Is education possible without belief in social progress?

While progress is an ‘essentially contested concept’, with the spread of modernism and liberalism, most societies have come to believe that human actions should move them forwards in a desirable direction. Since Saint Augustine, a linear idea of moral and intellectual progress of society in Europe has been linked with educating the child. In viewing the education of young people as an investment in the future, progress is implicit to the idea and practice of education. In different periods of European history, social progress has been tied to religion, values of reason and freedom, the nation state and modernity, including material and political progress. In the twenty first century a growing ‘crisis of culture’ has spawned post-progress thought, disrupting the relationship between the past, present and future, which has filtered into education. Here, I explore how contemporary expressions of post-progress thinking in the history and geography curriculum in England exhibit presentism, disrupting the boundaries between the past, present and future. Finally, I consider the scope for teachers and students to articulate alternative narratives of social progress, which run counter to our post-modern times.