ABSTRACT
James S.Coleman started a heated debate and inspired volumes of educational research with the main conclusion of the first Coleman Report. The conclusion was that school characteristics explain very little of the variance in academic achievement scores: students’ family backgrounds explain most of the variance (Coleman, Campbell et al., 1966). This is usually taken to mean that schools have little or no influence on educational achievement relative to the influence of family background. The conclusion is upsetting to educators and to educational researchers who make their living from finding ways to make schools important, and therefore the interpretation usually given to the findings of the report continues to be challenged, including by Coleman himself.
