Schools and Societies Second Edition Steven Brint Schools and Societies provides a synthesis of key issues in the sociology of education, focusing on American schools while offering a global, comparative context. Already a standard text in its first edition, this fully revised and updated second edition offers a broader sweep and stronger theoretical foundation, and takes into consideration key developments in education policy and scholarship since the late 1990s. The book is distinguished from others in the field by its breadth of coverage, compelling institutional history, and lively prose style. It opens with a chapter on schooling as a social institution. Subsequent chapters examine and compare schooling in industrialized and developing countries, and discuss the major purposes of schooling: transmitting culture, socializing young people, and sorting youth for class and occupations. The concluding chapter looks at school reform efforts and the future possibilities of schooling. Steven Brint is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Riverside and is Director of the College and Universities 2000 study. An award-winning sociologist and author, he wrote The Diverted Dream (with Jerome Karabel) and In an Age of Experts , and is editor of The Future of the City of Intellect