ABSTRACT
This chapter explores interest in the sociology of morality, its intellectual antecedents and its relevance to education, with particular reference to the school as an institution of civil society. It outlines understandings of morality and the contribution of a sociological perspective to already established fields of theology, moral philosophy and moral psychology. The chapter examines the social contexts of schools as both institutions of civil society and the state and microcosms of social structures, groupings and action. Morality is essentially linked to relational behaviours. It follows then that morality operates on a number of levels. In Adam Smith's view, social institutions represented the product of a complex historical process, cultivated through trial and error, and an understanding of the constraints that preserve social order. As social institutions develop, so morals undergo progressive improvement that can be described by ‘social laws’.
