The Sociological Approach to Teaching and Learning in Higher Education with Special Reference to First Year Sociology Courses at a Technological University

Abstract

This thesis attempts to articulate a sociological perspective on teaching and learning in higher education with particular reference to the teaching of sociology. The empirical work of the thesis reports on first year courses in sociology at a technological university. It relies, in its initial analysis, on the concepts of "student culture" and "perspective". Studies of both staff and student perspectives are reported. The thesis, and the empirical work it reports, ought to be viewed within the context of the wider upheavals within the sociology of education during the 1970's.Following the presentation of the early empirical work, the thesis therefore reports later developments to the theoretical framework which draw insight from these wider debates in the sociology of education. These developments, therefore, both stem from, and serve to criticise, the earlier work of the thesis. A study of school sociology teaching is reported which was partially informed by these later developments and which serves to indicate their utility. The concept of "hidden curriculum", which became increasingly important to the theoretical framework articulated here, informs both this study and the considerations of the more general problems of teaching sociology found elsewhere in the thesis. The concept is used in the attempt to articulate both"structuralist' and 'interactionist' approaches to the study of teaching and learning. The thesis closes with a review of the sociology of higher education and the problems of teaching sociology in higher education which draws upon the theoretical developments discussed above. The closing section of the thesis also includes a reappraisal of the data reported earlier on first year sociology courses at a technological university which is informed by the foregoing and which looks particularly at the "hidden curriculum" of teaching sociology in higher education.