Accessibility statement

Social Perspectives on Education - EDU00017C

« Back to module search

  • Department: Education
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: C
  • Academic year of delivery: 2023-24
    • See module specification for other years: 2024-25

Module summary

This module introduces students to social perspectives on education, including historical, political, economic and cultural approaches, with the purpose of equipping students with a strong theoretical and practical understanding of social issues at the heart of any educational system.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2023-24

Module aims

This module introduces students to social perspectives on education, including historical, political, economic and cultural approaches, with the purpose of equipping students with a strong theoretical and practical understanding of social issues at the heart of any educational system.

Those perspectives are introduced week by week with a focus on a key real-world educational object, stakeholder or setting: the theoretical knowledge is thus firmly embedded in the real-world, and linked to policy and practice.

Seminars devoted to one key concept per week deepen students’ understanding of the theories behind each topic.

Module learning outcomes

The learning outcomes of the module are:

  • understand and be able to interrogate the social, economic, historical and cultural parameters of educational policy and practices

  • be familiar with the different agents, places, objects and settings that make up education in the real world, and to be able to subject them to rigorous analysis informed by social theory

  • understand the social origins of educational inequalities, their political and economic ramifications, and their potential solutions.

Academic and graduate skills for modules:

  • Academic: students will hone their research, reading and writing skills at the undergraduate level, and their analytical and synthesis skills.

  • Self-directed learning: each class session requires preparation and follow-up work. Students will develop the skills to work independently and plan their time accordingly.

  • Graduate skills: students will learn to work and refine their ideas in groups, present their ideas formally and informally, contribute to debate and reach collective decisions.

  • IT skills: The module is being taught in conjunction with the learning materials available on the Virtual Learning Environment. Students will develop the skills to navigate on and engage with the platform and to manage their learning online as well as face-to-face.

Module content

The module will include the following themes:

1) UNIFORM: gender, in/equality and social control in the school.

  • seminar: the uniform as a case study of colonialism in education

2) SCHOOL: space, place and geographies of school settings; types of schools, governance, institution and values.

  • seminar: school choice and marketisation

3) STUDENTS: peer relationships, selection and individual differences, sexual harrassment in schools

  • seminar: social models of disability and the school

4) MONEY: who pays for education? fees, bursaries, and who gets what.

  • seminar: funding and education

5) WORK: education and the economy, social class and mobility, precarity and the gig industry

  • seminar: education and neoliberalism

6) DISCIPLINE: school rules, surveillance, punishment and social control

  • seminar: the institutional gaze

7) TRUANCY: deschooling, opting out, NEETs and school strikes

  • seminar: alternative perspectives on schooling

8) TEACHERS: qualifications, attrition, salaries and skills

  • seminar: teacher selection

9) PARENTS: parental choice, pushy parents, parental engagement and nontraditional families in education.

  • seminar: education and cultural capital

10) TEXTBOOKS: disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, disciplines and power, specialisation and generalisation

  • seminar: historical approaches to the teaching of history

11) GRADES: assessment, criteria, formative and summative assessment, streaming and setting

  • seminar: grade inflation

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Module feedback

Individual written feedback reports, with follow-up tutor meeting, if necessary. The feedback is returned to students in line with university policy. Please check the Guide to Assessment, Standards, Marking and Feedback for more information

Indicative reading

Boranski, T. & Nasima, H. (2015). Sociology of Education. Los Angeles, Sage

Cole, M. (2012). Education, Equality and Human Rights: Issues of gender, 'race', sexuality, disability and social class. London: Routledge

Gewirtz, S. and Cribb, A. (2009) Understanding Education: a Sociological Perspective. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Gillborn, D. (2008) Racism and Education: Conspiracy or Coincidence? Abingdon: Routledge.

Meta, J. & Davies, S. (2018). Education in a new society: Renewing the sociology of education. London: The University of Chicago Press

Mills, C.Wright. (2000). The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Moore, R. (2004) Education and Society: Issues and Explanations in the Sociology of Education. Cambridge: Polity Press


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University constantly explores ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary. In some instances it may be appropriate for the University to notify and consult with affected students about module changes in accordance with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.