School Organisation Rle Edu L

The internal organisation of the school touches on many areas of contemporary debate. Is there such a thing as a ‘good school’? Are large urban comprehensives necessarily impersonal? Are the charges of indiscipline, conflict and declining standards in modern schools based on a failure to understand schools as institutions? At the time this book was first published sociological analysis had neglected to consider schools as organisational entities, preferring to see them as either the sites for negotiated encounters between teachers and pupils or else as agencies of class reproduction. The author redresses this imbalance and by relating the various literatures on the school to the constitutive patterns of its internal organisation he demonstrates the need for a more intensive sociological study of this embattled institution.

In their appearance, schools often seem to be physically separated from their surroundings, cut off from the neighbouring houses and streets by high walls, by playgrounds or playing fields. Within the school, another world seems to exist, with a life of its own – its own routine, dress, rules and customs – which appears to have little relationship to the day-to-day life of the society outside. Yet despite these signs of separateness, we are becoming increasingly aware that a school’s surroundings, the local society in which it is set and whose children it educates, play an important part in determining what actually goes on in the classrooms and the playgrounds. This book looks at some of the factors in the local context of the schools and describes and analyses some of the often complex ways in which the schools interact with them.

Britain’s public (that is, its major independent) schools have a conspicuous role in the country’s social system, and as a result are the subject of a long-standing political debate. The discussion is generally founded on a stereotyped image of what these school may have been like in the 1950s – this books shows how they were in the late 1980s. It is based on fieldwork in two major public boarding schools which the author conducted over an extended period, and draws on interviews, observation and documentary sources to establish a picture of what public school life is actually like for pupils and staff. Since the schools were predominantly male preserves, the major part of the book describes the social world and experiences of boys and school-masters. An important section of the book, however, discusses the introduction of girl pupils, the experiences of female teachers and the way schoolmasters’ wives tend to be drawn into their husbands’ work. Geoffrey Walford’s conclusions about life in public schools differ considerably from traditional expectations. At the same time he asks whether there really has been a ‘public school revolution’. His book makes an important contribution to our knowledge of public schools, to debates in the sociology of education and to the issues of abolishing or extending the independent sector.

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.

The sociology of education has been at the forefront of new developments in sociological theory. This book examines and criticizes a number of these new developments and discusses some empirical work on issues of current concern. One of the few books that integrates radical and critical sociology into the field of education, it deals with the resultant difficulties. The topics covered include cultural deprivation, ideologies in education, classrooms, the teaching profession and the history of women’s education.

This book takes as its focus the key interactionist concept of ‘strategy’, a concept fundamental to many current concerns in the sociology of the school, including the understanding of the links between society and the individual, a more accurate description of certain areas of school life and implications for the practice of teaching. ‘Strategy’ bears on all these issues. It concerns both goals, and ways of achieving them and short-term, immediate aims as well as long-term ones. The essays in this book share a common concern with teacher strategies, emphasizing the discovery of intentions and motives, alternative definitions of situations and the hidden rules that guide our behaviour. Amongst the areas investigated are the influence of factors outside the school in determining the role of the teacher, and the nature and influence of teacher commitment. The implications for practical action and policy making are stressed throughout, and by recognising and exploring the constraints and influences that operate on teachers, this work constructs a realistic appraisal of the teaching situation.

The book describes the English school, especially the secondary school, as a hierarchical community in which the head-teacher (principal) is an autocratic ruler. After explaining how that particular organisation of the school developed historically from the market situation faced by the English public (i.e. private) schools in the developing industrial society of the nineteenth century it provides empirical evidence demonstrating that the hierarchies of knowledge, teachers and students that developed then were still in place when the book was published in 1975. They are still present today. It also looks at the challenges to the school as a hierarchical community presented by the ideologies of deschooling, progressive education and open education. Finally, it provides an explanation of why these ideologies were never put into practice in English schools despite some pioneering exemplars. Although first published over thirty-five years ago the issues examined in it raise questions that are still central to education today: Does size of school affect the commitment of teachers to the school, their colleagues and their students? How can the teaching staff be organised in a school? Do all need to work to the same ends? What is the role of leadership from the head-teacher (principal) in this? Is it possible to have a curriculum that is open without losing rigour? What should be the relationship between using local community knowledge and the educational wish to extend students’ horizons? The result is a short, nuanced, and densely argued text that demands thought and reflection from any contemporary educator.

This collection of specially commissioned articles exposes the practical and personal influences on the process of doing sociology of education. All of the authors have been involved in conducting well know major research projects, and discuss here the pitfalls and problems, conflicts and compromises that went into doing their particular research. A particular feature of the book is that a wide variety of types of research in the sociology of education is covered. The range is from small-scale ethnographic case studies to large-scale postal questionnaire sample surveys and includes studies based on interviews, observation and questionnaires. There are examples of longitudinal work in case studies and in surveys. The collection also includes discussions of action research, the development and influence of theory, and the relationship between research and policy.