ABSTRACT
Having indicated that there are different perspectives within sociology and that these are reflected in the way sociology of education has developed, we turn now to an examination of aspects of that development. Starting with the child and her family, we take her into school where she will meet her peers in classrooms as well as meeting teachers, the curriculum and learning about her membership of a bureaucratic organization. The dominant perspective from which the process of socialization has been viewed is that of functionalism, particularly the work of Talcott Parsons. The work on socialization which stems from Parsons's theoretical discussion is parallel to the social psychological theories of D. C. McClelland and his colleagues. The common factor in the models of socialization is that they each adopt a passive view of man. An alternative to the passive theories of socialization stems from the work of G. H. Mead.
