This study, first published in 1973, examines the principles that lie behind educational dilemmas, and helps to clarify the difficulties of explanation, justification and practical action in the educational system. The author explores various key concepts in the education process, such as Intelligence, Equal Opportunity, Knowledge and Selection. She shows that different and often contrasting interpretations of these concepts imply certain assumptions about the nature of man, the genesis and knowledge, the education process and its relation to society. This title will be of interest to students of sociology and education.

By including material from literary, philosophical, and anthropological sources, and by selecting readings which consider educational practice both within and beyond formal educational contexts, this book broadens the character of sociological inquiry in education. The editors bring together material they have found valuable when working with students of education and DEGREESsociology at all levels. Many of these articles and extracts are either inaccessible or have not been reprinted. The collection should stimulate inquiry about the assumptions underlying current debates on curriculum, streaming, school organization, methods of teaching, and preconceived notions of ability. Toward a Sociology of Education develops an alternative theoretical approach to and engages in critical dialogue with mainstream sociology, and also points to other theoretical and practical probabilities.

Undergraduate students of the sociology of education, education and society and education studies.

Pierre Bourdieu has been an extraordinarily influential figure in the sociology of music. For over four decades, his concepts have helped to generate both empirical and theoretical interventions in the field of musical study. His impact on the sociology of music taste, in particular, has been profound, his ideas directly informing our understandings of how musical preferences reflect and reproduce inequalities between social classes, ethnic groups, and men and women. Bourdieu and the Sociology of Music Education draws together a group of international researchers, academics and artist-practitioners who offer a critical introduction and exploration of Pierre Bourdieu’s rich generative conceptual tools for advancing sociological views of music education. By employing perspectives from Bourdieu’s work on distinction and judgement and his conceptualisation of fields, habitus and capitals in relation to music education, contributing authors explore the ways in which Bourdieu’s work can be applied to music education as a means of linking school (institutional habitus) and learning, and curriculum and family (class habitus). The volume includes research perspectives and studies of how Bourdieu’s tools have been applied in industry and educational contexts, including the primary, secondary and higher music education sectors. The volume begins with an introduction to Bourdieu’s contribution to theory and methodology and then goes on to deal in detail with illustrative substantive studies. The concluding chapter is an extended essay that reflects on, and critiques, the application of Bourdieu’s work and examines the ways in which the studies contained in the volume advance understanding. The book contributes new perspectives to our understanding of Bourdieu’s tools across diverse settings and practices of music education.

This is an exploration of the growth of American sociology as it addressed changes and challenges throughout the 20th century covering topics ranging from the discipline's intellectual roots to understanding (and misunderstanding) of race and gender to the impact of the Depression and the 1960s.

Critical Theorist Carlos Alberto Torres offers a political sociology of adult learning and education, based on Critical Social Theory and the always inspiring work of Paulo Freire. Empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated, this new book follows the footsteps of his classic book published in the early nineties The Politics of Nonformal Education in Latin America. Torres book offers comparative and international sociological analyses of adult learning and education, an area in which there is an obsession with ‘practice’ and an aversion to theory, with some notable and laudable exceptions, but which has the potential to provide avenues for social justice education in ways that no other systems and policies can. This book revitalizes social theory in education, and provides ample evidence of the power of adult learning and education, examining a variety of policy documents connected with the various adult education congresses promoted by the UNESCO, which are thoroughly scrutinized for what they bring to or omit from the policy agenda. In the context of new developments in adult learning and education, particularly the impact of multiple globalizations, neoliberalism, and the new role of international organizations in reconceptualizing lifelong learning, new evidence-based research, new narratives, and the vibrancy of social movements striving for a new and possible world, it is clear that new theoretical designs were needed making this is a must-read book.

A Sociological Perspective on Hierarchies in Educational Institutions bridges the gap between theory and practice, drawing together research from different perspectives without losing comprehensiveness, accuracy, and in-depth coverage of hierarchy and educational institutions - a novel contribution to Organizational Studies.

This volume considers the ways in which educational research is being shaped by policy across the globe. Policy effects on research are increasingly influential, as policies in and beyond education drive the formation of a knowledge-based economy by supporting increased international competitiveness through more effective, evidence-based interventions in schooling, education and training systems. What consequences does this increased steering have for research in education? How do transnational agencies make their influence felt on educational research? How do national systems and traditions of educational research - and relations with policy - respond to these new pressures? What effects does it have on the quality of research and on the freedom of researchers to pursue their own agendas? The 2006 volume of the World Yearbook of Education explores these issues, focusing on three key themes: globalising policy and research in education steering education research in national contexts global-local politics of education research. The 2006 volume has a truly global reach, incorporating transnational policy perspectives from the OECD and the European Commission, alongside national cases from across the world in contrasting contexts that include North and South America, Canada, France, Singapore, China, Russia and New Zealand. The range of contributions reflect how pervasive these developments are, how much is new in this situation and to what extent evidence-based policy pressures on research in education build on past relationships between education and policy. This book considers the impact of the steering processes on the work and identities of individual researchers and considers how research can be organised to play a more active role in the politics of the knowledge economy and learning society.

Appropriate as a supplemental text to courses in Sociology. Providing an overview grounded in research. Developments in Sociology focuses on the major areas of theoretical, methodological and substantive developments in sociology. Each author takes a field of study in which they are an acknowledged expert and highlights the way in which the subject has developed over the last fifty years.

This book presents a collection of essays of how the city-state of Singapore's societal dynamics have evolved from the time of its birth as a nation in 1965 to the present. Key areas of Singapore society are explored, contributing to the understanding of the social organisation of the city. This study reveals a shift from the modernisation studies in the 1970s to a more political-economic turn, as a consequence of the influence of dependency and world systems theories. Topics covered include: urban studies, family, education, medical care, class and social stratification, work, language, ethnic groups, religion and crime and deviance.