ABSTRACT
The word 'sociology' was first used by a French philosopher, Auguste Comte, in 1843. As a discipline, sociology originated as part of an intellectual tradition located within Western European and American thought. Durkheim's sociology of education is rich in its conceptual development. It touches on issues which were largely neglected for half a century after Durkheim's death, like the sociology of the school curriculum and of classrooms, as well as the problems of selection and allocation in education. Less directly concerned with education than Durkheim, Marx's influence has been less on the substantive development of sociology of education than on the way of thinking about education and society. Mead was a social behaviourist; this must not be confused with the behaviourism of psychologists, like Skinner, who ultimately reduce everything to neurological stimuli and response, but must be seen as indicating that the social world can only be known through the observation of behaviour.
