Disaffection From School Rle Edu M

A large number of pupils are, or are liable to become, disaffected with their schooling. In this comprehensive account of the problem, Ken Reid suggests that school can and should do much more to prevent and overcome disaffected behaviour, as manifested by such factors as absenteeism, disruption and underachievement. The book covers disruptive behaviour in its broader context and examines the search for an explanation within schools themselves. Formal and multidisciplinary approaches to the problem are also fully treated. The author has drawn on his considerable school and research experience and the book is well illustrated with examples and case histories. Ken Reid argues that questions about attitudes and approaches in teaching and in pastoral care provoke a continued challenge, and stresses that if such questions are not faced squarely the long-germ prognosis for secondary education in Britain may be bleak. Teachers in training and all those involved in the education and welfare of difficult or disadvantaged children, especially teachers, heads and social workers, will find Disaffection from School both challenging in its analysis and helpful in its suggestions.

A large number of pupils are, or are liable to become, disaffected with their schooling. In this comprehensive account of the problem, Ken Reid suggests that school can and should do much more to prevent and overcome disaffected behaviour, as manifested by such factors as absenteeism, disruption and underachievement. The book covers disruptive behaviour in its broader context and examines the search for an explanation within schools themselves. Formal and multidisciplinary approaches to the problem are also fully treated. The author has drawn on his considerable school and research experience and the book is well illustrated with examples and case histories. Ken Reid argues that questions about attitudes and approaches in teaching and in pastoral care provoke a continued challenge, and stresses that if such questions are not faced squarely the long-germ prognosis for secondary education in Britain may be bleak. Teachers in training and all those involved in the education and welfare of difficult or disadvantaged children, especially teachers, heads and social workers, will find Disaffection from School both challenging in its analysis and helpful in its suggestions.

One problem which continues to absorb social scientists is the way in which so much social deprivation stems from racial or class status. The discussion in this book is developed in two ways: firstly, careful attention is given to an examination of the way minority groups create and maintain collective identities and action. Secondly, the relationship between this movement and such topics as racism in schools, schooling, unemployment and West Indian involvement in sporting rather than academic activities is analysed, together with the nature of the educational experience of different class and gender groups.

The change from a student role to a teacher role can be one of the most abrupt and stressful transitions in working life but the process of socialization does not end when the student becomes a fully qualified teacher, as many writers, laymen and sociologists, would have us believe. Colin Lacey argues that socialization is a partial and rarely homogenous process. He illustrates this from a wide variety of interesting case material to show how student teachers adapt their responses to the classroom situation.

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 presents the results of this valuable work, within a coherent theoretical framework, by focusing on the major interactionist concepts of situation, perspectives, cultures, strategies, negotiation and careers. By bringing them together in this way, the author demonstrates their collective potential for the deeper understanding of school life and the possibilities for sociological theory. His book therefore offers both a summary of and a reflection on achievement in the area of interactionism as it relates to schools.

This volume considers how various sociological approaches to the exploration of the conditions of teachers’ might be co-ordinated so as to produce a more penetrating and reliable understanding of the main dimensions of teachers’ work. Three dimensions are selected for special attention: historical, institutional and interactional contexts in which teachers operate. In different way the papers in this collection explore the contribution such an investigation of these contexts can make to our understanding of wider educational concerns.

Although the different contributions to this book range over a wide spectrum of substantive issues, they share a common interest. This is a concern to explore the ways in which notions of the relations between theory and practice, between belief and action, can be used to develop three kinds of sensitivity in the sociology of education. A sensitivity towards how school systems are created, maintained and made to function; towards developing a more refined, critical and constructive awareness of the reliability and validity of descriptions, analyses and explanations offered in this field of study; and a sensitivity towards the ways in which changes take place within the education system and how the insights and realisations generated in the discipline might be used to control such occurrences.