Schools and Society: A Sociological Approach to Education

by Jeanne H. Ballantine (editor), Joan Z. Spade (Editor)

Offering a wide array of theoretical perspectives and methods, a broad range of resources, and both classic and contemporary studies, this fully updated Fourth Edition uses the open systems approach to provide readers with a framework for understanding and analyzing the book′s disparate topics. Edited by Jeanne H. Ballantine and Joan Z. Spade, both of whom actively teach Sociology of Education courses, this text includes dozens of readable articles that illustrate major concepts and theoretical perspectives in the field.

Genres: Education, Sociology, Nonfiction, Read For School

552 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2000

Reviews

[Piper · Rating 3 out of 5]

man. we live in a society.

[Caleb Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I will not comment on the sociological discrepancies other reviews mention about this book, my review will focus on the implementation of theory into a person pursuing school administrator licensure. In my graduate course, this was the primary textbook for our sociology of education course. The format of the text follows is laid out in chapters with various numbers of readings per chapter. Chapters will vary on numerous sociological topics that surround education. So why read it? Where an undergraduate program in education may start talking about various issues of educational sociology, you most likely will encounter the depth of the topic at a graduate level. This is an introductory text that will pave the way to dive deeper into specific issues. This text most likely will be paired with various external research that you or your professor will supplement to fill in the gaps. I personally gave this text three stars because of the bias presented by the editors. You will find that most Readings are just portions of entire research. This creates a bias in that the editors took the liberty to put in what they wanted to say, which may not be how the researchers intended it. While bias may be present, the value of the text is found in the numerous topics covered; even if it is just "scratching the surface."

(I used the 5th Edition; Some changes may be present in the 6th)

[Haley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to read this book for a sociology class.

It’s just a textbook that is compiled of writings from other authors.

[scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

So far this book seems to be somewhat tilted toward the views of Marx and Weber, infusing race and gender inequalities into traditional class distinctions. Perhaps a balance will be struck with capatialist sociology of education in the sections covering functionalism. The entire work appears to have the usual short comings of post-positivist social sciences.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was pretty weak. Mostly a bunch of introductory explorations of topics - little rigorous research, detailed case studies, etc. Decent book for an undergrad sociology class, but not for a grad education class.