ABSTRACT
The mechanical method of enquiry was, in many ways, the mode of operation for the sociology of education until the early 1970’s. In effect they recognise the history of provided education and the relevance of class to it but then they proceed to forget it, for they assume class to be no longer relevant, without having any valid base for such an assumption. Throughout history, patterns of privilege have been justified by elaborate facades. As we progress we will see how the existence of the working class, in a cultural, social and political sense, has been education’s constant problematic since the class was first provided education. In a crude form of shorthand, we can say that a social control education seeks to explain why the world must be as it is; whilst a liberation education seeks to understand the world so as to discover whether it need be as it is.
