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This paper reports evidence from an ethnographic study of two primary schools in a large town in Northern France. The schools are located markedly different socio-economic settings. One is in an affluent area near the centre while the other is situated on a run down municipal housing estate on the outskirts in an officially designated educational priority zone. Despite their widely divergent social situations the two schools are strikingly similar and can be seen to be providing homogeneous educational experience for two socially heterogeneous populations. In the second half of the paper the notion of `national context' is explored and its usefulness as an explanatory theoretical concept for analysing this educational homogeneity is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses sociologically the current form of school-based secondary assessment, in Queensland which is criterion-referenced to Year 10 and a hybrid criterion/norm referenced form at the end of Year 12. Habermas' arguments are used to suggest that this. assessment pattern will give the state potentially greater 'steering capacity' over education by 'rationalising' it-the 'scientisation of schooling'. This form of assessment fits within the accountability discourse of the economically parsimonious 1980 while meeting selection demands. However, the approach does meet some educational demands. The paper also reflects upon the role of the state and expert knowledge in policy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with a case study regarding the `rise and fall' of a promotions committee within an Australian College of Advanced Education The paper considers the internal organisational factors involved with the abolition of promotion by merit as part of increasingly dominant managerialist practices The paper attempts to contextualise these institutional developments in terms of the restructuring of the Australian economy and concomitant pressures upon state expenditure and consequent increasing pressures on tertiary education institutions to `pay their own way' The study fits within the `imperialist strategy' within organisational analyses where the study of organisations is "merged within a wider analytical framework geared to the examination of historical transformations in institutional structures and the principles which underlie these long-term historical movements" In the concluding section, some critical remarks are proffered regarding the way senior administrators within tertiary education institutions have responded to these privatisation pressures upon them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational selection has been a central issue for Structural Functionalist, Marxist and Interpretative sociologists of education While knowledge about selection processes within schools has increased over the past two decades, as a result of ethnographic studies of schooling, the social process of collective teacher decision making, when teachers are engaged in institutional channelling, has been largely neglected This paper explores collective teacher decision making at a point of allocation through the medium of a case study of setting in one 9-13 years middle school The paper argues that the discussion concerning the recent initiatives of educational selection embodied in modularisation, pupil assessment, common examinations and national testing should be informed by research of teacher interaction at points of allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the complexity of West Indian pupils' adaptations to school Their situation is such that ability, hard work and a commitment to academic achievement may not be sufficient in the struggle for academic success West Indian pupils face the additional barrier of staff ethnocentrism, which must be handled without reinforcing the widespread belief that they represent a challenge to teachers' authority The size of this task is examined through the use of detailed case studies of pupils drawn from ethnographic research in a single multi-ethnic inner-city Comprehensive The paper describes the strategies which allowed one West Indian pupil to succeed academically, whilst a group of his peers experienced increasingly conflictual teacher-pupil relations which culminated in academic failure and, in one case, expulsion from the school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of bricolage, as it is developed by Levi-Strauss, is useful in characterising the form of teacher's work, it subsumes extensive research on the form of teacher's work and provides a heuristic device for developing causal explanations of the form of teachers' work as well as drawing together and unifying explanations developed in the literature. This assists and informs interventions to promote progressive pedagogy. The paper begins with an account of bricolage and its relationship to a science of pedagogy Next,features of teachers' work which push it toward bricolage are discussed, viz. Conservatism, limited creativity, repertoire enlargement, teacher' use of theory, the use of devious means, and ad hocism. Causal explanations of various of these features are discussed, viz. anticipatory socialization, aspects of preservice teacher education experiences and constraints in the work situation. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for teacher education of taking seriously the suggestion that teachers' work is bricolage and taking seriously the associated causal explanations. It is argued that a critical starting point for progressive change in educational practice is the provision of inservice for tertiary educators who may themselves be bricoleurs. Without this, the significant necessary changes to preservice student's on-campus and within school experiences are unlikely to be supported or legitimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of this paper is to investigate the use of the term 'process' in educational analysis. Drawing on a model proposed by Apple & Weis (1985) for conceptualising ideological reproduction in education, the paper argues that 'process' is in greater need of clarification than the terms to which it refers. The claim is that `process' has become a taken-for-granted but untheorised term in writing about ideology in particular and has become what Ardener (1978) calls, a `language shadow'. By this he means a metaphoric circumlocution that ambiguously sketches ideas that are beyond the capacity of real language to express. To this extent, `process' masks rather than explicates the very mechanisms that are said to set in motion terms such as ideology. Consequently, it is argued that the process model of Apple & Weis requires additional elements for the theoretical explanation of ideological reproduction and for establishing a fit between the model and the world it depicts. Finally, the paper attempts to extend Apple & Weis's analysis by proposing a closer focus on the discursive practices of schools so that their complexity is accounted for in theoretical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper chronicles the struggles in Queensland education to have the educational disadvantages of girls included on the agenda. The new right policies of the Queensland government have precipitated a powerful anti-feminist lobby Nonetheless, the government and the education department have been 'forced' into at least formulating an Equal Opportunity policy for girls (and boys') While the policy is weak and departmental commitment limited, some progressive teachers have been able to 'use' the policy to implement progressive practices. In a more general sense, the paper looks at the usefulness or otherwise of such policies which have developed out of a liberal feminist framework While not denying their worth, the paper also argues that women's issues have to be fought for in the context of a broader social agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the apparent internal coherence of a programme of agrarian development in India and the distortions and contradictions arising out of its practical implementation. Our object is to examine official policy with regard to tribal residential schools in India, known as ashram shalas. These schools represent an innovation and are different from the general type of day primary schools seen in rural India. In ashram schools, tribal pupils are provided free boarding facilities, together with free school uniforms, text books and other learning materials. These schools are expected to impart elementary education in areas which are remote and sparsely populated and where, on account of the geographic spread of the numerous hamlets, single teacher schools cannot be established. Our study is aimed at understanding official policy in the context of ashram schools, and at providing an arena for bringing to the surface the fundamental contradictions played out in areas of the school situation, specifically relating to: (a) the school organizational structure; (b) the teaching practice; (c) dropout; (d) school-community relations; and (e) area development. The paper is presented in two major parts: (a) the first section will try to relate the functioning of the ashram schools to how the state plans and administers schools with respect to access to them; (b) the second section examines the ashram school as a locus of a wider and general social problem of relating education to social economic and developmental purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is concerned with student altitudes and views of the certificate of further education and illustrates that the marker against winch students assess both the course and college is school It also explores the nature and forms of student resistance, arguing that for those students who stay the course, the most significant form of resistance is against youthful dependence and the process of infantalisation In addition it is argued that much of student behaviour that is apparently resistant should be understood as a mode of accomodation, as a strategy of survival The paper illustrates that many students have an instrumental commitment toward their course and that in some cases the experience of the course enhanced and strengthened this orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to demonstrate that Bourdieu's critics who claim that his theory is structurally 'frozen', with no room for human agency misperceive the basis of the theory The relationships between his theory and education are summarised and the concept of habitus explicated Then drawing on Outline of a Theory of Practice, the determinants of practice are shown to incorporate change and human agency This is then related to an examination of education as cultural practice, and some comments made in that light on a recent paper by Willis, and `Origins and Destinations'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning to Labour signalled a break from mechanistic `social reproduction' theories within the Sociology of Education, towards a new appreciation of the rote of cultural processes within school This paper reviews the work of Paul Willis, focussing particularly on some of the unresolved themes of Learning to Labour and the development of his own thought since this study was produced Areas which have been underemphasised in the past include Willis' attempt to formulate a methodological and analytical base for cultural studies within education, the theoretical relationship between culture and ideology and the essentially active, transformative nature of cultural production within educational sites This paper aims to clarify some of these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on data derived from two socially contrasting primary schools in Durban, this paper focuses on how gender and sexuality feature in the teaching and discussion of HIV/AIDS. A detailed analysis of two 'life-skills' lessons in the two schools shows that, despite the social differences between the schools, discussions of gender and sexuality remain muted. Discourses of childhood innocence make it difficult for teachers to provide comprehensive knowledge of sex, sexuality and gender in the primary school 'life-skills' lessons. Implications for teacher training are suggested briefly in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Second World War, education in advanced capitalist societies has been perceived as the main 'saviour' of the meritocratic ideal. In this paper I will investigate some of the implications of the lasting emphasis that has been placed upon education in Britain, in the pursuit of a more just and equal society. Initially, I will present two main strands of thought vis-a-vis meritocracy. I will then show how these different approaches have shaped the pertinent debate. The main line of reasoning will be that the 'meritocracy through education' discourse can potentially conceal inequalities and injustices in contemporary market-driven British society. This contention will be supported by evidence from social mobility research, which clearly indicates that the expansion of educational provision and the increase in educational qualifications of the past 60 years has done little to eliminate social class differences and associated privileges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The understanding of feminist pasts has been largely ignored in the history of education. This paper suggests that the historical sociology of Olive Banks provides fresh starting points for future research exploring the relationship between the history of social and political movements and a reassessment of contemporary and historical forms of 'radical education.' The article proceeds to use group biography to explore a municipal socialism that has been over-ridden in historical memory by the classic political histories that take the view from Westminster and Whitehall. In so doing it seeks to show the contribution of six educator activists who were participants in the making of a metropolitan political elite emerging from the association between feminism, socialism and the labour and trade union movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the operation of heteronormativity in online and face-to-face dialogues about sexualities and schooling, and seeks to tease out the means through which this operation is enacted. The data arise from two linked research projects focusing on participants' perceptions and concerns about addressing issues related to sexual orientation in school contexts. Analysis of data from both sources showed that participants' narratives were embedded (often without the participants' recognition) in the heteronormative, through the inscription and reinscription of specific identity categories that fixed heterosexuality as the normative centre. Revisiting these data as a whole, we draw upon Youdell's notion of 'wounds and reinscrptions' and Bakhtin's notion of carnivalistic inversion to explore the virtual impossibility of imagining the homonormative. From this exercise we derive important lessons for ourselves as educators and researchers about how offering new imaginaries might enhance the possibilities for social justice and social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines arguments about the teaching of history in Cyprus, especially as they relate to the cultivation of patriotism. I point out how the narratives of 'sacred history' and 'dangerous memories' are discursive elements of a pedagogy that aims at maintaining patriotism by preventing subjective and divisive personal memories from eroding a cohesive national narrative. Along with other linguistic strategies ('passions of the past'), these discourses allow an idealization of history and a rejection of subjective, personal memory. I argue that this contributes to viewing history as a distant entity and not as a field of action, something that ultimately works against the purported goal of sustaining patriotism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we draw on concepts from policy sociology to analyse the new equity deal for schools in Queensland, Australia. We examine this 'new deal' through an analysis of the language of 'inclusion' and 'educational risk' in key policy documents associated with a major reform of public education in Queensland. In addition, we analyse the interview talk of key policy actors involved in policy framing, carriage and monitoring. We note that globalism has increased rather than reduced social inequity. At the same time, good quality accessible education can play a crucial role in challenging the inequalities produced by global informationalism. In Queensland, Australia, equity is still on the agenda, but in radically new neo-liberal economic ways. The focus is individualistic - each individual needs to be tracked because they are potentially 'at-risk' of 'school failure'. Identification of 'at-risk' students has been devolved to the level of the school and district, and intervention strategies have to be devised at the local level. Stories of success are then to be shared/networked with other schools. We suggest that while 'target group equity' strategies were limited in terms of addressing issues of social exclusion and inequity, the new deal on equity, a market-individualistic approach is an inadequate alternative. In tough times you stick together. ... This was Labor's 'inclusive' society: a social democracy sustained by the wealth-generating power of free markets and economic integration with the world economy, and made strong by a practical ethic of social cooperation and fair distribution. (Watson, 2002, p. 316) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines issues of selection, merging an analysis of policy with data from a qualitative case study. It focuses on the 'modernisation of the comprehensive principle' proposed by New Labour, in which selection within schools (through setting 'by ability') is increasingly encouraged. Data collected at an inner-city, multi-ethnic comprehensive school are used to illustrate how discourses on selection are being reworked locally. The school was largely supportive of setting, despite some teachers acknowledging that the practice prioritised high-achieving pupils with perceived 'good attitudes'. In the form under study, setting involved disadvantaged pupils from ethnic-minority backgrounds, particularly those who received support in English as an Additional Language. It is concluded that setting did not contribute to an inclusive agenda for education, in spite of government claims of increased 'standards for all'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most previous research on parental involvement in children's homework has focused on the pedagogical advantages or disadvantages of school assignments while neglecting the practice in its social context, family life. By studying parent-child homework negotiations in Swedish families, this paper examines how family members position themselves and each other in relation to Swedish discourses on homework and parental involvement. The study shows that parents want their children to do homework independently. It is hard for the parents to take up another subject position than that of a 'responsible parent' who helps the child with homework or controls that it is done. Thereby, the child is simultaneously positioned as 'irresponsible' whether that is the case or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transformational leadership is widely recognised as being central to the implementation of educational reform. In this paper I draw on selected educational speeches made by New Labour politicians in order to locate shifting discourses of leadership within the broader accountability framework through which the terms of the relationship between central government and head teachers have been re/configured in the United Kingdom. The gendered politics of transformation are examined, highlighting new and renewed forms of masculinity embedded within new leadership ideals. It is suggested that a gendered critique of transformational leadership offers an important contribution to critical analyses of the neo-liberal and managerialist educational project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the ways in which inner-city, ethnically diverse, working-class girls' constructions of hetero-femininities mediate and shape their dis/engagement with education and schooling. Drawing on data from a study conducted with 89 urban, working-class young people in London, attention is drawn to three main ways through which young women used heterosexual femininities to construct capital and generate identity value and worth; namely, investment in appearance through 'glamorous' hetero-femininities, heterosexual relationships with boyfriends, and the 'ladettte' discourse. We discuss how and why young women's investments in particular forms of heterosexual working-class femininity can play into their disengagement from education and schooling, drawing particular attention to the paradoxes that arise when these constructions play into other oppressive power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a longitudinal insight into the experiences of 'Adam', a young boy who lives with his single-parent father (a farmer and builder) in a rural working-class community on the outskirts of a provincial town in Tasmania, Australia. Adam's story juxtaposes my representations of him as an eight year old in 1999 and as a 12 year old in 2003. Such longitudinal analysis highlights how increasing mismatches between Adam's home and school life, and mismatches between hegemonic masculinity and formal schooling, interact to amplify issues of school disengagement and alienation. Adam's external expressions of masculinity, and in particular his concerted efforts to subvert and sabotage official school cultures and practices, are explored as issues of power, masculinity, class and rurality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in participation and achievement patterns mark a turning point for girls in schooling and place female empowerment squarely in the public domain. Using data from a longitudinal study of girls, this paper looks at female empowerment by exploring the relationship between the production of female subjectivity and the processes operating in social spaces. Findings relating to aspirations for girls’ future careers are placed within a context of decile school ratings, and from those findings insights are offered about how the rhetoric of ‘girl power’ is lived and spoken into existence in relation to categories of social class. By examining how schooling, family and classed processes weave through hopes and dreams, the intent is to contribute towards a line of discussion about the shaping of female subjectivities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can an explanation of the origins of social disparities in educational achievement be assisted by a critical examination of Bernstein’s sociology? This central question is approached by a consideration of the status of Bernstein’s socio‐linguistic thesis. The focus is on the nature of the explanations provided. The paper asks: What is the explanatory force of Bernstein’s structuralism? What is the relationship between Bernstein’s sociological explanations and Vygotskian psychological explanations? What are the effects for pedagogy of cognitive socialization mediated by language‐use consistent with Bernstein’s theory? The answers to these questions may pose a challenge for sociologists of education engaged with Bernstein’s sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Australian state of Victoria, students from elite independent and Catholic schools dominate entry into elite universities. Nonetheless, there are a small number of schools within the government sector whose students succeed in these terms. Such schools are considered highly academic and entry is very difficult. This paper is based on initial findings from an ethnographic study of one such school. Interview material is used to explore how students understand their school culture, their place within it and its role in facilitating their aspirations. Various student subcultures are introduced, to shed light on how these may facilitate success. It is argued that successful students understand but remain sceptical about the uncomplicated definitions of success and the narrowing forms of schooling that both create and respond to such definitions. Within the context of marketisation, a Government school that creates an academic niche for itself, has little flexibility and, because of this, students learn valuable lessons about strategic choices, including those related to which subcultures facilitate or hinder their aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judith Butler is perhaps best known for her take‐up of the debate between Derrida and Austin over the function of the performative and her subsequent suggestion that the subject be understood as performatively constituted. Another important but less often noted move within Butler’s consideration of the processes through which the subject is constituted is her thinking between Althusser’s notion of subjection and Foucault’s notion of subjectivation. In this paper, I explore Butler’s understanding of processes of subjectivation, examine the relationship between subjectivation and the performative suggested in and by Butler’s work, and consider how the performative is implicated in processes of subjectivation—in ‘who’ the subject is, or might be, subjectivated as. Finally, I examine the usefulness of understanding the subjectivating effects of discourse for education, in particular for educationalists concerned to make better sense of and interrupt educational inequalities. In doing this I offer a reading of an episode of ethnographic data generated in an Australian high school. I suggest that it is through subjectivating processes of the sort that Butler helps us to understand that some students are rendered subjects inside the educational endeavour, and others are rendered outside this endeavour or, indeed, outside student‐hood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the way social partnerships tend to be represented as either horizontal localised networks or neo-liberal policy instruments. Building on two empirical studies of partnerships, we argue that partnerships cannot be understood in either/or ways but are negotiated at the interface between central agencies and local networks. They are mediated by networks operating through the partnership and through government and community, and by the different organisational logics of agencies. These complexities challenge our ways of analysing and representing partnerships, and justify further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the educational experiences of a group of African Caribbean and mixed ‘race’ young people from the perspectives of their parents. The discussion is set within a national context where children of African Caribbean origin are one of the lowest achieving minority ethnic groups in the UK and are disproportionately one of the highest ethnic groups of children excluded from school. The parents recount a pattern of cumulative negative experiences which for many of the children results in academic underachievement and becoming demotivated to learn, by a system that they feel has rejected them, or imposed exclusion. The story is hardly new but it provides important further evidence that schools need to tackle head-on factors such as low teacher expectations and negative stereotyping of young black people and their contribution to black underachievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the social meaning of subject choice in the post-16 context through a case study of Media Studies in a selective school. Students' accounts are discussed in terms of both their enjoyment of the subject and their negotiation of its ‘legitimacy’. The analysis of their comments in interviews stresses the subject's precarious position in a school where a relatively traditional hierarchy of subjects still prevails. It also considers the strength of family ‘projects’ in framing children's educational ‘choices’. Media Studies is discussed as a negotiable option primarily facilitating projections into a new middle-class sense of self-hood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite rapid growth in UK postgraduate education and a current focus on issues of access to higher education, consideration of possible social class differentials at the postgraduate level is missing from the sociological literature. Using Higher Education Statistics Agency data, this paper presents a preliminary investigation of the relationship between social class and progression to postgraduate study in England and considers the interplay with other salient variables, including subject of study, institutional type and first–degree achievement. Evidence of a social class differential in progression to higher degrees is used to test various sociological theories, particularly those proposed by Bourdieu. There is support for the concept of ‘institutional habitus’ developed in recent UK studies. It is concluded that there is scope for further in–depth empirical research into social class and postgraduate study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed leadership has come to prominence in school management discourse as a means to achieve the participation and empowerment of teachers and to create democratic schools. In this paper I explore the contradictions between these claims and both the hierarchical power structure of schools and the use of distributed leadership to secure the commitment of teachers to government education agendas. I examine how the relationship between distributed leadership and managerial power is addressed in the discourse of education management theorists and the practice of headteachers. Examples of authentically democratic schools based on collective self-management provide the basis for questioning the hegemonic hierarchical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1990s, a decade of democratic advances and consumption euphoria in South Korea, heralded a new wind called 'neoliberal education'. It is within this historical juncture that I conducted an ethnographic research on low-income youths who had dropped out of mainstream high schools. While I investigated these youths' educational and career aspirations, I examined how discourses in neoliberal freedom and free marketization shape (and are shaping) these youths' self-fashioning. Central to my analysis is how this process of identity construction is intersected with class marginality. A predominate number of youths in my research express their preference in service sector and/or entertainment industries. The paper addresses how neoliberal discourses and consumerism ;rhetoric are negotiated and transformed in youth's narratives on aspirations. The analysis speaks to the ideological pitfall of neoliberalism, echoing critical scholars' thesis that neoliberalistic education with free market principles perpetuated and broadened existing inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I address the question: How is it that people come to choose mathematics and in what ways is this process gendered? I draw on the findings of a qualitative research study involving interviews with 43 young people all studying mathematics in post-compulsory education in England. Working within a post-structuralist framework, I argue that gender is a project and one that is achieved in interaction with others. Through a detailed reading of Toni and Claudia's stories I explore the tensions for young women who are engaging in mathematics, something that is discursively inscribed as masculine, while (understandably) being invested in producing themselves as female. I conclude by arguing that seeing 'doing mathematics' as 'doing masculinity' is a productive way of understanding why mathematics is so male dominated and by looking at the implications of this understanding for gender and mathematics reform work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the life history narratives of a group of 12 black and white male and female undergraduate students at a historically white Afrikaans medium university, now undergoing its own transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. Conceptualizations of identity and discourse across four elements of context, setting, situated activity and self are employed to examine their accounts. Three framing discourses, comprising the official storyline of a rainbow nation and new higher education policies, the formal storyline of institutional change, and the informal space of relationships and interactions are used to analyse student narratives in terms of how they produce, reproduce and transform race and identity. What emerges is a complicated picture in which identities cannot be simply read off either from the official discourse or from colour and culture as the levels of discourse articulate and collide with a history of racial separateness and context and setting, with particular identity effects. What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and in this period? And what varieties are coming to prevail? In what ways are they selected and formed, liberated and repressed, made sensitive and blunted? ( Mills, 1959 , p. 7) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Ulrich Beck, particularly his concept of the 'individualised individual', is increasingly cited by educational social scientists. As yet, there have been few empirical investigations that consider how applicable and relevant is the notion of the 'individualised individual' in understanding how people make sense of their lives (for an exception, see Reay, 2003 ). This paper considers Beck's assertion that social class is of increasingly less importance as society shifts from a first to a second modernity. Interviews were carried out into the career experiences of a group of academic women working in higher education institutions. The conclusions reached suggest that if Beck's theory is to be useful in understanding contemporary actors in contemporary societies then the critical concepts he introduces need to be articulated by researchers in more complex ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a qualitative study about pedagogic practices in the family. The pedagogic code underlying family practices is characterized and related to specific social groups. Students' achievement is discussed in relation to family and school pedagogic practices. The analysis of family pedagogic practice was based on a model derived from Bernstein's theory. The model considers two main dimensions, the coding orientation and its specific realizations in both the instructional and regulative contexts. It provided indicators of the family discursive context and the form in which knowledges and values are transmitted. The model developed allowed a deep and delicate analysis of the family socializing context. The study showed that families differ in their coding orientation and pedagogic practices, and suggested that there are factors other than social groups to determine family's pedagogic practice. It also suggested that specific familial practices may explain children's differential achievement at school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the more relevant questions in educational research is how the governments and policy-makers in transition countries address the high educational inequality inherited from the past and what policies they develop in order to reduce the strong effects of the background family and the type of school on students' achievements, their aspirations and their chances of succeeding in the most important educational transitions. This paper addresses one of the most topical issues in this area, namely the social selectivity of Czech basic and secondary education. Special attention is paid to the role of 'multi-year' gymnasia. The results of analyses carried out on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment 2000 study corroborate the initial hypothesis according to which multi-year gymnasia, introduced into the Czech educational system after 1989, represent one of the main sources of the variation in students' achievements at the end of compulsory education. However, this variation can be almost entirely accounted for by the specific socio-economic background of the students. The same holds true for their future aspirations. The results of the analysis support the conclusions of the OECD Review of National Policies for Education from 1996. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes as its focus the concept of 'field', which has received relatively less attention than Bourdieu's other concepts such as 'cultural capital' and 'habitus' in the sociology of education. The development of the concept is outlined to present Bourdieu's understanding of higher education as a field consisting of cognitive and structural mechanisms that mediate sociopolitical and economic forces while simultaneously reproducing fundamental principles of social stratification. As an illustration of its widespread application, Bourdieu's framework is applied to develop an analytical understanding of institutional strategies developed by South African universities during a period of political instability. Drawing insights from the South African case study and Bourdieu's empirical research, the article concludes that Bourdieu's theory may be seen to have transcended more simplistic conceptions of universities as closed systems detached from the sociopolitical complex or as mere reflections of external power relations. However, the strict relational nature of Bourdieu's framework and his concept of the 'arbitrary' have placed limits on the extent to which his theory can offer a more in-depth account of the relationship between higher education and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In post-industrial societies saturated with the multimodal texts of consumer culture--film, computer games, interactive toys, SMS, email, the internet, television, DVDs--young people are developing literacy skills and knowledge in and for a world significantly changed from that of their parents and educators. Given this context, this paper seeks to demonstrate the necessity of rethinking and extending traditional notions of text and literacy, and consider the social and cultural implications of such a shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that growing inequalities make it imperative that schools reinvent themselves around the issue of social justice. Through a case study of an Australian primary school, teacher-based forms of social capital are explored revealing progressive pedagogies to be an important precursor to the 'socially just school'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most pervasive educational issues confronting Australia, and other countries, at the moment is the declining completion rates in high schools. While a period of success was experienced after the Second World War, there is now a pressing need to reform high schools in the ways they connect with young lives. In this paper, we present a 'sociology of the high school' as a way of encapsulating the high school as an institution that: is still largely stuck in a 'continuity of practice' (Elmore, 1987); has an 'attachment to familiar pedagogical routines' (Eisner, 1992); fails to listen to students; is hierarchically structured; treats students in immature ways; is hung up with passing on content; and seems more concerned with insulating itself from, rather connecting with or appropriating, young lives into the curriculum. As an alternative, we examine the notion of middle schooling that requires a version of whole school reform that engages with structures, cultures and changing pedagogy in ways more resonant with, and respectful of, young lives. We examine the tensions and dilemmas experienced at Investigator [1] High School in Australia, and conclude that the centerpiece has to be breaking the mold of the 'scripted' teacher and its replacement by the 'teacher-as-improviser'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Pierre Bourdieu's multi-faceted understanding of the higher education process by considering the evolution of this domain since the end of the 1970s both in France and England. Following a brief review of Bourdieu's main interpretations of higher education, several theoretical shifts in his thought and practice over time are identified that have sought to accommodate the rapid changes that have occurred in the higher education sector in recent years. This theoretical repositioning is used to reflect on ideas of homological reasoning advanced by Bourdieu and others, and their limitations in the cross-national comparative exercise. Using the findings of her own comparative study of the evolution of the French and English higher education sectors, the author tests some of the conceptual tools developed by Bourdieu mainly during the 1960s and 1970s, and discusses claims for their universal validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concepts of learner identities and learning careers have recently acquired popularity as ways of analysing participation in learning among young adults. They paper presents a conceptual challenge to unilinear approaches to the concept of learning careers. It draws on empirical data ,gathered during a study of new entrants to Scottish further education colleges, and illustrates the analysis through two biographical studies. It argues that learner identities can be fragile, contingent and vulnerable to external changes, and indeed can incorporate elements of hostility to education, as well as a degree of denial of responsibility even on the part enthusiastic learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Basil Bernstein's insights into education and social class, and in particular the relevance of his work for understanding the British middle class. Bernstein is one of the few sociologists of education to recognise and explore differences and tensions within the middle class. We begin by exploring some of the influences of Bernstein's theorisation of social class in general, and outline his main ideas on the relationship between the middle class and education in particular. We then examine the relevance of his work for research on education and middle-class differentiation through drawing on data from our 'Destined for Success' project. This project traced the educational biographies of 300 young men and women from the beginning of their promising educational secondary school career to their mid-twenties. We argue that the distinctive dispositions and orientations of the 'new' and 'old' middle class proposed by Bernstein are evident within parental preferences for types of school, processes of student engagement and, ultimately, differentiated middle-class identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to offer further empirical evidence in support of Bernstein's concept of code from the social semiotic perspective of systemic functional linguistics. When the concept of code was first introduced in the 1960s, it was severely criticised by many famous socio-linguists. It will be argued that these socio-linguists failed to understand the significance of language as a meaning potential, and so they also failed to appreciate the inherent relation between meaning and mental development (Halliday, 1975; Vygotsky, 1978). The concept of code is important in any viable theory of mental development which does not hide behind a mythical homogeneity. Human beings develop different forms of consciousness, and code theory offers a detailed and coherent account of both the social origin and the nature of this variation. In fact, the panoramic scope of Bernstein's sociological theory clarifies the relations of social positioning, coding orientation, communication, and consciousness to learning in official pedagogic sites. In presenting some of the results of my investigation in variant forms of communication between mothers and their young children, I will show that: (a) the variation is systematic, (b) the nature of the variation needs Bernstein's code theory for its interpretation, and (c) the fact of variation can only be accounted for by its relation to social positioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper, we argue that neo-liberal governance regimes are deeply contradictory and that these contradictions are increasingly evident within the education sector. Drawing on a case study of the consequences of restructuring in education in New Zealand, arguably a paradigm case of neo-liberal governance, we suggest the state is faced with a dilemma about how best to manage these tensions and contradictions within the framework of the political rationality itself. One strategy is to isolate and localise these problems in order to contain and manage the risks associated with them. We identify five variants we argue can broadly be viewed as local states of emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the methods of personal reflection and auto/biography to consider the ways in which global social and political transformations have influenced a key generation of feminist sociologists entering the academy and attempting to introduce feminist knowledge and pedagogy into academic curricula. Three critical events on or around 22 November are used to highlight key political moments, the associated development of changing themes in forms of analysis of social transformations, and the part played by feminism and sociology within higher education. They are the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963, the Israeli–Arab war in 1973 and the resignation of Margaret Thatcher in 1990. The argument is that there has been a clear relation between changing social and political contexts and methodological understandings, which have drawn on developing feminist perspectives and reflexive sociological analysis, especially as embraced within the sociology of education. In particular, the shift from a political and professional perspective on social change and family life towards one that engages with personal issues is noteworthy. It is one of the hallmarks of both feminist notions associated with reflexivity and developing sociological methodologies and policy sociology. Thus, the personal and the political are now central methodological forms of feminist and sociological analysis within education and, especially, the sociology of education, influencing pedagogy within higher education, especially associated with developments in professional postgraduate education. I weave my personal reflections on my professional developments through an analysis of the key moments related to specific policy regimes and changing forms of understandings within the fields of policy sociology and sociology of education. I conclude with current concerns about the balances between the personal and professional within educational research and policy sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the views of working-class parents on home–school links. Group interviews with parents of pupils in a primary school in the disadvantaged areas scheme in the Republic of Ireland suggest that parental involvement in school is limited to the giving and receiving of information, restricted consultation, and engagement in some supplemental responsibilities. Although parents were interested, informed and concerned regarding their children's education, they felt excluded from participation in decision-making about school management and organisation, about matters that affected them personally and financially, and about their children's progress. We suggest that heterogeneity in working-class voice merits further research; that the gendered nature of parent–school links needs further refinement to take account of being a primary carer; and that hearing working-class parents' voices can increase understanding of how parent groupings occupy spaces that are relatively peripheral or proximal to the school site and to their children's experiences of schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How we obtain more complex understandings of the phenomenon of 'dropping out' of school is one of the most urgent policy and practice issues facing educational practitioners, policy-makers and sociological researchers at the moment, as increasingly numbers of young people fail to complete their secondary schooling. In this paper, we argue that a different 'sociological imagination' is required - one that is simultaneously more attentive to the lifeworlds of young people, that is more reflexive of its own agenda, and that is mindful of the wider politics within which 'dropping out' is being experienced. A heuristic around 'voiced research' is discussed in the context of an Australian study that explored the circumstances of 209 young people who left school prematurely. It is argued that such an approach enabled the phenomenon to be 'named' in a different way, which was more inclusive of the lives, experiences, aspirations and complexities of what was occurring at the point these young people decided to exit school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]