The state and Catholic schooling in England and Wales: politics, ideology and mission integrity

Changing relations between the English State and the Roman Catholic Church in the sphere of education policy are examined in two historical periods. Between the 1870s and the 1970s, despite initial anti-Catholic prejudice, the Catholic hierarchy was able to negotiate a favourable educational settlement in which substantial public funding was obtained without serious loss of autonomy and mission integrity for the Catholic schooling system. The existence of a liberal State, a voluntarist tradition in schooling and the relative social and political unity of the Catholic community all contributed towards this settlement. The inauguration of an ideologically 'Strong State' in the 1980s and 1990s, pursuing an interventionist strategy in education driven by New Right market doctrines, threatened the whole basis of this settlement. The Catholic hierarchy had to develop new strategies to respond to this situation, complicated by the fact that the Catholic community was now more socially differentiated and more divided on key education policy questions.