ABSTRACT
For some years sociologists of education have focussed on elements of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in the school system, paying special attention to the relative failure of working-class pupils. 1 In turn, those sociologists of education working within the interactionist tradition have, like sociologists of deviance, taken the perspective of the ‘underdog and conducted studies among those pupils who have encountered difficulties in schooling and who have been failed by their teachers. Accordingly, the focus of several studies of classroom interaction between teachers and pupils has been on the school leaver, the anti-group, pupils who create disruption in the classroom (cf. Furlong, 1976; Gannaway, 1976; Birksted, 1976; Davies, 1979). This theme has also been picked up by researchers working within a Marxist perspective (Willis, 1977; Corrigan, 1979) who have also focussed on similar groups of pupils. Yet, despite all these studies we have little or no knowledge about the ‘education’ at which the pupils ‘failed’. Within empirical studies of schools and classrooms we have learned much about the interactions, strategies and negotiations that have taken place but we know very little about the curriculum content of the lessons. Even when sociologists have focussed on the school curriculum they have turned their attention to conventional school subjects. 2 As a consequence they have failed to analyze the non-subject courses that are provided for pupils who are regarded as the ‘less willing’ and the ‘less able’.
