‘Back to the future’: Thinking with Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) and Alec Clegg (1909–1986) on the promise of education

ABSTRACT

This article analyses, mingles and blends divergent and complementary strands from the thinking of Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) and Sir Alec Clegg (1909–1986), two contemporaneous but different influential public figures and thinkers in the post-World War Two period. The paper uses these strands to construct a critique of the current colonisation of education by neo-liberal economic logics and performative architecture. Their ideas emerge as bulwarks against populist discourse, reductivist, authoritarian framings of education policy and the restrictive and prescriptive direction of education practice. Conceptions of pluralism, imagination, the location of children and young people’s perspectives in the adult world, citizenry and engagement with the world are illuminated for their refreshing power to replenish and sustain the conditions for an education that supports human flourishing.

KEYWORDS:

• Education
• Hannah Arendt
• Alec Clegg
• children’s rights
• dialogue
• imagination

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Professor Jon Nixon and Professor Julian Stern for their insightful and valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of the paper. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who commented on the original submission of the paper. We also wish to record our thanks for support from the Centre for Education and Policy Analysis (CEPA) at Liverpool Hope University, UK.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The West Riding County Council covering the West Riding of Yorkshire was one of the largest pre-1974 English administrative counties. It was abolished in 1974 following the 1972 Local Government Act. The northern, more rural areas of the West Riding were transferred to a new North Yorkshire County Council whilst the more densely populated and industrial areas in the south of the Riding, centred on the conurbations of Leeds and Sheffield, were reorganised into nine separate unitary councils acting as education authorities. (Wood et al., 2021, p. 325).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Margaret Wood

Margaret Wood is a Senior Lecturer in Education at York St John University, UK. Her recent research and publications have explored: the centralising tendencies of much current education policy and its relation to community and democracy at the local level; and the development of academic practice in higher education.

Andrew Pennington

Andrew Pennington was a senior officer in two local authority education and children’s services departments. He is now a post-doctoral researcher at York St John University. His main research interests are concerned with democracy, power and community engagement in the governance of schools.

Feng Su

Feng Su is a Principal Lecturer and Head of Education Studies at Liverpool Hope University, UK. His main research interests and writings are located within the following areas: education policy, the development of the learner in higher education settings, academic practice and professional learning. He Tweets @DrFengSu.