David Phillips is Professor of Comparative Education and Fellow by Special Election at Oxford University, UK.Geoffrey Walford is Professor of Education Policy and a Fellow of Green College at the University of Oxford, UK.

• Introduction Section I 1. The concept of equality in education Mary Warnock 2. Sociology and the equality debate A.H. Halsey 3. Equality and education: fact and fiction Hans Eysenck 4. The impossibility of a core curriculum Alan Harris 5. The impossibility of a core curriculum: a reply to Harris John White 6. Authority, bureaucracy and the education debate A.H. Halsey 7. Power and participation Vernon Bogdanor 8. The seventy thousand hours that Rutter left out Anthony Heath and Peter Clifford Section II 9. The educational consequences of Mr Norman Tebbit Stuart Maclure 10. Reconciling the irreconciliable: declining secondary schools rolls and the organisation of the system W.F. Dennison 11. Educational attainment in secondary schools John Marks and Caroline Cox 12. Problems in comparing examination attainment in selective and comprehensive secondary schools Ken Fogelman 13. Selection does make a difference Peter Clifford and Anthony Heath 14. The expansion of special education Sally Tomlinson Section III 15. Evolution or revolution: dilemmas in the post ERA management of special educational needs by local authorities Catherine Clark, Alan Dyson and Alan Millward 16. Equality fifteen years on Mary Warnock 17. British schools for British citizens? Barry Troyna and Geoff Whitty 18. Specialisation and selection in secondary education Tony Edwards and Geoff Whitty 19. Choice and diversity in education James Tooley 20. Through the revolution and out the other side Stuart Maclure 21. 14-19 education: legacy, opportunity and challenges Michael Young and Ken Spours Section IV 22. From City Technology Colleges to sponsored grant-maintained schools Geoffrey Walford 23. Faith-based schools and state funding: a partial argument Harry Judge 24. School admissions and ‘selection’ in comprehensive schools: policy and practice Anne West, Audrey Hind and Hazel Pennell 25. Labour government policy 14-19 Richard Pring 26. Reinventing ‘inclusion’: New Labour and the cultural politics of special education Derrick Armstrong

'This book represents a trip down memory lane of recent educational history. It's a well selected collection of essays about the formulation of educational policy.' - Tim Brighouse, TES