In the substantive chapters of this book Olssen brings together a wide range of authors within the Anglo/American/Australasian tradition and shows how the sociology of education has become diversified, both theoretically and in the topics it studies. A number of themes or trends are expressed in these chapters; for example the shift in the axis of inequality from social class to gender and race, the growing enthusiasm for qualitative research and the move away from dichotomies (such as macro/micro, context/content, old/new, structural/interactionist) and the attempts, not always successful, to go beyond them and deal with the complexities associated with both the distribution and cultural content of education. The picture that these chapters give one is of the sociology of education mirroring the increasingly fragmented character of sociology, its parent discipline.