ABSTRACT
During the 1950s and 1960s, sociologists were interested in the ways in which the educational system was related to structural features of society such as social stratification, industrialization, and the division of labour. At that time education was viewed by policy-makers as a means of providing a literate and adaptable labour force and as a way of promoting social mobility for individuals from ‘lower’ socio-economic groups. There was particular sociological interest in documenting how far children from different social classes had access to selective education and in explaining how these class-related inequalities came about. The extracts from Floud, Halsey and Martin (pp. 193-6) and Davie, Butler and Goldstein (pp. 197205) illustrate some of the class-related differences in educational attainment in primary schools and the 11+ examination, revealed by a large number of investigations. Attempts were made to search for the factors responsible for these differences and for the resulting inequalities of opportunity. The factors investigated included family size, briefly referred to in the extract from Floud, Halsey and Martin (pp. 193-6), socio-linguistic codes investigated by Bernstein and others (pp. 220-3), and parental aspirations, values and attitudes, which were the subject of many enquiries, including a major one sponsored by the Plowden Committee (pp. 206-10). Some sociologists such as A.H.Halsey were involved not just in documenting and explaining classrelated inequalities, but in devising strategies to help alleviate them (pp. 2149). As part of the general interest in the social and economic functions of education, some sociologists studied the patterns of social structure, methods of social control, and processes of social change in particular institutions, as illustrated by the first extract from Alan BIyth on the five social functions of primary schools (pp. 185-7).
