| Summary: | "What this book tells is what every teacher knows, that the world of school is a social world. Those human beings who live together in the school, though deeply severed in one sense, nevertheless spin a tangled web of interrelationships; that web and the people in it make up the social world of school. It is not a wide world, but, for those who know it, it is a world compact with meaning. It is a unique world. It is the purpose of this book to explore it. This work is a study of the life of human beings in the school. The point of view of the analysis is primarily sociological. The work is, in one sense, a systematic application of the concepts of sociology and social psychology to the social phenomena of school life. The chief utility of the book, probably, will be as a textbook in Educational Sociology, but I hope that it may have some general interest as well. I have tried, indeed, to write such a book as would appeal to every teacher everywhere. The method that has been employed in gathering and interpreting material is empirical and observational. The style is as non-technical as it was possible to make it without the loss of essential meanings. The purpose of the book, however it is used, is to give insight into concrete situations typical of the typical school. I have hewed to this line, and to no other. Whatever seemed likely to give insight has been included, and all else, however worth while in other respects, has been excluded. A certain amount of fictional material has been included. This must be judged as fiction; it is good fiction, and it is relevant to our point, if it is based upon good insight. A number of atypical cases have been included because of the illustrative value of such material"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).
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