Abstract
’scotland has a proud tradition of commitment to excellent education for all our citizens’ (Scottish Government, 2013, 185). The Scottish Government’s confident faith in the country’s educational excellence is widely shared by Scotland’s inhabitants. A leading historian claims that the distinctiveness of Scottish education has served as ‘a mark of national identity to be defended against assimilation with England, and its supposed superiority has been a point of national pride’, articulated most clearly in what he refers to as the ‘democratic myth’ (Anderson, 2013, 241). While the deconstruction of this myth has become virtually an industry among historians of education, its political potency endures. It continues to possess an important mobilizing capacity, and it is deployed by reformers to promote change as much as by conservatives to defend the status quo (Paterson, 2003).
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© 2015 John Field
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Field, J. (2015). Policies for Adult Learning in Scotland. In: Milana, M., Nesbit, T. (eds) Global Perspectives on Adult Education and Learning Policy. Palgrave Studies in Global Citizenship Education and Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137388254_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137388254_2
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