Sociology of Education – Good Resources

Last Updated on September 24, 2018 by Karl Thompson

Useful sources of quantitative and qualitative data for teaching and learning about the sociology of education… with a focus on the United Kingdom. The point of this post is to provide a range of links to resources and ‘hub sites’ which are updated on a regular basis.

This page will be gradually populated with more links as I get the time to update it! Last update April 2018! 

Best Hub Sites (IMO)

The Institute for Education (IOE) – 25% of research into the UK education system takes place through the IOE. The link just above takes you to their research page where you can access details of a range of research on pretty much every aspect of education within in the UK.

institute for education

The Sutton Trust – established in 1997 the Sutton Trust’s main aim is to improve social mobility through evidence based research, programmes and advocacy. Most of its thorough, mixed-methods research is focused on the causes, consequences and experience of inequality of education opportunity.

Quantitative Sources of Data on Education

Official Statistics

Education and Training Statistics for the UK, Department for Education (link to 2016 Publication) – this document provides ‘the basic’ information on the UK education system – the number of schools, teachers, qualifications, basic info about levels of attainment and education expenditure. Published annually in November.

School Workforce in England – covers teacher numbers and pupil-teacher ratios in primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. Published annually in June.

Special Education Needs in England – details of children with special education needs, by type of need, and broken down by school type and gender (statistics derived from the ‘schools census’).

Participation in Education, Training and Employment by 16-18 year olds in England – produced by the DFS focusing on 16-18 education and training.

Other statistical sources of information about education

Education Datalabs – In their own words they are  ‘a group of expert analysts who produce independent research on education policy and practice’. The main pages (and thus the main topics under investigation) are devoted to school accountability, exams and assessment, pupil demographics, admissions, post-16 education and teacher careers.

Education Datalabs provides a number of excellent infographics on many of the above topics, and seems to be committed to open source research – they make their data and code available so that others can develop their research. BIG THUMBS UP for this site!

Education Infographics – A hub site for lots of useful infographics summarising stats on numerous aspects of education, especially the future of elearning.

The Association of Colleges produces a useful document of infographics focusing on colleges –‘Key Further Education Statistics’

Qualitative Sources of Data on Education

Some of the sources below also draw on and generate quantitative data, but to mind they mainly focus on using and generating qualitative data. 

TED Talks on Education – There seems to be something of a consensus within the TED community that education systems around the world are broken, and that the concepts of education and school need re-imagining somehow. The link just above takes you to ten talks from different speakers which all re-imagine school in some way… there’s lots to think about here, and plenty to criticise too.

Youth Employment UK – An organisation set up to help tackle youth unemployment in the UK. They work mainly with 14-24 year olds and aim to give every young person a voice. They produce their own research on what young people think about how well education is preparing them for work, and link to the latest research on youth employment produced by other, similar agencies.

 

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “Sociology of Education – Good Resources”

  1. Hi – thanks Steve, I’ll add that and lots more in eventually – I actually accidentally published this early, before I’d completed it!

  2. I would recommend the web-site of the Sutton Trust too. It is excellent for recent research on social mobility and the advantages of a private education.

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