ABSTRACT
If curriculum studies is committed to using theory to 'guide action in a desirable direction' (Lawton 1977), it might be that the reluctance to enter into serious dialogue with sociologists stems from a fear on the part of curriculum specialists that a serious confrontation with the issues raised would lead those of them committed to the pursuance of social justice or human emancipation to advocate a new and more politically radical set of actions. 'Policy' is intended to signal an area of political and ideological practice around the curriculum, while 'practice' in its more restricted sense is intended to refer to curricular and pedagogic practice within schools. Media studies, a field which arguably has suffered even more from theoretical excesses and theoretical dogmatism than the sociology of education, has begun to overcome the separation between theory, empirical work and the development of left practices within and around the media.
