ABSTRACT
Sociologists have been interested in education for a long time. The study of education was a major preoccupation of both Emile Durkheim and Karl Mannheim. Their interest in education derived from the knowledge that educational institutions play an important part in most societies as agents of social control, cultural change, and, not least, social selection. Since their time the role of education in these three areas has been richly documented. It is in no way an overstatement that the sociology of education has become one of the most successful specialisms of sociology itself. To the satisfaction of most sociologists the Gordian knot of the relationship between education and social class has been largely unravelled at least in theory, although few would be complacent enough to suggest that anything like equality of opportunity in education has been realised in practice.
