Crisis of Opportunity

The Archbishop's Conference on a Genuine System of Adult Education in January 1944 brought together an extraordinary group of the country's leaders to secure the incorporation "a true ideal of Adult Education" into the 1944 Education Act. And yet they failed, and all evidence of this conference, its ethos and outcomes had remained undiscovered until early 2000.

In this book Elsdon explores the origins and interactions involved, and traces the development of the principles and practice which inspired the attempt to influence the Act.

He argues that the failure to transform the politics of education at that critical moment has had a lasting effect on society and politics in Britain today.