The 'New' Sociology of Education and the Study of Learning Environments: Prospects and Problems*

Abstract

This paper critically examines the 'new' sociology of education with respect to the study of learning environments. While borrowing much from the interpretive schools, such as symbolic interactionism, phenome nology, ethnomethodology, and Marxism, the new paradigm has emerged in Britain partly as a reaction to the lack of success of earlier reform policies based on traditional research. It promises to advance understan ding of educational processes related to classroom interaction, classroom language, and the curriculum. At the same time, ambiguous theoretical - links, an implicit positivism, and unresolved relativism toward policy - formulation weaken its appeal. Rather than replacing the traditional so ciology of education, the new paradigm complements it both theoretically and empincally.