ABSTRACT
The sociology of education has always given teachers a bad press. The pattern was established in Waller’s (1932) seminal study which devotes considerable space to the elaboration of the theme that teaching is the refuge of ‘unsaleable men and unmarriageable women’ and explains the ‘known failure of the profession to attract as large a number of capables as it should’ by reference to the way:
The nature of the work of teaching…may both deter and attract to the ultimate damage of the profession…may eliminate from teaching many of those virile and inspiring persons of whom the profession has such need (p. 379).
