Sociology of Education in the background of Modernity: a theoretical framework

Abstract

This article proposes to outline a theoretical program for the Sociology of Education based on the central argument that Sociology is the Science of Modernity. Sociology is inserted into a search for the constitution of a modern science that can account for the analysis of the institutions and processes that constitute modernity, among which capitalism, the nation-state, and science stand out, on the one hand, and industrialization, ur- banization, rationalization, individualization, and also schooling, on the other. The increasingly prominent role of education, and more specifically, of the school in modernity has led sociologists to focus on this institution. In this sense, it is possible to think of the sociology of education as a study of the relationship between education and society in modernity. In classical sociology, au- thors conceived school education as a way of producing social integration, in its relations with rationalization processes, in its interface with work, and also associated with political instrumen- talization for the promotion of freedom. With the global events at the beginning of the 20th century that impacted modern ins- titutions, new concerns emerged about the interaction between education and society. Contemporary sociology has come to view the education system as a way of transforming values or re- producing social inequalities, a trend that became dominant from the 1960s onwards. Thus, the proposal elaborated here presen- ts an expanded interpretation of the Sociology of Education as a sociological unfolding of modernity.