This paper traces and analyzes the concept of personalization as the ‘big idea’ for the United Kingdom’s ‘New Labour’ Government in its third term. It discusses the personalization of public services as a basis for political reform in an age of mass collaboration as a response to globalization and the second industrial divide. The presentation profiles the growing significance of personalised learning as the basis for major change in education policy and charts the various responses to the introduction of the idea in British schools. The presentation explains how personalization as a general concept has become the political basis for a new social democratic settlement that encourages citizen participation in the choice and design of service and thus represents a major change in British social philosophy.
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