From the 'eye of history' to 'a second gaze': The visual archive and the marginalized in the history of education

History of Education

Volumn 36, Issue 4-5, 2007, Pages 607-622

  Grosvenor, Ian ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 34748851823     PISSN: 0046760X     EISSN: 14645130     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00467600701496948     Document Type: Article

References (99)

1. The Guardian, 8 October 1996. Nicholas Tate is a historian, who after a career in teaching and teacher training joined the English National Curriculum Council in 1989 at the time of the establishment of the English national curriculum. From 1994 to 1997 he was chief executive of the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority and from 1997 to 2000 chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. In both of these positions he was the chief curriculum adviser to the Secretary of State for Education. From 2000 to 2003 he was headmaster of Winchester College, one of England's oldest independent boarding schools. He is currently director general of the International School of Geneva.
2. Birmingham Central library, Archives Department, Immigrant Education Files
3. Bergman, J., and B. Coard. "Trials and Tribulations of a Self-Help Group." Race Today 4(4) (1972): 112-14. The article ends on an interesting note-an account of the similarities of the Polish experience in Birmingham. The Polish Supplementary School met every Saturday at St Michaels Roman Catholic Secondary School, Floodgate Street and in 1972 had 325 pupils and held classes on the Polish language, history, geography and culture. The Headmistress of the school was interviewed and it is useful to quote her in full: 'Originally the authorities and teachers complained about the school and tried to occupy the Polish children on Saturdays with sports and other activities as a means of stopping them coming to our school when it was founded in 1950. But now they've changed their attitude because they see the positive job we're doing. After all, if you have a plant, no matter from where it comes, it has a special soil that requires special treatment' (p. 114).
4. For the full report see http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/ document/cm42/4262/4262.htm
5. Home Office, Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. New Laws for a Successful Multi-Racial Britain. London: Home Office, 2001: 1, 7, 36-38.
6. Okri, B. Birds of Heaven. London: Phoenix, 1996, 21.
7. The phrase the 'eye of history' originates with the American photographer Matthew Brady; see Ryan, J. Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire. London: Reaktion Books, 1997: 16.
8. Samuel, R. "The 'eye of history'." New Statesman Gf Society, 18 December 1992/1 January 1993: 41.
9. Burke, P. Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence. London: Reaktion Books, 2001:21-23.
10. See the following collections Grosvenor, L., M. Lawn, and K. Rousmaniere, eds. Silences and Images: The Social History of the Classroom. New York: Peter Lang, 1999;
11. "The Challenge of the Visual in the History of Education." Paedagogica Historica 36, no. 1 (2000);
12. "Ways of Seeing." History of Education 30, no. 2 (2001);
13. Myers, K., U. Mietzner, and N. Peim, Visual History. London: Peter Lang, 2005.
14. Burke, C. "Visualising the body of the school child: critical reflections on spaces of representation." Unpublished paper, 2.
15. Walker, R. "Finding a Silent Voice for the Researcher: Using Photographs in Evaluation and Research." In Qualitative Voices in Educational Research, edited by M. Schratz. London: Falmer Press, 1993: 52.
16. See, for example, Catteeuw, K., K. Dams, M. Depaepe, and F. Simon. "Filming the Black Box: Primary Schools on Film in Belgium, 1880-1960: A First Assessment of Unused Sources." In Mietzner et al., Visual History, 203-32.
17. See also a reply to their arguments: Margolis, E., and Sheila Fram. "Caught Napping: Centuries of School Surveillance, Discipline, and Punishment." History of Education 36, no. 2 (2007): 191-212.
18. This phrase was coined by Mitchell, W. J. T. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
19. Strauss, D. Levi. Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics. New York: Aperture, 2003: 71.
20. Ritchin, F. In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography. New York: Aperture 1990, reissued 1999: Preface.
21. One can speculate as to why this is case and it may relate in the UK to the politically charged nature of the debate around issues of 'race'. Nevertheless, the amount of contemporary studies of 'race' and education which are now historical texts is significant.
22. Swann Report. Education for All: Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups. London: HMSO, 1985 was the result of a government initiated inquiry into the education of children from ethnic minority groups.
23. See "Education for All: papers from the 2005 Conference of the History of Education Society (UK)." History of Education, 35, no. 6 (2006).
24. See, for example, Mullard, C. "Multiracial Education in Britain: from Assimilation to Cultural Pluralism." In Race, Migration and Schooling, edited by J. Tierney. Eastbourne: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1982: 120-33;
25. Gillborn, D. "50 years of failure: 'race' and education policy in Britain." In The British Education Revolution: the Status and Politics of Educating Afro-Caribbean children, edited by R. Majors. London: Falmer Press, 1999;
26. Gillborn, D., and D. Youdell. Rationing Education: Policy, Practice, Reform and Equity. Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000.
27. See, for example, Grosvenor, I. Assimilating Identities: Racism and Education in post 1945 Britain. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1997.
28. Margolis, E. "Class Pictures. Representations of Race, Gender and Ability in a Century of School Photography." Visual Sociology 14 (1999): 7-38.
29. See Green, M., and I. Grosvenor. "Making Subjects: History-Writing, Education and Race Categories." Paedagogica Historica XXXIII, no. 3, (1997): 883-908. In the Local Studies Department of Birmingham Central library there are several volumes of clipping files relating to black and minority ethnic settlement. The first volume is called 'The Coloured Problem' and the last 'Birmingham Ethnic Minorities'.
30. The author and Richard Rose recently looked at the front covers of the journal produced by the forerunner of the National Association for Special Educational Needs (NASEN) and it was interesting to observe a clear shift in the representation of children from images in the 1960s and 1970s, where there were no visual clues relating to any form of disability or special needs, to the 1980s where 'difference' increasingly was celebrated
31. Mukherjee, T. "The journey back." In Multi-Racist Britain, edited by P. Cohen and H. S. Bains. London: Macmillan, 1988: 213.
32. Gikandi, S. Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism. New York: Columbia University Press, n.d. [c. 1996]: 69.
33. Grosvenor, I. '"Seen but not heard': city childhoods from the past into the present." Paedagogica Historica 43, no. 3 (2007), 405-429.
34. Manchester Art Gallery, 1 October 2005-6 January 2006, BMAG, 28 January 2006-2 April 2006.
35. Marsh, J. "The Black Presence in British Art 1800-1900: Introduction and Overview." In Black Victorians. Black People in British Art 1800-1900, edited by J. Marsh. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005: 17.
36. See, for example, Leech, K. Brick Lane 1978. Birmingham: AFFOR, 1980;
37. Prescod-Roberts, M., and N. Steele. Black Women: Bringing it All Back Home. Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1980;
38. Law, I., and J. Henfrey. A History of Race and Racism in Liverpool. Liverpool: n.p., 1981;
39. Alexander, Z., and A. Dewjee. Roots in Britain. Brent: Brent Library, 1981;
40. Grosvenor, I., and R. L. Chapman. West Africa, West Indies, West Midlands. Oldbury: Sandwell LEA, 1982;
41. Dabydeen, D. The Black Presence in English Literature. Wolverhampton: Wolverhampton CRC, 1984.;
42. Sherwood, M. The British Honduran Forestry Unit in Scotland, 1941-1943. London: One Caribbean, 1982;
43. Papers Presented to the Conference on the History of Black People in London, University of London, 27-29 November 1984;
44. Thakoordin, J., and T. Gilbert. Eradicate Racism a Murderous Crime. London: liberation, 1985;
45. I Remember. Wolverhampton: Wolverhampton Borough Council, 1986;
46. Faizi, Ghazala. The Black Presence in London. London: GLC, 1986;
47. Lotz, R., and I. Pegg, Under the Imperial Carpet: Essays in Black History. Crawley: Rabbit Press, 1986;
48. Caribbean Connections: Southampton and the West Indies. Southampton n.d.;
49. Collicott, S. Local-National-World Links: A Case Study of Haringey History. Haringey: Haringey Borough. Council, 1986;
50. Moving Stories. Leeds: Leeds City Council, 1987;
51. Destination Bradford. Bradford: Bradford Heritage Recording Unit, 1987;
52. Whose Freedom. London: Savannah Press, 1988;
53. Forty Winters On: Memories of Britain's post war Caribbean Immigrants. Lambeth, 1988;
54. Small, S. The Politics of British Black History, with Special Reference to Liverpool. Northampton: Wellingborough District Racial Equality Council, 1991;
55. Staying Power: The Black Presence in Liverpool. Liverpool: National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, 1991;
56. Newham: The Forging of a Black Community. London: CARF, 1991;
57. Llafur 5 (1991);
58. The Black Presence in Nottingham. Nottingham: Nottingham County Council, 1993;
59. Sherwood, M. Pastor Daniels Ekarte and the African Churches Mission. London: Savannah Press, 1994;
60. Layton, J. Black People in Warwickshire. Leamington Spa: Warwickshire County Council 1994;
61. "The Black Presence in the North West,." North West Labour History 20 (1995-96);
62. Forty Years On. Lambeth, 1998;
63. Roti, kapra or makaan. Nottingham: APNA Arts, 1998;
64. Stacey, M. The Black Presence. Liverpool: National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, 1999;
65. Edmead, P. The Divisive Decade. Birmingham: Birmingham Libraries1999;
66. Garfield, J. Black Angels from the Empire. Stratford: Eastside Community Heritage, 2000;
67. Choudhury, Y. From Bangladesh to Birmingham. Birmingham: Birmingham Libraries, 2001;
68. Bell, G. The Other Eastenders: Kamal Chunchie and West Ham's Early Black Community. Stratford: Eastside Community Heritage, 2002;
69. Dosanjh, J. S. The Development of Gurdwaras in Nottingham. Nottingham: Nottingham City Council, 2002;
70. Grosvenor, I., R. Mclean, and S. Roberts, eds. Making Connections: Birmingham Black International History. Birmingham: Black Pasts, Birmingham Futures Group, 2002;
71. Grosvenor, I. Hidden Histories. Cultural Diversity in the West Midlands. London: HLF, 2005;
72. Multiple Heritage Voices, Birmingham 1950-2006. Birmingham: Race Equality West Midlands and HLF, 2007.
73. These are only a selection and do not include autobiographical writings such as Prem, D. R. The Parliamentary Leper. Aligarh: Metric Publications, 1965;
74. Marke, E. Old Man Trouble. London: Weidenfeld 1975;
75. Thompson, C. Born on the Wrong Side. London: Black Amber, 2006.
76. See, also, the Black and Asian Studies Newsletter (BASA) and the regular listing of projects in back numbers of the journal Oral History.
77. Bressey, C. "Victorian Photography and the Mapping of the Black Presence." In Marsh, Black Victorians, 68, 78.
78. The Heritage Lottery Funded project Connecting Histories (2005-2007) has addressed this problem through a unique partnership project between Birmingham City Archives, the School of Education, University of Birmingham and the Sociology Department, University of Warwick, which is cataloguing culturally diverse collections, including photographs, developing online catalogues and learning packages, and engaging in outreach work to generate new communities of archive users.
79. Mackenzie, J. M. Propaganda and Empire: 'The Manipulation of British Public Opinion 1880-1960. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984: 176.
80. Grosvenor, I. '"There no place like home': education and the making of national identity." History of Education 28, no. 3 (1999), 235-50.
81. Cannadine, D. Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire. London: Penguin, 2001, especially 181-99;
82. Porter, B. The Absent-Minded Imperialists. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
83. McCulloch, G. "Security, settlements and the history of education." Unpublished Domus seminar paper, University of Birmingham, 20 February 2006.
84. Said, E. "Preface" (2003). In Orientalism. London: Penguin Books, 1978, reprinted 2003: xxii.
85. Stone had systematically collected images recording people and places since the 1860s, but actively pursued photography as an interest in the 1880s. Seven years after his death in 1914, the trustees of his estate presented a collection of 22,000 photographs, 600 stereographs, 2500 lantern slides, 14,000 glass negatives, and 50 albums of collected prints to Birmingham Central Library. The size of this collection reflects Stone's era and the Victorian desire to capture and catalogue 'all' knowledge. In this desire to record knowledge pictorially Stone photographed and collected images during his travels in the West Indies and in Southern Africa. The images from these travels are of unnamed sitters, selected and posed by Stone. These images visualized the Empire. Stone also traded in images and amongst the collection of photographic albums are 'Types and Races of Mankind', which include captions by Stone; 'The Negress of the West Indies'; 'Trinidad Coolie'; 'Trinidad Hindoo from Madras'. Stone's concern here was with documenting 'race' typologies and we know very little about any of the people captured by the camera lens.
86. Ernest and Malcolm Dyche had a photographic studio in Balsall Heath, Birmingham and in the 1950s and 1960s new black settlers in Birmingham sought portraits to send home to family and friends. The desire to convey messages about their success in Britain, as Peter James observed, 'led to the evolution of new hybrid images, constructed in partnership between photographer and subject, the final picture incorporating elements from different photographic and cultural traditions', James, P. Coming to Light: Birmingham's Photographic Collections. Birmingham: Birmingham Libraries and Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1998: 42.
87. Vanley Burke has spent four decades photographing the lives, peoples and scenes of the Black-British diaspora and the cultural theorist Stuart Hall has argued that this corpus of work represents both 'the first time that an intimate, insider's "portrait"-as opposed to a sociological study-of a settled British "colony" and its way of life had found its way into print in the form of a memorable set of images' and, through his photographic technique, an exploration 'of "blackness", of varieties of blackness, and ways of being "black" in Britain'. Hall, S. "Vanley Burke and the 'Desire for Blackness'." In Vanley Burke: A Retrospective, edited by M. Sealy. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1993: 12-14.
88. See James, P. "Rethinking Representation: Photographic Archives and Exhibitions in Birmingham Central library." In Cultural Diversity and Citizenship: Report of the Joint UNESCO/ University of Birmingham Seminar, edited by S. Wright. Birmingham: Department of Cultural Studies and Sociology, University of Birmingham, March 1998;
89. Courtman, S. "A journey through the Imperial Gaze: Birmingham's Photographic Collections and its Caribbean Nexus." In Visual Culture and Decolonisation in Britain, edited by A. Ramamurthy and Simon Faulkner. London: Ashgate, 2006.
90. See also, Hall, S. "Reconstruction Work." In "The Critical Decade, Black British Photography in the 80s." Ten-8, Spring 1992: 106-13.
91. The nineteenth-century documenting of 'racial' types was not confined to British photographers like Stone; see, for example, the photographic album by Dammann, Carl W. Anthropologisch-Ethnologisches Album in Photographien (1873-1876) Berlin: BGAUE/Wiegand & Hempel.
92. Bailey, D. A., and S. Hall. "The Vertigo of Displacement." Ten-8, Spring (1992): 15.
93. Doy, G. Black Visual Culture, Modernity and Postmodernity. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000: 136.
94. The exhibition ran from 3 February to 23 April 2006; see the accompanying exhibition book Making History: Art and Documentary in Britain from 1929 to Now. Liverpool: Tate Publishing, 2006.
95. Sekula, A. "On the invention of photographic meaning." In Thinking Photography, edited by V. Burgin. London: Macmillan, 1982: 85.
96. The quote is from Jabès, E. From the Desert to the Book: Dialogues with Marcel Cohen. Translated by Pierre Joris. Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press, 1990 and is used by the poet, storyteller and commentator David Levi Strauss in a powerful reflective essay about a photographic installation, Hotel Polen, a work of fragments and silences that addressed issues around amnesia, memory and the Holocaust. The exhibition was by the Polish-born artist Ania Bien and is now permanently installed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
97. See, Strauss, D. Levi. "A Second Gaze." In Strauss, Between the Eyes, 115-23.
98. '"They call me blacky'-a story of everyday racism." Times Educational Supplement 19 September 1986.
99. Wenders, W., in conversation with Jansen, P. W. "The truth of images." In Wenders, W. The Act of Seeing: Essays and Conversations. London: Faber & Faber, 1997: 52.