Private Schooling: Tradition, Change and Diversity

by Geoffrey Walford

Private education in Britain is expanding. From about five per cent of the school population being in private schools during 1980, there are now more than seven per cent of children in these schools. For many centuries these schools have educated a large proportion of the leaders of the British society, and there is little indication of any great change in their importance. About a quarter of present university undergraduates were educated in private schools and about half of those at Oxford and Cambridge spent their teenage years in them. Yet, despite their significance, private schools have been very little researched, and most of what has been published has been concerned with the major boys′ public schools.

192 pages, Paperback

First published March 28, 1991

About the author

Geoffrey Walford is Professor of Education Policy and a Fellow of Green College at Oxford University. He is the author of over 100 academic articles and books, and the Editor of the Oxford Review of Education.