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Birth Date
Lawrence Alexander Stenhouse was born at East Avenue, Burnage Garden Village, Manchester, North West England. -
Elementary School
“it was during my elementary school years that I was taught – though not to a level of explicit consciousness – that I was a clever boy without talents or accomplishments." -
Manchester Grammar School (MGS) Examination
Failed for the oral examination about playing chess. -
Went to Manchester Grammar School
In 1937, Stenhouse got a foundation scholarship and went to MGS after all. -
A Radio Message
In the summer of 1939, Stenhouse went back to Manchester before the planned end of family holiday ‘in response to a radio message to the nation that parents should return home with their children who were to be evacuated. -
Evacuation in World War 2
On Thursday 31th, the Ministry of Health announced the final evacuation order. Early next day German forces invaded Poland and on Saturday 2 September MGS was evacuated by a fleet of buses and then by special train to Blackpool.
Stenhouse was thirteen. The period of evacuation marked an important transition from childhood to adolescence for Stenhouse. The school went back to Manchester on 8 October. -
Finished Manchester Grammar School
MGS had powerful influence on Stenhouse and in particular the way in which he was taught history in the sixth form, which provided a model for the HCP. In July 1944, Stenhouse was awarded the Higher School Certificate in principal English Literature and scholarship, English Literature, principal history and history scholarship and economics. -
Royal Navy
Stenhouse was called up to the Royal Navy, and like many others his ambitions were put on hold. About his time in the navy he noted that it was his first and only experience of being working-class. -
M.A., St. Andrews Univerity
After leaving the navy in March 1947, Stenhouse went to St Andrews University and he married Evelyn while he was an undergraduate student. There is not a lot that can be said about his time at St. Andrews, Stenhouse did not write much about it and there is little material in his personal papers that refers to that period of his life. He graduated with an MA (upper second) in 1951. -
Went to Glasgow to train as a teacher
On leaving St. Andrews Stenhouse went to Glasgow to train as a teacher.
In April 1952, Stenhouse was confirmed as a “Certificated Teacher”, and in September of that year he joined The Education Institute of Scotland. -
English Teacher at Shawlands Senior Secondary School in Glasgow
Between 1952 and 1955 he taught English at Shawlands Senior Secondary School in Glasgow, and then, attracted by the offer of houses for teachers, he moved to teach English and history at Dunfermline High School in Fife for two years. -
M.Ed., the University of Glasgow
In 1956, Stenhouse graduated from the University of Glasgow with a Masters in Education (M. Ed. First class), winning the William Boyd Prize for the most distinguished student of the year. His tutor was Stanley Nisbet. -
Tutor, Institute of Education, the University of Durham
In 1957 he was appointed as tutor in psychology and secondary education at the University of Durham’s Institute of Education. Professor Brain Stanley, the Institute’s Director, encouraged its staff tutors, college lecturers and serving teachers to do research by offering research fellowships and grants. While in the institute his interest in curriculum was stimulated by Ronald Morris and Dorothy Heathcote. -
Anglo-Norwegian Conference on the training of teachers, Norway
Stenhouse traveled to Norway for Anglo-Norwegian Conference on the training of teachers. While at the conference he met Per Rand, who was then a Research Fellow at the Institute for Education Research at the University of Oslo. They remained lifelong friends. -
Jordanhill College, Glasgow
Head of the education department and principal lecturer in Education.
The conceptualization of the development of individual autonomy and powers through an educational process in which both the pressure of pupil groups and the authority of the school loomed large. Stenhouse turned to Karl Popper, Karl Mannheim, Max Weber, Talcott Parsons, John Dewey, George Herbert Mead and the Swedish sociologist Torgny Segerstedt.
While at Jordanhill, he wrote Culture and Education. -
Papers on Comparative Education
In 1962, he had a paper published in the International Review of Education, on educational decisions as unities of study in comparative education.
In 1967, he wrote a paper on comprehensive education in Norway for Comparative Education and an article on educational reform in Sweden for the Times Education Supplement. -
Director, the Humanities Curriculum Project (Stenhouse’s most outstanding achievement)
1967 to 1972, Stenhouse directed HCP.
Stenhouse addressed the issue of the general education that should be available to all secondary aged pupils and, more explicitly, ‘the education of the ordinary child’.
Stenhouse urged that education must generate and transmit culture which is relevant to the lives of the majority of young people.
Lawrence also insisted that a major function of the curriculum content in the humanities classroom is to protect the pupil from the teachers. -
Director, The Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE)
From 1972 to 1975, Stenhouse was the director of The Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE). He examined the problems and effects of teaching about race relations. He has also explored teaching about race relations through drama. -
Australian Wishes
In 1975, Lawrence considered to work for the Australian National University and Flinders University but withdrew his applications for personal reasons. Yet Stenhouse was very attracted to Australia. -
First Pain on his Back
In 1976, Lawrence felt gripping pain across his back and through his chest and was rushed to the coronary care unit of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. -
The First Professor of Education, the University of East Anglia
He returned to the theme of the relationships between teaching, authority and knowledge. -
President, the British Educational Research Association
In September 1979, Stenhouse’s Presidential Address to the British Educational Research Association was built around the distinction between the study of samples and the study of cases. -
Library Access and Sixth Form Studies (LASS)
Although, he had a personal preference for the study of cases, Stenhouse was not averse to educational measurement or experimental designs and he was an advocate of experiments in education. -
“a weaver of dreams and seductive possibilities”
Stenhouse died of prostate cancer on Sunday 5 September 1982. He was 56 years old.
“A weaver of dreams and seductive possibilities”
“One of the best, who seldom left an argument by the same door he came in”
