Introduction

The sociology of education is a major branch of educational study. During the last thirty years, its theories, methodologies and areas of enquiry have been the subject of development and controversy. Around the end of the 1960s, the structural-functional approach to the sociology of education was challenged by the interactionist perspective which stressed, the constraints of social structures and functions, but the ways in which man was able to create and define his own social reality. Ingleby recognizes that ‘social constructionism’ is rather incoherent drawing upon various disciplines, in particular psychology as well as symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, analytic philosophy and some forms of Marxism and Structuralism.