[From London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter 73 Summer 2021]
Both the Royal Historical Society and the Society for the Study of the Labour History have published statements underlining the danger of withdrawing the study of history from Post-92 environments (mostly former polytechnics). A link to both statements is below.
The London Socialist Historians Group is in support. While we support and encourage political activism and research outside of the confines of traditional academic boundaries we also recognise the importance of having the possibility of studying labour and socialist history within the academy. That is why, for example, we have organised the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research since 1995.
As both statements indicate withdrawing history from the post-92 universities would make the subject less available to working-class students unable to study far from home for a range of reasons. Further, the Government has been engaged in a process of moving funding away from ‘arts’ subjects towards science on the basis that degrees in this area add more value to the economy.
There are of course limits to this prejudice. History teaching will certainly continue at the Russell Group universities sometimes described as the ‘elite’. While history teaching at these institutions may not always be of a traditional and conservative nature they certainly have turned out in the past generations of historians in suits with a worldview that is mostly on the right of the political spectrum.
https://sslh.org.uk/2021/05/27/sslh-statement-wefear-for-the-future-of-labour-history-labourhistorians-and-the-next-generation-of-students/
The Editor notes: I studied history at what is now a post-92 university, Teesside, in the mid-1970s. It’s true of course that most of my subsequent historical research was done at an elite institution, what is now UCL. Even so a degree in history (and politics) was not a bar to getting a job in the Civil Service who took the view that the general skills learnt at degree level were quite adequate and set me off managing building projects… These experiences were a while ago now but we must not let the teaching of history itself become largely history.
Keith Flett
No comments:
Post a Comment