I edit a series of literature reviews for Creativity, Culture and Education. The latest report by Ken Jones offers an historical and theoretical overview of the idea of culture as it has permeated policy-making, public debate, practices in schools and in more academic writing by scholars and cultural commentators. The idea of culture has been central to the Creative Partnerships offer, and as Ken Jones explains here, this is not a simple idea that can be turned into programmes as it encompasses a range of beliefs about heritage, modernity, the role of schools in mediating national and formal cultures and the cultural experiences of the young themselves. It examines changes in the political landscape and shows how deep changes in English society since the Second World War have re-fashioned notions of public, elite and popular cultures in contested and complex ways.