ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses on forms of collaboration between those whose practical everyday business consists of teaching in schools, and those whose everyday business consists of working as sociologists of education in institutions of higher education. He discusses some of the connecting themes, which in his view stem from case-study materials, despite their differences. The author regards dissemination and communication as a crucial but often neglected stage of the research process itself, particularly within certification contexts where the structural basis for relationships end as a course closes and where external examiners' comments often serve to mark the final moment. He argues that sociologists' knowledge might be of particular relevance at this stage, because of the close relationship between 'ethnography' and the features, noted above, or much small-scale research by teachers. Sociologists working within 'interpretative' frameworks have some experience of the problem of communicating to others research studies of a single classroom or school.
