Belonging, Gender and Selfhood: Women’s Life History Narratives and the 11+ Exam in England and Wales, 1955–1965

Educational policies of the 1944 Butler Act sought to assign each child to a secondary school, dependent on their proven competence at the 11+. This paper draws on oral history interviews to explore notions of belonging and how the effects of perceptions of “passing” or “failing” the exam influenced, and continue to inform, women’s adult lives. Belonging is often understood to be structured on social inclusion, inhabiting an environment in which to flourish with and alongside others. Steedman describes marginalisation through an inability to belong as “a terrible exclusion, an exclusion from the experience of others.” These interviews suggest that belonging at secondary school required more than simply passing or failing the 11+, but also involves notions of class, gender and perceptions of inequality through differentiation. Informed by societal influences, experiences of belonging by intelligence are challenged by those of isolation, separation and eventual reconciliation.