Classroom Reading Instruction from a Sociological Perspective

Children learn what they are taught may be dismissed simply as a truism. But like many contentions that appear obvious, this one bears further scrutiny. In this paper, the nature of content coverage is considered and the empirical evidence on the relationship between what children cover and what they learn is examined. Is content coverage a condition that can be independently manipulated or is it connected with other conditions of classroom instruction? Finally, the implications of this research for practice and for thinking about how schools work is discussed.