Introduction: Research in Sociology of Education Today

Abstract

In the two decades since my Contemporary Theories in the Sociology of Education (Demaine 1981) sociology of education has continued to develop and indeed thrive. In the first chapter of this new book Roger Dale offers an account of developments in the sociology of education over the last half century. He argues that much of the subject matter, theoretical inclinations, meta-theoretical assumptions and methodologies that characterize the sociology of education emerged from the operation of what he refers to as a ‘selection principle’. He suggest that during the period from the end of the Second World War three factors — context, purpose and location — combined to create the selection principle that framed the focus and approaches of the sociology of education. He argues that the selection principle took different forms at different periods of time as the relative weight and the relationship of the component parts altered.