Training, Careers and Lives: a longitudinal study of a teaching dynasty

Abstract

This paper is an account of a singular Anglo‐Welsh dynasty, the Adams family, the experiences of three generations of whose teaching members spanned 100 years of educational development in England and Wales, from the 1840s to the 1930s. It comprises first of all summarised biographical details of relevant members of the Adams family, of which a full history can be found in the writer's An Anglo‐Welsh Teaching Dynasty (Marsden, 1997). The second part of the paper offers generalisations drawn from this grassroots, longitudinal case study which provide critical comment on the work, personal lives and attitudes of individual members, in illustration of the living realisation of a century of educational effort. They hopefully serve to counter some of the attenuated and negative stereotypes of the teaching profession found in certain traditional histories of the profession and in some social theory imposed on educational history.