Tag Archives: Danny Dorling

The Future of Education:
an event report…

The Great Room at The RSA was full. Like a Calima, drawn towards the depression that is education in England, conversation and debate swept across the room.

We had assembled to hear Profesor Danny Dorling and Professor Diane Reay give their assessments of English education today, and to provide us with both data and questions of challenge in our collective pilgrimage for reform.

The short films below give you a flavour of our event and the messages delivered by our speakers…

youtubeButton  Professor Danny Dorling, Oct. 5th 2015

youtubeButton  Professor Diane Reay, Oct. 5th 2015

Professor Dorling challenged his audience to imagine an education system without so much testing. His exposition included illustrations of how we value memory above problem solving and experimentation. He was delighted to see in the audience, after general questioning, that so many of us had achieved ‘A’ grades. A triumph of conformity, alas, in the Dorling assessment. The whole treatise bringing into doubt the formula that a more expensive education is a more privileged education.

Professor Reay used her allotted time to deliver a statistical analysis of the inequalities in education in our country. Highlighting the fact that in the private sector, for example, spend per pupil is 2.5 times higher than in the state sector. She also highlighted the deficiencies in access to the broad and balanced curriculum which children and young people need, along with a strong section in her presentation, on happiness and wellbeing. Often disregarded, she argued, in any assessment of educational utlilty or achievement.

Whether for learners or teaching staff, levels of distress and dissatisfaction have never been higher, Professor Reay argued. Much was also made of the increasingly low level of professional autonomy afforded teachers in England now.

This was a well attended IETT event, with very high quality engagement and telling analysis from our speakers. This prompted some very lively discussion across the room, as well as new networking and professional acquaintance for many visitors to our conference. Ed.

interneticon2 (copy)  You can see more IETT events on our Conference and Events page here.

interneticon2 (copy)  You can also find more films on this topic on our The Debate – filmed page here.

interneticon2 (copy)Event films by Dan Keeble – Video Editor / Producer / DP     http://dankeeble.com/

Turning the tide - making a difference
Turning the tide – making a difference

Injustice – why social inequality still persists?

Danny Dorling has a new edition of Injustice – Why social inequality still persists available. You can discover this and more of Danny’s work on the pages of PolicyPress at the University of Bristol here.

injusticeCoverPic-m
More here…

‘This fully rewritten and updated edition revisits Dorling’s claim that Beveridge’s five social evils are being replaced by five new tenets of injustice: elitism is efficient; exclusion is necessary; prejudice is natural; greed is good and despair is inevitable. By showing these beliefs are unfounded, Dorling offers hope of a more equal society’.

About the author:

Danny Dorling is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford. He is  Honorary President of the Society of Cartographers.

He helped create the website www.worldmapper.org which shows who has most and least in the world, working with Mark Newman,  Anna Barford, Ben Wheeler, John Pritchard, Graham Allsopp and Benjamin Hennig.

Danny and his work can be discovered on his own web pages here.


Professor Dorling was a speaker at our recent RSA conference, The Future of Education in England. Watch this space for an event review and films of our speakers and their contribution to a lively debate and thoughtful deliberation on educational reform.

Remember to visit our Monographia page to see interesting papers and reports which are attuned to our movements aims. Join the debate.

Turning the tide - making a difference
Turning the tide – making a difference