ABSTRACT

Educational inequality has been an important focus for British sociological research over the past forty years. And, in general, what has been reported is persisting inequalities in the education system, despite reforms of various kinds. Moreover, increasingly over time, the source of this inequality has been located in the structure and functioning of schools, these being taken to reflect the character of British society as capitalist, patriarchal, and/or racist. Teachers are frequently portrayed by this literature as implicated in a system which, despite the best efforts of many, discriminates against working-class, female, and/or ethnic-minority students (Ball, 1986; Troyna and Carrington 1990; Riddell, 1992; Wright, 1992b).