its teachers and students?’ The subject called ‘English’, in England, is essentially remains an emancipatory subject’, yet its complications, contradictions and vexed history make that a questionable claim but English has immense and continuous potential to be truly emancipatory and, at times, has more fully embraced that concept. The simplest definition of the term, ‘emancipatory’, is to free from restraint, control or the power of another – but the term is much broader including concepts of freedom, human rights [especially those of women], the abolition of slavery, the principles of democracy and the idea of ‘liberation’. Butzlaff states ‘Scholars have repeatedly pointed to a constant enlargement and pluralisation of the term’s meaning’ [Butzlaff, 2022, p.95]. That perspective is from political theory but is appropriate because the domain of English, certainly in high schools, is necessarily political – English is a quicksilver subject [Dixon, 1967] and is more explicitly political at certain times, the more political its orientation, the more emancipatory its modus operandi. It can be useful to consider the history of the school subject of English in England, as a series of phases [Goodwyn, 2020a, 2020b]. The method adopted here is principally an attempt to illuminate the present and future of the subject by drawing on those past phases as a resource to think with, as a particular explanatory framework. This study selects three key phases, each associated with a particularly seminal report. Given the currently dire, neoliberalized, condition of English in England [see Goodwyn, 2022], the focus here is strongly on where and how the past versions of the subject substantively enabled emancipatory experiences and knowledge. English is always partly emancipatory but certain periods have demonstrated its optimum power and not just potential. The suggested phases overall [often over lapping] are: [1], ennobling the vernacular 1870-1914; [2], conventions and conditions 1918-1954; [3], culturing the citizenry 1929-1954, [4] Growth through Language 1954-89, [5], English in harmonious practice 1980-1992 and [6], Building the Panopticon, the coming of control, conformity and self-regulation 1993 -ongoing. [ Goodwyn 2020a, 2020b]. The research focuses on three key documents and their relationship to the phases, The Newbolt Report, The Bullock Report and The Cox Report with references to The Kingman Report and the LINC project. The two most recent surveys by NATE [Goodwyn, 2020] demonstrate clearly that well informed and professional English teachers continue to express emancipatory values and experience enormous frustrations because of the utter dominance of the current examination system and the restricted kind of pedagogy it demands. The analysis puts the last two decades into the perspective of fifteen decades, going back to the nascence of subject English in the 1870s. The essential momentum of the subject through Newbolt, Bullock and Cox remains the main history of subject English, an increasingly democratic and emancipatory subject with social justice at its heart. That history is complicated with all kinds of nationalism, colonialism, patriarchy and conservative notions of literary heritage but the story demonstrates English teachers striving to balance the societal demands of these pressures with their progressive ideals to develop a humane version of that society. Taken together this overarching period of 1870-1954 encompasses many similarities to what was happening with English [the subject] in many countries, notably Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA – but also in then colonised nations around the world. English remains a grand, emancipatory project. Its critics are always clear that its pretentions need to be curbed for the security of a certain kind of hierarchically structured nation state. This is a challenge for all L1 teachers in the neoliberal, global era [see Green & Erikson, 2020]. Around the world English is boxed in by regulatory frameworks and oppressed by right wing agendas for whom the nation state is a form of mind control; would that these were hysterical claims but the times give them truth. History, when authentically told, always reveals that tyrannies are temporary although their endurance feels permanent. The history of English is necessarily complex and vexed, its current state is compromised, but its future must take inspiration from its undiminished ambition to return to being the truly emancipatory subject for all its students and teachers. Butzlaff [2022] Emancipatory struggles and their political organisation: how political parties and social movements respond to changing notions of emancipation, European Journal of Social Theory, Vol 21, Issue 1, pp. 94-117. DCBE. [Departmental Committee of the Board of Education]. (1921.) The Teaching of English in England (The Newbolt Report). London, His Majesty’s Stationery Office. DES [1989] English for Ages 5-16, London, HMSO Dixon, J. (1975). Growth through English: set in the perspective of the seventies. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Gibbons, S. (2017) English and its Teachers: A History of Policy, Pedagogy and Practice. Abingdon, Routledge. Goodwyn, A. [2022], ‘The attrition of the Expertise of teachers of English: from the rich pedagogy of Personal and Social Agency to the poverty of the Powerful Knowledge Heritage model’. In, Goodwyn, A., et al. (2022). (Eds.). International Perspectives on English Teacher Development: From Initial Teacher Education to Highly Accomplished Professional: [IFTE Volume Four], London, Routledge. Goodwyn, A. (2020a). ‘The Origins and Adaptations of English as a School Subject’. In C.J. Hall & R.Wicaksono (Eds.), Ontologies of English Reconceptualising the language for learning, teaching, and assessment. (Ch6, pp.101-122.). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Goodwyn, A. (published online, June, 2020b). Andy Goodwyn (2020) Newbolt to Now: an Interpretation of the History of the School Subject of English in England, Changing English, Studies in Culture and Education Volume 28, 2021 - Issue 2. 223-240DOI: 10.1080/1358684X.2020.1756743 Goodwyn, A. [2020c] The State of English: NATE’s national survey of English teaching The English Magazine. pp. 29-32, Autumn 2020. Green, B. & Erixon, P [2020] Rethinking L1 Education in a Global Era: Understanding the (Post-) National L1 Subjects in New and Difficult Times, Dordrecht, Springer.