Introduction

Papers in this section represent some of the major contributions by sociologists to the exploration of the relationship of environmental differences to such differences as access to schools, the duration of school life, success in examinations, entry to higher education – in short the study of differences in educational opportunity. This field has attracted countless researchers and many major studies exist. Yet at first glance it appears to fall neatly into the category of ‘taken problems’ identified by Young (1971) in that it takes as given the educators’ definition both of success and the desirability of success in the educational system. It is a definition that goes on to identify those who do not succeed as in some way deficient and calls for strategies to eliminate or at least to alleviate these deficiencies (increasingly seen as ‘cultural’) so that children may be ‘restored to their rightful place in the socialization and selective process’ and thereby ‘compete on equal terms’. Such views embody a range of assumptions about the nature and desirability of both achievement and non-achievement and the ways in which they occur and can be modified. They appear to leave unquestioned such concepts as ‘success’ and ‘deficiency’ and the processes whereby they are defined. In doing so they allow a major value judgement to remain in what is normally regarded as a value free area of investigation.