ABSTRACT
My experience of research in the sociology of education spans a period of over twenty years. Apart from the substantive area of the research, from technical colleges to infants’ classrooms, each project varied in many other ways. Their scale covered the range from seventy-two secondary schools and over 7000 pupils, to three infants’ schools focusing on thirty-eight teachers. The social relations of the research include being a part-time research student, a lone academic researcher, and being the director of a small team including research assistants. The relations with my research subjects varied from an exchange of correspondence, to days being the only other adult, to the teacher in a classroom. My research data has always been both qualitative and quantitative, but with an emphasis on one or the other. With extensive quantified data, statistical and computer analyses have been used. My methods have been mixed: observations, interviews, questionnaires and document analysis, but with one or two predominating. Some of the projects were externally funded.
