Introduction

The relationship between different levels of sociological explanation and the desirability of reaching some kind of synthesis has been, as was noted in the preface, a vital focus for debate in the sociology of education. However, discussion about synthesis in the discipline has not been restricted to questions of perspective differences. Two concerns which have an important place in the history of the discipline are, first, a concern with linking explanation at the theoretical level with the empirical conditions to which these explanations refer and, secondly, an enduring concern of all applied sciences, the question of linking research findings with policy formulation. Both of these ‘linkage’ issues are given detailed consideration in this section of the book. A key criticism established and defended in all six papers is that not only is theory so often separated from evidence but also that, frequently, such theorizing is presented in a form so abstract and inaccessible as to defy substantiation. The pressure exerted during the last decade for increased consistency and precision at the theoretical level in the sociology of education has led to the construction of more sophisticated and elaborate accounts in the discipline. But it has also meant that the language sociologists of education use, the issues they debate and the interpretation they offer have moved further and further away from the ‘real’ world of educational experience. This separation has unfortunate consequences, one of these being the creation of barriers betwen social scientists and policy makers. If the theories proposed in an academic context have little substantive support it is not surprising that practitioners and policy-makers either misunderstand them or treat them as irrelevant to their everyday interests.