An old problem in a new context: Rethinking the relationship between sociology and educational policy

This article is concerned with the development of social scientific knowledge (exemplified by the case of sociology of education) and its relationship to education policy. It draws on and contrasts the experience of the author in working at the interface between theory and policy in two very different contexts: the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1990s and South Africa since 1990. It argues for attention to both the state of the intellectual field and the wider political context in which both sociology of education and education policy are located and makes the case for the continuing importance of the autonomy of disciplinary analysis and of the university as the major site in which disciplinary knowledge can be developed.

Notes

An earlier version of this paper was presented as the Robertson Bequest Seminar in the Department of Education and Society, University of Edinburgh, June 2002.