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This paper is concerned with the influence of the policy of local education authorities upon educational attainment. We suggest that the influence of local policy has been neglected in the sociology of education and hypothesize that policy variables are likely to be of major importance as determinants of attainment. Evidence drawn from correlations of policy, provision and social-class variables with each other and with various measures of attainment tends to validate this suggestion, and indicates that two `policy- models' of local authority activity may be appropriate: viz, the elite-orientated authority model, in which resources are differentially concentrated on a sponsored elite with consequent high attainment of this elite; and the egalitarian authority model where resources are more evenly spread throughout the school system with consequent `inferior' attainment of an elitist kind, but where the evidence suggests there is higher overall attainment of the total school system product. It would also appear that the determinant of the policy set pursued by an LEA. is the social class background of the area it covers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins by examining the typology of educational systems outlined by Earl Hopper m Sociology (vol. 2, no. I, 1968) and argues against the attempt to reduce the comparative study of education to varieties of occupational selection. On the other hand, accepting that a central part of the sociology of education must be with ideology and the generation and transmission of learning, it outlines a framework for examining this in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]