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The author reflects on continuities and changes in the subdiscipline, using Mary Douglas and Basil Bernstein. In 2000 the millennial issue of "Sociology," the generic journal of the British Sociological Association, included a paper about the sociology of education called 'The anomalous beasts: Hooligans and the sociology of education'. It focused on hooligans as anomalous beasts in the sociology of education, and the sub-discipline as an anomalous beast within the discipline of sociology itself. It concluded with, very poor, predictions about the likely state of sociology of education and UK sociology in 2025. The fortieth anniversary of "BJSE" is a good time to revisit that millennial evaluation in order to offer a new sociologically informed re-evaluation of the field in 2020, set an agenda to highlight some of the current weaknesses in the sub-discipline and update the analysis of the uneasy relationship with the wider discipline of Sociology itself.

The work of John Furlong on school and classroom ethnography is located in its context and its achievements celebrated. The paper focuses on class, ethnicity and gender issues as it explores the changes and continuities in the ethnography of education over the 66-year period covered. The qualities of a good ethnographer are playfully compared to those of the African-Caribbean trickster figure Anansi used by Furlong in an early article. Looking back to 1954 and forward to 2020, the key themes found in the qualitative research on schools and classrooms in the UK and the USA are compared and contrasted.

The transfer from primary to secondary school in England and Wales is a status passage, from child to teenager. Research on the anxieties and anticipations surrounding that transfer over a 30-year period shows continuities and discontinuities. As well as the contrast of sociological approaches, the perceptions of children in 1977-1978 and 2003-2004 are compared to explore whether their anxieties and anticipations have changed. The transfer studies conducted by Galton in the 1970s are shown to have revealed concerns and enthusiasms among children that are an enduring feature of British pupils' lives. Two different sociological approaches to researching children are contrasted, one current in the 1970s, the other predominant in the new century. (Contains 2 tables.)

"Capoeira," the Brazilian dance and martial art is now globalised and taught widely outside Brazil. Instruction is provided by Brazilians who are living in self-imposed exile from their homeland. The authentic "capoeira" that such teachers provide is a major attraction for non-Brazilian students. However, there is little research available on the motivations and strategies of overseas "capoeira" instructors. Building on a long term ethnographic study, this paper showcases the goals and strategies of one successful Brazilian teacher, from the "Beribazu" Group of "Capoeira," working in the UK. This teacher reflects upon his four interlocking aims for his students and the strategies for achieving them. They should develop social cohesion, appreciate Brazilian culture, play good "capoeira" and learn to move their bodies acrobatically, flexibly and beautifully. Two sociologists embed the teacher's perspective on his work in an analytic framework derived from Bourdieu. (Contains 11 notes.)

Good educational ethnography whether done by sociologists or anthropologists, makes the familiar strange. The history of that proposition is outlined, and five strategies available to all ethnographers focused on teaching and learning, whether sociologists or anthropologists of education or not, are outlined. The vital importance of the working hypothesis is emphasised. Key concepts from Lave and Wenger are criticised and compared to the long history of calls to make the familiar strange.

"Capoeira", the Brazilian dance and martial art, is taught across the world. Learners acquire vital knowledge and are socialised as "capoeiristas" through legitimate peripheral participation, in particular when watching games in the "roda". The "roda", the circle within which the "capoeira" game is played, is a classic place for learning by legitimate peripheral participation to occur. Watching, listening, and feeling the energy of the "roda" are central to the acquisition of "capoeira" abilities and capabilities, especially the tacit, indeterminate knowledge and skills.

The sociological study of education involves focusing upon teaching and learning, upon explicit instruction and the acquisition of the tacit knowledge and skills that are essential if learners are to become enculturated into a new "habitus". Sociological insight into these processes can come from research on conventional educational settings, but is greater when unfamiliar, settings are studied. This paper focuses upon a pedagogic setting of an unconventional kind--a martial art, "capoeira". (Contains 5 notes.)

There has been a rising acceptance of autoethnography in the past 15 years. Instead of studying social phenomena, in an appropriately reflexive way, some scholars have taken to researching themselves. Drawing on concrete examples from an ongoing ethnographic project, the paper contrasts the beneficial, even essential, practices of autobiographical and reflexive thinking about fieldwork with the narcissistic substitution of autoethnography for research. (Contains 9 notes.)

The title of this article comes from the editorial written for this journal by Olive Banks, Len Barton, Roger Dale, David Hargreaves, Roland Meighan, Ivan Reid and Graham Vulliamy (Banks et al. 1980, 4) that appeared in its first issue, and set out its remit. The seven scholars who wrote that editorial pledged to "publish high quality work of any theoretical orientation." Three major themes are addressed in this paper: Olive Banks's contribution to sociology of education up to 1973; the fate of her work after 1973; and her work as a case study of the troubled relationship between sociology of education and sociology itself. Two important works by Olive Banks form the core of the paper. Banks and Finlayson (1973) "Success and Failure in the Secondary School," and her textbook "The Sociology of Education" (Banks 1968, 1971, 1976). Banks (1955) Parity and Prestige in English Secondary Education is the subject of another paper in this volume (Edwards, 2008, this issue): a recognition that it is her most important work. Before focusing on the three themes used to structure the paper, there is a brief contextual section.

The Brazilian martial art, "capoeira", is popular in many countries outside Brazil, including the UK. "Capoeira" is generally taught by Brazilians whose livelihood depends on recruiting and retaining enough paying customers to keep their classes economically viable and socially pleasurable for the students. The teachers also have to establish and maintain authority over their students who are young adults with many other ways to spend their time and money. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in three British cities, the ways in which teacher authority is established, challenged and maintained are explored, including claims to authenticity, physical prowess, race, renaming the students, and skill on the dance floor. (Contains 6 notes.)

Two British authors reflect on the current state of qualitative research, viewed as a battlefield through roiling smoke. From a UK perspective they reflect on the perceived crisis in qualitative research in the United States. They also suggest that there are four important features that good qualitative research should rely on: problematizing "education"; avoiding ethnocentricism; appreciating the long history of qualitative research; and carrying out proper in-depth ethnographic studies that generate adequately theorized analysis. If these features appear, qualitative research will thrive. Researchers need to reaffirm the significance of qualitative research but repeated searches for novelty and a denial of past achievements will weaken our overall claim for legitimacy. In the UK and Europe qualitative research is flourishing, but there too it needs constantly to demonstrate the quality of research and its enduring impact on high-quality social research.

"Capoeira," the Brazilian dance and martial art, is now taught in many countries outside Brazil. Reflections on a year's fieldwork on capoeira teaching in the UK are used to make educational ethnography anthropologically strange. Issues of locality, noise, uncertainty and bodily contact are explored in a reflexive way. (Contains 7 notes.)

In James Elroy Flecker's poem "The Gates of Damascus", the poet imagines four exits from the safe comfortable city to the outside world. Each gate takes the traveller into a different set of temptations and dangers. The Aleppo Gate leads to trade and commerce, the Mecca Gate is for faith and pilgrimage, the Lebanon Gate is for exploration and the search for enlightenment, and the Baghdad Gate leads to danger and even death. When we educational researchers leave our safe city, our ivory tower, our Damascus, we can choose which gate we take: that is our destination, our goal, our methods. The paper will explore the choices that face educational researchers, and the consequences of those choices. Issues of funding, faith, exploration and danger will be discussed with examples from controversies about educational research.

During 2002-2003 there was an enquiry into the future of Research Assessment Exercises in Britain. Learned societies in Arts and Social Sciences who copied their submissions to the author for meta-analysis held very similar views. However these views are not strongly represented in the published report, because only a small minority of societies submitted evidence.

Sets the current public debate about gender and schooling in England into a historical and a United Kingdom-wide context, addressing the highly politicized context in which educational research on gender has taken place over the past 20 years, discussing the feminization of teaching, and examining attacks on English schools for failing boys as a discourse of derision. (SM)

Explores how stability and continuity in scientific disciplines are sustained through socialization processes of doctoral training. Identifies inter-generational transmission of knowledge, skills, and assumptions as key elements in socialization. Uses this research to contest recent United Kingdom educational policies based on theories of a critical mass of active researchers. (DSK)

Examines some fundamental assumptions that have informed recent policy on doctoral research in the United Kingdom in light of empirical, quantitative research on doctoral supervisors and their students, and argues those assumptions are insensitive to significant differences between academic cultures of different disciplines. Looks at issues of social organization of academic research and academic socialization of researchers. (MSE)

In an analysis of two American and two British texts, ethnographic studies of teachers are compared. The comparison reveals how different the approaches are, although both sets of texts use ethnographic methods, and how the role of the teacher is understood in contrasting ways in the two bodies of research. (IAH)

This paper discusses what the four preceeding papers in this journal have in common and where they differ. All look at William Bennett's lesson on Federalist Paper No. 10 from different perspectives. (MT)

Examines research interest in the ethnography of schooling (research on and in educational institutions based on participant observation and/or permanent recordings of everyday life in natural settings). Sociological and anthropological approaches to ethnography are compared. (Author/DB)