A special issue of the "British Journal of Sociology of Education" has been devoted to an examination of Disability and Inclusive Education. The authors of the papers in this issue have all made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge and understanding in these fields of study. Overall, they have provided a comprehensive, valuable…

This article constitutes a short personal tribute to Len Barton in honour of his work and our collegial relationship going back over 30 years. It covers how Len saw his intellectual project of providing critical sociological and political perspectives on special education, disability and inclusion, and his own radical political perspectives. Len's…

In the process of discussing the significant contributions that Len Barton has made to the sociology of education and to disability studies, I argue that a good deal of critical analyses of power and inequality in education are impoverished by some of their essentialist and reductive tendencies. I use an example taken from disability rights to…

The authors trace and critique various thrusts operative in British educational sociology since its beginnings in the 1950s: structural functionalism, school-level analysis, the interactionalist "New Directions" approach, and the Neo-Marxist perspective. They also comment on the place of educational sociology in teacher training. (SJL)

Len Barton is acutely aware of the power of the academy to either enhance critical thinking or to depress it. He is a true academic, never accepting the received wisdom or perspective of any given sociological standpoint, no matter how powerful or fashionable it was at the time. He has encouraged and promoted a unique blend of professional and…

The 11 papers in this book address, from a sociological perspective, a variety of contemporary educational reform issues in Great Britain. The papers examine the direction and role of sociological research in education. Sociology education has an important role to play in raising questions about the British educational system and its premises. The…

This article explores the contributions of students' voices in order to highlight some issues that have been central to disability studies--issues of identities, and their correlations to power, temporality, inclusivity, and place among the most salient to contemporary theories in the sociology of disability and education. Building on previous…

The title of this article comes from the editorial written for this journal by Olive Banks, Len Barton, Roger Dale, David Hargreaves, Roland Meighan, Ivan Reid and Graham Vulliamy (Banks et al. 1980, 4) that appeared in its first issue, and set out its remit. The seven scholars who wrote that editorial pledged to "publish high quality work of…

Thirteen authors reflect on different ideas of communitarianism and citizenship and on the ways those ideas find application in the fields of education, politics, and social welfare. Looking beyond communitarian ideology, the volume offers a more detailed discussion of citizenship in contemporary society. The essays are: (1) "Beyond…