Starting School

by Brian Jackson

Published March 1980

First published in 1979, this book considers the culture of a multi-racial community through the eyes of six children about to start school. Each child is from a different background but all live in the same street in a town in the north of England. Following the children from home into school, their six separate lives are unveiled, illustrating the manner in which their six separate worlds are in some ways grounded in their own respective cultures, and in others interwoven with the common experience of school. These Children enter school in search of a multi-cultural society, and a sympathetic appraisal is made of what happens to them as they face such initially daunting prospects as the classroom, television and the playground.

The most compelling element in this book is the way in which education is shown to be able to derive benefit from this cultural diversity. The research was commissioned by the Social Sciences Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust, and will be of particular interest to those working in social work and education.


First published in 1979, this book looks at the subject of childminding in Britain at the time it was written. It is based on a national survey that was commissioned by the Social Science Research Council and on action to help childminders funded by the Wates Foundation at Manchester University, UK. Previous to this study it was calculated that more than one million children under the age of five had a working mother, but little research had been done into childminders themselves. This book evaluates the number and nature of the childminders in Britain that were looking after the nation's children in the 70s. It argues that parents have a right to choose to work if society can guarantee loving and skilled care for their children. However, the authors suggest that this was not the case at the time and state that childminders were in need of better governmental support.


First published in 1984, this groundbreaking title explores the concept of fatherhood, by following a hundred men who become fathers for the first time. The book is addressed to men who are discovering fatherhood and to women who wish to hear what a man feels and thinks about having a child.

Many men experience the strange problems of the male couvade. They have everything from mysterious back ache to inexplicable stomach pains. Later they frequently find that the white-coated professionals shut the door on their doubts and needs and their shy search for information.

Brian Jackson’s book cautiously explores changing attitudes to fatherhood emerging at the time of the book’s initial publication. In recent years we have gone through a unique revolution in man’s experience of woman and child. There is surprise at the costs and demands of parenthood, so much so that both parents may move from a honeymoon phase of parenthood into the birth of the blues. Previously this has been thought of as a female, hormonal readjustment, but since men speak of identical symptoms, this study suggests that, at the roots, lies the strain of unprepared parenthood.

The traditional father is still there – showing off his medals, his tattoos, his rugby triumphs and his unconcern for the gentler aspects of life. So is the man who simply hunts in the economic jungle, and expects his home to service him. But most of these men now waver and hedge their bets. They look at their child as they return from their working day, or as they slump into unemployment, and wonder if they could be more positive, more creative, more licensed to care.