Revisiting the 1972 James Report on teacher education and training

The James Report on teacher education and training, published in the UK in 1972, was a significant document in the history of teachers and teacher education. This article reassesses the Report in its wider historical, educational, policy and social contexts. It develops original analysis using a biographical framework to identify the educational and social ideas of its chair, Lord (Eric) James of Rusholme, which underlay the Report. It also examines the processes of the committee that produced the Report through detailed archival documentary research. It finds in relation to the curricular implications of the Report that it was throughout inclined to a practical and methods-oriented approach to the initial teacher training course, as opposed to the more expert-oriented and theory-based outlook that had become widespread. This pointed towards the dominant model of teacher education in the later twentieth century, and a new functional model of teacher knowledge and professionalism.