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This paper seeks to outline and evaluate Pierre Bourdieu's work as it has appeared most recently in feminist studies and the field of gender and education. In particular, it suggests ways in which Bourdieu's theoretical insights could be seen to more effectively contribute to cutting edge debates in both social theory and feminist thought regarding concepts such as agency, identity and domination. It also argues that a more creative and empirical engagement with the recent work of Bourdieu, alongside an interdisciplinary reading of more recent cultural and social theories of power, would be a fruitful way forward in advancing a feminist sociology of education. In the present historical moment and against the tide of postmodern and post-structuralist feminist accounts, Bourdieu is often read as a determinist who has little to offer contemporary feminist debates or who argues that masculine domination is too tightly woven to social practices of a given field. In short, this paper argues that such a view is not only a misreading of Bourdieu's work on fundamental theoretical grounds, but fails to acknowledge the ways in which his more recent work on masculinity addresses both the cultural and social conditions underlying contemporary forms of symbolic domination. In short, the paper argues that Bourdieu's theory offers an analytical breadth and range beyond the scope of anything that a normative, liberal account of masculine domination could provide. Yet, in drawing from such diversity, Bourdieu's oeuvre is able to resist incomprehensibility. It stands as a highly focused, realistic and generative attempt ( McNay, 1999 ; McLeod, 2004 ) to chart the problems of subordination, differentiation and hierarchy, and to expose the possibilities, as well as the limits, of gendered self-hood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the question of knowledge needs to be reconceptualised if sociology is to make its potential contribution to current debates about the curriculum. It begins with a review of the dominant assumptions underlying contemporary curriculum policy: neo-conservative traditionalism and technical-instrumentalism. It then examines the relativist position on knowledge that follows from the postmodernist critiques that have recently come to dominate social theory, particularly in the sociology of education. The paper argues that, in different ways, each of these approaches avoids the question of knowledge and hence leaves unresolved epistemological and educational dilemmas. In the final section, the paper draws on recent research in the sociology of science to develop what is referred to as a social realist approach to knowledge and explores its implications both for the curriculum and the claims that we are entering a 'knowledge society'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the difficulties in conceptualising and presenting research, in particular doctoral work in education, in the current climate of intellectual theorising. It argues that many researches experience a phenomenon described in the paper as 'post-modernist tension' when trying to write in an atmosphere of theoretical and methodological uncertainty. The author elaborates the 'symptoms' of post-modernist tension, and makes a critique of some elements of contemporary social theorising. Nevertheless, the author acknowledges the usefulness of contemporary social theory in challenging traditional research, despite its density and inaccessibility to many researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asserts that the religious assumptions of Christian academies need to be fully examined in relation to any analysis of their cultural practices, impact or policy implications. It proposes that Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, cultural capital and symbolic power can be broadened out from their traditional use in accounting for social positioning in order to explore the interaction of religious faith and institutional culture. The emergent analytical framework outlined relies on series of theoretical tools drawn from Bourdieu whose social theory and concepts are already employed extensively in sociology of education research and studies of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the re-establishment of independent Estonian statehood in 1991, Russian lost its privileges as the dominant and official language in Estonia, and Estonian continued as the only official language. This paper attempts to map the position of a Russian-speaking teacher within the sociological categories of power and language, based on the analysis of legislative acts and strategic documents within the domain of language policy and language legitimization practices in historical retrospective. The main focus of the study stresses an attempt to elaborate on to what extent the low self-efficacy of Russian-speaking teachers as the agents of legitimization of the Estonian language in Russian-speaking schools, and their low position in power relations within the Estonian education system, can be explained in the categories of power and language, as conceptualized on the basis of the social theory of Bourdieu. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is a response to articles by Shilling and Abraham, which were concerned with the relationship between Giddens' structuration meta-theory, differentiation-polarization theory, and positivism. Despite their conflicting conclusions, both authors criticize my reconstruction of differentiation-polarization theory, and I try to clarify the nature of that reconstruction and the theory it represents. It seems to me that these articles display misunderstandings of, and unwarranted prejudice against, positivism; though they are of course by no means alone in this. I suggest that while the sort of debate in which these authors engage is welcome, there needs to be a more open-minded approach towards the theoretical and methodological resources available to sociologists of education, including those frequently dismissed as positivist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to Professor K. Swanwick's critique of our sociological perspective on music education. A detailed presentation of the sociology of music thesis demonstrates that accusations of 'social determinism' and 'referentialism' are both misconceived Moreover, Swanwick's position leads to difficulties in his approach to music aesthetics, where at times he makes assumptions concerning the work of theorists such as Meyer and Keil which these authors have themselves explicitly repudiated We then relate certain observations which Swanwick's makes concerning the processes of schooling to wider sociological theories of schooling that help make sense of the kinds of constraints Swanwick's correctly identifies Finally, we accept Swanwick's challenge to be more explicit concerning both our response to his charge of relativism and our practical recommendations for the reform of music teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]