ABSTRACT
Sociology of education has been particularly vibrant over the past forty years, growing markedly and promising to remain a key arena for research. The field is characterized by theoretical, analytical, and methodological tension and debate, much of which is chronicled in several noteworthy reviews. In the mid-1970s Karabel and Halsey (1977) offer a comprehensive review of the field, up to and including the challenge of the “new” sociology of education, while Marjoribanks (1985) crafts an equally useful encyclopedia entry. Given their careful analyses as to structural-functionalism and conflict theory, and, in the case of Marjoribanks, the challenge represented by post-modernism (explored extensively by Patti Lather in 1991) and critical theory (see Levinson, Holland, & Foley, 1996, for an excellent review of this later literature), our task here is somewhat different. While we respect the theoretical breakdown put forth in these prior pieces, we both update and offer a somewhat different version of the field through a careful focus on empirical work, beginning in the 1960s. Our goal is to review key areas of research in the sociology of education while simultaneously pointing the way for further study. As with any such review, it is not possible to include all studies of note.
