ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the historical development of the sociology of education and its roots in general sociological concerns. It gives a brief account of a school in its community context and demonstrates how the different theoretical strands and viewpoints in sociology would ask different questions of that account and would raise different issues. By 1945, as the sociology of education began to develop, there was a variety of sociological writings to draw upon. Initially, the dominant mode of analysis was functionalist. It saw education as an institution which was concerned with the socialisation of the young and their later selection for appropriate jobs. The Marxist challenge was more complicated and was connected with developments in Marxist theory. An initial reading of Marx indicates that he treats education as relatively unimportant. For Marx education was merely part of the superstructure, an epiphenomenon, a surface bubble created by the movement of deep class struggles at the workplace.
