In the half century since the 1966 Coleman Report, scholars have yet to develop a consensus regarding the relationship between schools and inequality. The Coleman Report suggested that schools play little role in generating achievement gaps, but social scientists have identified many ways in which schools provide better learning environments to…

Comments on articles appearing in the 2001 theme issue of Sociology of Education. Considers the nature and impact of the widespread cultural commitment to educational equality. Discusses other aspects of education not emphasized in this issue, such as the implications of racial inequality, credentialism, and educational organization (CAJ)

Discusses the institutional effects of education as a system of social legitimation which confers success on some and failure on others. Comparative and experimental studies are suggested. (Author/DB)

Focuses on the rapid worldwide increase in educational enrollments from 1950-70. Analysis of models constructed to investigate this increase indicates that post World War II educational expansion is a function of the available population to be educated and of the level of education existing in 1950. It is not a function of socioeconomic or…

The effects of a school on diffuse attributes of students such as their values are seen as produced by the wider social definition of the products of the school--here called its "charter". Schools or systems of schools which are chartered to confer major status gains and entry into diffusely-defined elites are seen as more likely to have broad…

Analyzes the use of relevant international data to inform educational policy. Notes that such data can be used to extend research on school effects by incorporating comparative data, by evaluating the trade-offs involved in attempts to raise national achievement levels, and by broadening the range of international data. (MJP)

An analysis of worldwide educational expansion between 1950 and 1970 is presented along with explanations for the expansion. The paper particularly addresses the socialization process and the institutionalization of schooling along national lines. Section I reviews available theories which seek to explain the expansion of education in the modern…