Schools and Societies: Third Edition

by Steven Brint

Schools and Societies provides a synthesis of key issues in the sociology of education, focusing on American schools while offering a global, comparative context. Acknowledged as a standard text in its first two editions, this fully revised and updated third edition offers a broader sweep, stronger theoretical foundation, and a new concluding chapter on the possibilities of schooling. Instructors, students, and policymakers interested in education and society will find all quantitative data up to date and twenty percent more material covering advances in research since the last edition.

This book is distinguished from others in the field by its breadth of coverage, compelling institutional history, and lively prose style. It opens with a chapter on schooling as a social institution. Subsequent chapters compare schooling in industrialized and developing countries, and discuss the major purposes of schooling: transmitting culture, socializing young people, and sorting youth for class locations and occupations. The penultimate chapter looks at school reform efforts, drawing for the first time on comparative studies. A new coda ends the book by considering the educational ideals schools should strive for and how they might be attained. This third edition of Schools and Societies delivers the accessible explanations instructors rely on with updated, expanded information that's even more relevant for students.

Genres: Education, Sociology

446 pages, Paperback

First published January 14, 1998

Reviews

[Cami Franchi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book read for the course “Global social inequalities”. I didn’t really get the general structure at first but then i slowly started to grasp the concepts of the author. In general i believe that much of what’s written is quite immediate and almost obvious, there’s too many repetitions and stuff that it’s just explained in a bit too complex way.

[Ken Rideout · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good overview of education and its role in society (reading this one for class), but the writing is nothing to recommend it - very textbook-like. Breadth over depth.