Public policy and the visual arts in England since the 1940s

From the 1940s to the late twentieth century, the visual arts in England were promoted and encouraged in a variety of ways by politicians and other policymakers, at both national and local level. Recent decades have seen a marginalisation of the arts, particularly in education. In this article Pauline Wood tracks and analyses these changes, drawing on a study of policy reports, the testimonies of arts educators and her own experiences of the education system as a learner and teacher...