The Social Production of Merit: Education, Psychology and Politics in Australia 1900-1950

Australian education, like the society which it serves, is characterized by fundamental social differences and inequalities. This book confronts the more mundane practices and theories which produced modern systems of education. Rather than looking at the grand informing values of liberalism which were supposed to have guided education planners, the book focuses on the practical administration of the school population and its attempts to produce an efficient and outwardly fair structure of educational provision for all sections of the population.