The study of the implementation of compulsory school at the end of the nineteenth century reveals a transnational phenomenon, in which the most distinguished Western countries built education systems aimed at universalizing elementary education. Within such context, England has a distinctive trajectory, having been one of the last European countries to affirm the education of children as a duty of families and an obligation of the state, although it was the most important nation in that period. Having as a source the study of English and European scientific journals in the field of History and History of Education, we seek not only to analyze the historiographical references of the English production on the topic, but also to present the historical path of the legitimization of state intervention in elementary instruction. In the analysis of this path, we have focused on the projects of access to instruction and literate culture developed by different social actors, notably the State, churches and the working classes along the nineteenth century, in the tension between state intervention and liberal ideas.
obligatoriness; school; England; actors; nineteenth century