Developments in Sociology by Robert Burgess Anne Murcott

Author:Robert Burgess, Anne Murcott [Robert Burgess, Anne Murcott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781317875932
Google: AV_JAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-06-11T04:59:48+00:00

Sociology of education’s institutional base

Sociology of education in England has a prehistory that begins around 1900 (Szreter 1984). For a while it contended with psychology to become the basis of the theories of education that were being taught in the new university departments of education. Armed with the apparatus and techniques of mental testing, the psychologists became hegemonic and sociology of education was all but extinguished. In the early 1950s, however, it began to expand again as the policies of selection legitimated by mental testing began to be subjected to sociological critique. This in turn added weight to social democratic criticisms of selection and the role of schooling in sustaining class divisions. Significantly, the sociology of education that emerged in the postwar period was a field of study created by sociologists who were mostly located in sociology departments. Of these, the department at the London School of Economics was the most significant (Karabel and Halsey 1977). This is reflected in the contributions its staff made to sociology journals. A cursory examination of the articles on education and schooling published in the British Journal of Sociology, for example, reveals that most, during this period, were written by staff and research students based in sociology departments. As sociology rapidly expanded within the universities during the 1960s (Westergaard and Pahl 1989) it also entered the institutes and colleges of education, where it was taught to students on initial teacher training courses. From this period onwards, the fortunes of the sociology of education were harnessed to the study of education rather than to sociology. In turn, the study of education has mainly depended for its institutional base upon those departments and colleges responsible for initial training of teachers. Policies relating to the place of the study of education in initial teacher training have therefore been of fundamental importance in shaping developments in the sociology of education. Sociology of education is best viewed, from this point onwards, not as a part of the field constituted by sociology but a part of the field of education.

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