A myth of a myth? An assessment of two ethnographic studies of option choice schemes.

This article examines the claims of Stephen Ball and Peter Woods in their ethnographic studies of option choice schemes. Woods' and Ball's central concern was with the amount of choice pupils had in selecting fourth- and fifth-year courses. They claim that there is an inconsistency between the amount of choice officially offered and the amount of choice pupils were actually given. This is an important issue in itself, but it has heightened significance for these authors because of the consequences that they believe pupil choice could have for the differentiation of pupils within schools. And such differentiation is considered to be important because of its assumed consequences for occupational placement and the reproduction of the social class structure. Alongside with the role of schools in the reproduction of social inequality, there is another theme in these two studies, the importance of giving attention to micro as well as macro special processes. The accounts of option choice that they provide are in each case part of ethnographic studies of particular schools. The authors emphasize the importance of investigating processes of social interaction within the school, rather than treating the schools as black boxes and only studying their inputs and outputs.