Question

Notes on sociological perspectives of special education

Answer 1

Sociologists have been interested in education for a long time. Among the main issues have been inequality of opportunity, transmission of culture and socialisation. Until quite recently Special Education has been largely overlooked. As an illustration of this, the education section of the bibliography of Recent British Sociology, (Eldridge, 1980) contains only one book which makes explicit reference to special education in its title, How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Sub‐Normal in British Schools (Coard, 1971). This article attempts to summarise how sociologists have begun to take special education as an area worth studying. In the first part, Tomlinson's work, which is perhaps more a ‘pure sociology’ approach than any other, is described and analysed in some detail. In the second part, the work of more pragmatic authors is considered. Finally a ‘programme’ of empirical questions and possible methods for the sociology of special education is suggested.

Answer 2

Answer:

Sociology, a social science that studies human societies, their interactions, and the processes that preserve and change them. It does this by examining the dynamics of constituent parts of societies such as institutions, communities, populations, and gender, racial, or age groups. Sociology also studies social status or stratification, social movements, and social change, as well as societal disorder in the form of crime, deviance, and revolution