This volume examines the ways schools respond to cultural and linguistic diversity. A richness of accumulated experience is portrayed in this study of six Australian secondary schools; partial success, near success or instructive failure as the culture of the school itself was transformed in an attempt to meet the educational needs of its students. Set in the context of a general historical background to the development of multicultural education in Australia, a theoretical framework is developed with which to analyze the move from the traditional curriculum of cultural assimilation to the...

The major theories explored are those concerned with social mobility and those which derive from a relativist position in Sociology, both of which see education as a selection mechanism for a stratified society. Social class, family, sociolinguistics and schools are among the topics discussed. In this analysis the author: defines key areas in the sociology of education gives access to important concepts of Marx and Engels strengthens sociological starting points by adding a Marxist element discriminates between radically different directions in education maps the main features of long-term...

In this study - the outcome of three years' participant observation in local authority primary and secondary schools - the classroom teacher is shown to have a far greater impact upon and responsibility for his pupils than is generally admitted. The teacher's perceptions of the children in his class are demonstrated to have a more important bearing on the pupils' attainment than the major factor of their social class. In carrying out this research, Roy Nash has moved outside the mainstream tradition of educational psychology to take into account the methods of anthropology and sociology. He...

In industrialized societies the needs of people living in remote and sparsely populated areas are easily overlooked, whilst in developing countries the needs of the rural population are at once so obvious and so enormous that our practical concern is blunted. In this volume it is clearly demonstrated that the relationship between environment and schooling is no less pertinent in rural areas than urban areas, although most recent attention has been directed towards the latter. Roy Nash seeks to redress the balance and in this wide-ranging and comprehensive analysis he examines the educational...

This book explores the complex social assumptions and values that underlie research programmes about schools. The analysis of educational research draws upon American and European scholarships in the sociology of knowledge, social philosophy and the history and sociology of science. The discussion considers first the communal, crafts and social characteristics of educational research. Three research models empirical-analytic, symbolic or linguistic and critical sciences are given attention. The discussion of the three research models is to illuminate how the constellation of commitments,...

To many education students, Russian and/or Chinese education is at the same time their introduction to Marxism, and many students go no further. This book sets the record straight by giving a thorough introduction to the writings of Marx himself as they relate to education. It shows what Marxism implies for education, as aim, method and content. It then proceeds to compare educational developments in the former USSR and China in the light of this analysis, attempting to answer the question as to how Marxist this has been, in the schools and outside them.

This book describes the attempts that have been made to achieve an educational policy relevant to those most disadvantaged in our society; examines the different ways in which sociologists have conceptualized the related problems; and evaluates the success of the policy. He suggests that we are in need both of a more realistically defined view of what schools can do and a concerted official approach to compensatory policy.

The problems this book discusses are the same now as they were 25 years ago: unemployment, poor housing, inadequate facilities, poverty, racism, violence. What is the function of a school in such a situation? Although many schools hold reformist ideals, their practice is constrained by organisational demands. School organisation is based upon a coercive theory of social control which is intolerant of expressions of individuality by teachers and pupils. Needs for individuality may be mistaken for deviance, and deviance is at least in part produced by, or exacerbated by, school organisation....

In this ethnographic study of a secondary school in the UK, the author presents an incisive account of school life from the various points of view of the pupils, teachers and parents. He describes and analyses major areas of experience and methods of adapting to school for both the children and their teachers; school experience is shown to be widely varying from boredom, despair and humiliation, to gaiety, exultation and comradeship some of it officially and some of it unofficially sponsored. The description reveals a number of marked and interpenetrating divisions within schools: between...

This is an introduction to interactionist work in education during the 1970s and 80s. The interactionist viewpoint concentrates on how people construct meanings in the ebb and flow of everyday life - what they think and do, how they react to one another - and has in recent years established itself as one of the leading approaches in education. It has generated illuminating research studies which, by being firmly based in the real world of teaching and dealing with the fine-grained details of school life, have helped to break down the barriers between teacher and researcher. This volume...