First published in 1998. This is Volume XII of twenty-eight in the Sociology of Education series. This is part one of a study looking at primary schools from a sociological descriptive view kickstarted by the 1963 review of primary education and its transition into secondary education, by the Central Advisory Council for Education in England by Lady Plowden. This volume seeks to fill a gap by being a single, systematic, comprehensive work which combines a general sociological description of English primary education with a survey of the results of sociological investigations in this field.