This innovative monograph is concerned with a set of inter-related problems associated with the nature of knowledge, how it is produced within intellectual fields and the implications of those things for education and the transmission of knowledge in the classroom.

It covers issues in the sociology of knowledge, the educational system and policy, social differences in educational attainment, educational research and teaching. At various points it critically engages with the ideas of major thinkers such as Durkheim, Bernstein and Bourdieu and others and draws on contributions...