ABSTRACT
Social Class and the Comprehensive School' was published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1969. It was based on fieldwork in three secondary schools, one grammar, one comprehensive and one modern. The book consists of an examination of the thinking behind the movement towards comprehensive schooling, the formulation of hypotheses derived from this thinking and testing to establish their empirical plausibility. It received considerable publicity because it produced controversial evidence in a sensitive area of educational reform. The book can be seen as one of a number of case studies of the internal working of schools. But it is also an important contribution to the continuing debate on the limitation of education as an instrument for producing social changes. While schools remain as agencies of selection their internal organisation tends to reflect inequalities in society outside. The concluding sentence of the book sums up this problem: 'But could a non-selective school system be devised?'.
