ABSTRACT
From this historical and practical view of social knowledge, the new sociology of education is one expression of a much larger historical movement. It represents, in academic language, the changing ideology of a generational and class social faction. Sociology of education is its contextual representation, an articulation of the historically specific social meaning of education. The sociocultural, contradictory history of an academic professional group is, however, an incomplete guide to the conceptual content of an academic field. This chapter describes at a general level the contextual approach to social knowledge that informs this brief history. It explores the new sociology of education by indicating the social movement of its carriers and reviewing the conceptual pre-history of the new sociology, the 'old' sociology of education. Role-hybridization, organizational mobility, group conflict, and intra-professional struggles for legitimation and prestige are examples of specific contextual dynamics in which various cultural resources are worked-up into scientific, academic ideas.
