Schools and Societies - 3rd Edition by Steven Brint (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Schools and Societies provides a synthesis of key issues in the sociology of education, focusing on American schools while offering a global, comparative context. Acknowledged as a standard text in its first two editions, this fully revised and updated third edition offers a broader sweep, stronger theoretical foundation, and a new concluding chapter on the possibilities of schooling. Instructors, students, and policymakers interested in education and society will find all quantitative data up to date and twenty percent more material covering advances in research since the last edition.

This book is distinguished from others in the field by its breadth of coverage, compelling institutional history, and lively prose style. It opens with a chapter on schooling as a social institution. Subsequent chapters compare schooling in industrialized and developing countries, and discuss the major purposes of schooling: transmitting culture, socializing young people, and sorting youth for class locations and occupations. The penultimate chapter looks at school reform efforts, drawing for the first time on comparative studies. A new coda ends the book by considering the educational ideals schools should strive for and how they might be attained. This third edition of Schools and Societies delivers the accessible explanations instructors rely on with updated, expanded information that's even more relevant for students.

Review Quotes

"Although Americans often see schooling as narrow policy options, this book reveals the rich variety of forms that schooling takes in various societies. Brint synthesizes institutional histories and quantitative analyses in lively accounts that reveal aspects of schooling that we rarely notice, and which have great impact on our society and our children."--James E. Rosenbaum "Northwestern University"

"Steven Brint's expansion of his well-known review of the sociology of education is impressive and comprehensive. It adds historical and comparative perspectives to the conventional foci on attainment and equality. Society, beyond the student and school, is a main element, giving the book a broad and very sociological view."--John W. Meyer "Stanford University"

About the Author

Steven Brint is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside.