ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with possible educational futures not as a futuristic or predictive exercise but through an analysis of current trends in educational policy. However futures thinking has not been a major strand of research and theory in the sociology of education or in educational studies generally. it has been largely left to educationalists who give little explicit attention either to sociological debates about current social changes that are often masked by terms like globalization and knowledge societies. Research in the sociology of knowledge has had a significant if controversial influence on debates about education in the United Kingdoms (UK) and elsewhere, at least since the early 1970s. Although this influence can be traced back to the appointment of Karl Mannheim to the Chair in Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education in 1946, it was not until the 1970s that sociological ideas about knowledge began to be taken seriously within educational studies.
