For use as the core text for Sociology of Education courses offered in Sociology Departments and Social Foundations of Education courses offered in Schools of Education. Schools and Societies is a gem of volume that combines in one comprehensive text superb theoretical acuity and scholarly judgment, a keen sense of the connection of research to policy, and a breadth of coverage that reflects the multidimensionality of education as an institution in a manner rare in social-scientific treatments of education. It deserves to be the leading survey of this field for a long time to come. Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University