SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION AND THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS.

The article presents information on the development of the educational sociology in the in colleges of education in Great Britain. It is now possible to take sociology as a main subject in 50 colleges of education and at 29 of these it is possible to go on and offer the subject for the B. Ed. degree. A survey conducted by the British Sociological Association in 1968 reported that one quarter of the respondents gave sociology of education as a main interest. Many of the increasing number of sociologists trained in university departments of sociology go on to teach their subject at various levels within the educational system. It has been argued that the term educational sociology should refer to the discipline as practiced in the early years of its development when the emphasis was on the practical problems facing the teacher. Educational sociology is the applied branch of the subject where the concern is with solving practical problems which are likely to arise for the educationalist. Educational sociology has been given a normative orientation, being particularly concerned with solving problems, with fulfilling a social welfare role and with an emphasis on what seems to be sociologically significant.