ABSTRACT
The first and major purpose of this book is to give an empirical account of various developments in Secondary-Education since the Second World War, and to describe and analyse its present state as it is reflected in the experience and views of recent school-leavers. The second and minor purpose is to attempt a modest contribution to current thinking about some social and political aspects of the organisation of educational research and about related questions to do with the philosophical basis of arguments over education. The two purposes are connected in that our empirical analysis is, in part, an example and a product of our views about the nature and possibilities of social research in education, and about the relationship between research and action. But it is with the empirical analysis itself that we are mainly concerned.
