Developing a Broad Sociology of Education

Abstract

Education has become a central institution in our current societies, both in its working and as its possibilities and potentiality to shape society. The sociology of education, with its empirical and critical tradition, is to have a higher importance in the sociological understanding of contemporary societies. To that goal, it is argued that sociology of education must proceed to a process of extension and broadening. To that objective, there are proposed three principles: a) to continue the empirical-critical character; b) a comparative perspective; c) a public and propositional orientation; and three directions, with their indirect further developmental effects: a) upwards to increase the analysis of secondary and tertiary-university education; b) a cognitive-epistemic focus on curriculum, knowledge, and didactics; and c) a deepening into moral-ethical issues. To illustrate how to integrate these proposals, two short comparative or contrastive studies mostly at the European context are offered: a) in Secondary Education: about the insufficient presence and formation in Social Sciences (except Economics) and related socio-human sciences; and b) in University or Higher Education: about how the orthodox curriculum in Economic Science is one of the bases and resources of institutional power for the economist profession. These two cases are examples of the recent empirical dynamics of cultural and epistemic power in our societies, and they also suggest some potentials to transform education.