Why has schooling failed to deliver on its promise of reducing economic and social disparities? This volume addresses this and other questions, taking the reader into a variety of nations and cultural settings. It illuminates how schools can reduce or reinforce the layered stratification of society, even in nations with non-western traditions.

In recent decades, sociological research has investigated the nature of the school institution and its uneven effects on the progress of families, societies, and the global community. Yet, relatively little comparative research on schooling has dealt in a serious way with links between schooling and the other major contexts of childhood: families and communities. This edition of Research in the Sociology of Education speaks to the diverse contexts in which children function around the world, and to how these contexts shape school experiences and outcomes. The edition??'s authors are...