Introduction

Education has joined housing and transport as one of the ‘crunch issues’ if London is to sustain itself as a world-leading city. ‘London world city’ has inherited an education system from a past era when its largely working-class population left school to labour in its semi-skilled industries. Whereas 30 years back, a form of class sorting and sifting took place in which the relatively small middle class was apparently able to mould the education system to its needs, this is no longer the case. With de-industrialisation and widespread gentrification, London's greatly expanded middle classes and those aspiring to join them now form the largest population group in the city and, as a consequence, are having to compete ferociously for places in London's comparatively scarce high-performing schools. Gentlemanly systems of matching social classes to school places no longer apply such is the mismatch between supply and demand and the requirement that the ways in which pupils are allocated be transparent. In this emergent market in education, increasing numbers of parents feel it is their responsibility to garner the best educational assets on offer for their children.

In this situation, the ability to live near a high-performing school ranks as the single most important determinant of a child's success, at least for those who are being educated in the state, as opposed to the private, sector. This means, of course, that London's education system increasingly reflects existing privilege. While many parents would join with policy makers in promoting the ideal of education as the agent for equality of opportunity, in practice, this is regarded as largely utopian, particularly the nearer children come to the age of secondary school selection. Indeed, any such threat to the chances of ‘my child’ winning one of the coveted places at almost every stage of an educational career is regarded with deep suspicion as evidence of the evils of ‘social engineering’.

This chapter engages some key themes being raised by the book about what is meant by sustainability through an examination of parental aspirations and the policy context of education in London.