Sociology of education

Abstract

Good qualitative sociology of education uses appropriate methods of data collection and analysis to answer sociological questions: that is questions which are based in sociological theory. The appropriate data have to be analysed in order to make them usable in framing sociological arguments. The key developments in the theoretical perspectives deployed since 1945, and the main methods used to address them, are outlined. The argument is that qualitative sociological research has been grounded in different theoretical discourses, such as symbolic interactionism and poststructuralism, from quantitative sociological work on education. Areas neglected by qualitative sociologists of education are highlighted and the familiarity problem outlined