This report is the product of a conference designed to define profitable areas of inquiry in the sociology of education with emphasis on the intersection of sociological inquiry and urgent problems in educational research. It is compiled from the stenotyped record of conference proceedings (five sessions at which position reports were presented as informal guides to general discussion) and from postconference reflections of the participants (23 social scientists, most of whom are prominent sociologists of education and representatives of allied disciplines). The author's synthesis is a reorganization of the conference material under seven general headings which participants identified as central priority issues: (1) methodology, (2) theory formation, (3) education and other social institutions, (4) the structure of the educational system, (5) education as a profession, (6) the ideology of educational practitioners, and (7) the special problem of educational opportunity. Twenty references are cited in the body of the report. Appended are (1) a 22-page outline synopsis of needed educational research, the first section dealing primarily with elementary and secondary education, the second devoted entirely to higher education; and (2) "The Comparative Study of the Determinants of Educational Opportunity," a background paper presented at the conference. (JS)