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Barnett Berry considers five common myths about schools and teachers:(1) too few talented individuals enter teaching, primarily because certification barriers discourage them from becoming classroom teachers; (2) teacher preparation and experience matter little for student achievement; (3) the key to improving schools is to eradicate tenure and remove incompetent teachers; (4) sound business principles should be applied to education, and merit pay is key to motivating teachers; (5) charter schools, by forcing traditional educators to compete for students and funding, have become key levers for school improvement. Berry then points to policy options that would lead to high-quality schools and teachers for all students. Because teachers are the most important in-school resource, the current national failure to invest in improving our teaching force and to equitably distribute this resource is contributing to the opportunity gap. These policies, he concludes, need not continue.

The Introduction discusses the themes covered by the essays in this volume about the history of the development, the trajectory, location, and contemporary concerns of the sociology of education (SoE) in India. The essays included are based on the presentations made at the March 2006 seminar held at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, titled ‘Sociology of Education in India—Looking Back, Looking Ahead’. The content of SoE courses taught in universities today are rarely a matter of discussion for scholars, and the work of internationally known classical thinkers on SoE have been largely ignored. In this volume, many contributors reflect critically on the work of these scholars in the context of contemporary concerns in education in India. Some chapters focus on the need to include courses on SoE in teacher preparation in India while others attempt to ‘counter neoliberal and intellectually conservative onslaughts on knowledge generation, which…deflects attention from increasing inequality in society and education.’ The Introduction outlines the content of the two sections of the volume. The first deals with disciplinary trajectory of SoE and analyses its journey and theoretical and methodological concerns. This is followed by chapters on emerging discourses and contemporary concerns about SoE in India. The second section brings together contributions that break new ground in theoretical and empirical engagement with equality, identity, and exclusions in education.