This paper is both a careful analysis of a seminal piece of work in the sociology of education, as well as a passionate plea to revisit with renewed urgency, the way in which education continues to fail unacceptably large numbers of working-class children. Through closely examining the work of Dennis Marsden (with his colleague Brian Jackson) in…

The choice of selected school options by pupils in secondary school, particularly mathematics and physical sciences, have implications for future educational pathways in higher education [Felouzis, G. (1997). "L'efficacité des enseignants, Sociologie de la relation pédagogique." Paris: Presses Universitaires de France; Moreau, G. (2005).…

This paper evaluates the contribution of "social realism" in resolving questions of knowledge and curriculum in the sociology of education. Social realists argue that, in the interests of educational equality, all pupils should have access to "powerful" knowledge produced by specialist intellectual communities. Social realism…

In recent years, the sociology of education has seen a renewed interest in realist accounts of knowledge and its place in education. Inspired by "social realist" thinking, a body of work has emerged that criticises the dominance of generic and process-based thinking about (especially) professional education and advocates instead a…

This study uses sociological perspectives to analyse one of the core practices in science education: school children's and students' laboratory work. Applying an ethnographic approach to the laboratory work done by pupils at a Swedish compulsory school, data were generated through observations, field notes, interviews, and a questionnaire. The…

Since the Human Genome Project mapped the gene sequence, new biological sciences have been generating a raft of new knowledges about the mechanisms and functions of the molecular body. One area of work that has particular potential to speak to sociology of education, is the emerging field of epigenetics. Epigenetics moves away from the mapped…

This paper makes the argument that new global spatialities and new governance structures in education have important implications for how we think about education policy and do education policy analysis. This context necessitates that researchers engage in new methodologies to ensure that there is a suitable link between their research problem and…

The literature depicting educators' role in scientific racism and eugenics during the early 20th century has tended to approach the topic in dichotomous terms, as an ideology that one was either for or against. In this historical study, the author adds some nuance to this literature by tracing leading educators' inconsistent and evolving thoughts…

In the sociology of education the relation between education and work is analysed in many ways and, since the rise of neoliberalism, increasingly in market terms. Skills are the dominant labour market currency, described in terms of competence profiles that seek to link educational qualifications directly to work. Contrary to the widespread appeal…

During the past 15 years of his career, John Furlong's research and writing has focused--in part--on digital technologies and people's everyday experiences of education. While hardly a technology expert, his work has shown an acute awareness of the significance of computers, the internet and mobile telephony in making sociological sense…

Sociology of education is caught in a dilemma. The study of education and society that unfolded through the twentieth century produced educational vocabularies that spoke into education policy and practice about inequality and social justice. Now that sociologically informed educational discourse is marginalised by individualistic…

This paper starts by exploring the relevance of Bernstein's work on vertical and horizontal discourses and the constitution of professional knowledge for conceptualisation of the knowledge needed for teaching practice. Building on arguments for the differentiated nature of knowledge, and drawing on the work of Winch, Young and Muller on expertise,…

This paper examines from a Social Realist perspective a set of issues in the sociology of education regarding the problem of knowledge. It focuses upon the issue of relativism associated with the constructionist approach that since the time of the New Sociology of Education in the 1970s has constituted in different forms the dominant perspective…

How is it that neoliberal education policies, often lacking evidentiary basis, come to be endorsed--often by the very people they alienate and marginalize? This work seeks to expose how this kind of exclusive policy is sold to a public through intricate hortatory tools. Using critical policy analysis with an emphasis on historical development and…

Employer complaints of engineering graduate inability to "apply knowledge" suggests a need to interrogate the complex theory-practice relationship in twenty-first century real world contexts. Focussing specifically on the application of mathematics, physics and logic-based disciplinary knowledge, the research examines engineering…