ABSTRACT
Having reviewed the major literatures on the sociology of school organisation, are we any closer to answering the question: what is a ‘good’ school? It may be better to put this another way. What questions about schools do not seem easily answerable from a sociological perspective? We might list a few of these. What is the function of the school in a complex technological society? What should be the role of the principal or head teacher? What causes organisational structure to vary from school to school? What causes pupil alientation? What size should a school be? Sociologists would tend to answer these questions indirectly and hedge their answers with all kinds of qualifications — ‘It depends on what you want’, ‘What assumptions are you making?’ ‘Opinion is divided on that one’, ‘Research has not shown any connection there, but there may well be one.’ Have the sociologists of education failed then to deliver the ‘goods’ that could pay off in practice?
