Intended to stimulate sociologically informed thinking about educating. This work explores five key areas of education such as: the hidden curriculum; ideologies of educating; sociological perspectives and the study of education; educational life chances; and, the next learning system.

Part One: Familiarization; 1. A Taste of Sociology; 2. Pupils as Clients?; 3. Teachers as Victims?; 4. Parents as Educators?; 5. Mass Media; Part Two: The Hidden Curriculum; 6. The Hidden Curriculum: An Overview; 7. Space Talks: The Hidden Curriculum of Educational Buildings; 8. Timetables; 9. The Official Curriculum; 10. Orginization; 11. Teacher Expectations. 12. The Hidden Curriculum of Language; 13. Assessment; Part Three: Ideologies of Educating; 14. The Concept of Ideology; 15. Ideologies of Education; 16. Authoritarian and Non-authoritarian Ideologies of Education; 17. A Case Study Ideology of Education: Autonomous Study; 18. Case Studies: Democratic Education; Part Four: Sociological Perspectives and the Study of Education; 19. Social Systems, Structures and Functions; 20. The Action Perspectives; 21. The Conflict Perspective: A Marxian Approach; 22. Doing Research in Schools and Classrooms; 23. Postmoderinism; Part Five: Educational Life Chances or Who Gets What?; 24. Labelling Theory and Life Chances; 25. Gender Identitiy; 26. Social Class; 27. 'Race' and Ethnic Identity; 28. Other Minorities: Those with 'Special Needs'; Part Six: Educating for the Next Millennium; 29. Alternatives; 30. Anatomy of Choice in Education; 31. A Catalogue of Alternatives; References; Subject index; Name index.

Intended to stimulate sociologically informed thinking about educating, this 5th edition now includes sections on personalized learning, progressive education, and the impact of assessment on pupils. It also comes with a new chapter ' The Discourses of Education'