Emerging and Continuing Inequalities in Education

Education as an institution profoundly affects most segments of society. It serves myriad functions from the socialization and training of the young, to preparing and retraining a competent labor force, to securing for the elderly a meaningful and enriched retirement. Around the world there are a plethora of factors that facilitate or retard educational goals.  Sociologists of education focus on an array of issues, seeking to explore unanticipated and unintended outcomes of educational policies, practices, and procedures among diverse groups. Much of our work addresses issues of educational inequality.  Sociology of education is both global and local in its focus and applies a broad range of sociological theory and research methods. 

Here we present the current state of sociology of education globally regarding research traditions and topics that attract the interests of sociologists of education.  Our focus includes continuing and emerging educational inequalities that will be salient in the coming decades. Attention will be paid to social stratification, equity and access to schooling in developing and developed nations, politics of education and multiculturalism, educational assessment and accountability, school-to-work transitions, adult and lifelong learning, teacher supply, demand, and morale, and education as a vehicle for social control. Globalization in the educational processes and contemporary differences stemming from new sources of social inequalities including the digital divide and participation or exclusion from new forms of education, as well as issues of ethnicity and migration incorporate many of the emerging inequalities that sociology of education will need to address. Finally, we note the research methodologies used and developed within the sociology of education and epistemological paradigms that appear to be favored by specific research traditions among sociologists of education.