ABSTRACT
In the 1950s and early 1960s sociological work in education largely reflected the dominant forms. For a long time in the country the sociology of education consisted of analysis of the differential chances of 'educational success' of the social classes. This was the work of sociologists operating in the political arithmetic tradition, though it also drew on structural functionalist and conflict theory. Little work was done until very recently on intra-school processes beyond investigation of the consequences of streaming. There was little analysis of social interaction in classrooms or of teacher and pupil experience. The new approach also places emphasis on teacher and pupil life-styles, modes of adaptation, ways of coping, and therefore, by contrast, on the official organisation of the school and classrooms, many relevant aspects of which had previously been taken for granted. Sociological researches at each level of abstraction must inform one another, although in recent sociology of education this does not always seem to have occurred.
