Cemeteries across England are full of people who have died of cancer, but what goes unrecognised are the many graves of those who never had the chance to find a cure for cancer. I can say this with confidence because my generation experienced both the denial of aspirations and capability to make a difference, but also benefitted from the common school that enabled investment in all children as worthy of an education. And yet I am now witnessing the intensification of segregation in education services, knowing that if I were of school age I would not have the opportunities that the abolition of the 11+ and the creation of comprehensive education provided. Having failed the 11+, and so officially categorised as incapable of benefitting from an academic education, I have just retired as a professor where my world was and remains within academia. This is why when I visit my parent’s grave, I look at the names on the other gravestones and realise that there are those who have not been fortunate to live at the time that I have, and there are those who would recognise how the stereotyping of bodies that disadvantaged them remains integral to unfolding education policy. There is an irony in these observations that goes beyond the matter of those who did not get the opportunities that I have had. Segregated services based on eugenics not only impacts negatively on those who are rendered inferior and unworthy of an education, but also on those who seemingly gain from being identified as having superior bodies. Cemeteries across England are full of people who may not have died of cancer if only they had allowed other people’s children to have the same educational opportunities as their own.

This book is the third instalment in a trilogy of critical education policy books where I have pioneered political and sociological thinking for the field (Gunter 2012, 2018). In 2012 I used Bourdieu’s thinking tools to generate understandings and explanations of how and why leaders, leading and leadership came to dominate UK government policy for reforms to educational services; and in 2018 I used Arendtian scholarship to investigate the meaning and practices of the politics of education policy in the dismantling of public education services.