Scottish education and Scottish society

So often has it been claimed that education is an icon of Scottish identity that the very claim itself has become a cliché. When, during the referendum on independence in 2014, the two sides of the debate sought to attach themselves most legitimately to an authentic past, they looked for metaphors of opportunity, of an educated culture, and – if not of equality – then of what the American sociologist R. H. Turner called as long ago as 1960 ‘contest mobility’, the right to be treated as equal in potential, the right to compete for recognition by those in power, and the right for the criteria of evaluation to be defined in a meritocratic way.