Problems in education

This chapter focuses on three contemporary social problems in education that have received considerable attention from sociologists and educational researchers: educational inequalities between social classes and between ethnic/ racial groups and the social impact of the accountability movement in education. These three themes are concerned with how education reproduces social inequalities in society, often through procedures, structures, and the unintended actions of parents, teachers, school staff, and educational policy makers. The findings show that research on these topics is exceptionally rich in terms of theoretical and methodological approaches and debates. Furthermore, although most of the studies have been conducted in Anglo-Saxon countries, increasingly more research is carried out in different countries. This is a promising development, as theories about educational inequality are necessarily context specific, given that educational systems and their social conditions vary widely across national and regional contexts.