Social Perspectives on Education - EDU00017C
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 2025-26 |
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.