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Social Perspectives on Education - EDU00017C

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

Module summary

This module introduces students to social perspectives on education, including historical, political, psychological, economic and cultural approaches.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2024-25

Module aims

The module aims to equip students with a strong theoretical and practical understanding of social issues at the heart of education.
These issues 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 each topic.

Module learning outcomes

The learning outcomes of the module are:

  • understand and be able to interrogate a range of parameters which relate to social aspects 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.

Module content

The module will include the following broad themes:

Schools and teachers :

Space, place and geographies of school settings; types of schools. Qualifications, attrition, salaries and skills

Students and families:

Peer relationships, selection and individual differences, sexual harassment in schools. Parental choice, pushy parents, and parental engagement.

Discipline and truancy:

School rules, surveillance, punishment, uniforms and social control. Deschooling, opting out, NEETs

Funding and finances:

Who pays for education? Fees, bursaries, and who gets what. Education and the economy, social class and mobility.

Edtech and resources:

Textbooks, disciplines and power, specialisation and generalisation. Digital classrooms, issues of access, and the AI future.

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

Berends, M., Schneider, B., & Lamb, S. (2024). The Sage handbook of sociology of education. London; Thousand Oaks.
House of Commons Library (2023) Sexual harassment in schools in England
Macionis, J. J. (2015). Sociology . (Fifteenth edition) Boston; London: Pearson.
Mills, C. W. (2000). The sociological imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Power, S., & Taylor, C. (2021). School exclusions in Wales: policy discourse and policy enactment. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 26(1), 19-30.
Smith, E. (2012). Key issues in education and social justice . Los Angeles; London: SAGE.
Swain. (2003). How Young Schoolboys Become Somebody: The role of the body in the construction of masculinity. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 24(3), 299–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690301890.
Thompson, I., & Ivinson, G. (Eds.). (2020). Poverty in education across the UK: A comparative analysis of policy and place. Policy 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.