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This paper examines how the Durkheimian approach to the 'ideal' delineates a possible way of straddling the dilemma between the normative orientation of 'powerful knowledge' accounts and the critical orientation of 'knowledge of the powerful' accounts. It argues that the normative aims are embedded in the fabrics of the sociological description with which the Durkheimian notion of 'elementary form' is concerned. To see where this enterprise can lead, this paper turns to the sociology of education of Bourdieu and Bernstein. Both draw on Durkheim's writings on primitive classifications in education and society, working towards uncovering the regularities of the world of knowledge classifications. Keeping in line with Bourdieu and Bernstein, this paper argues that one has to make the same refusal to the advocates of an abstract ideal of educational knowledge that is dissociated from its social conditions of historical realization in pedagogic contexts, and to the advocates of a cynical relativism of ideal that rejects any necessities socially established.

Growing literatures highlight global shifts in education brought by spreading neoliberal values and marketisation. Parallel literatures address parenting styles. Parents, these literatures observe, are increasingly made responsible and/or voluntarily take responsibility for educational inputs alongside mainstream schooling. Much parental investment is in the so-called shadow education sector of private supplementary tutoring. Examining Chinese patterns, this paper notes longstanding high enrolment rates in both academic and non-academic supplementary education prior to government restrictions that brought a sharp marketplace jolt. The paper then employs parental interview data to show the rationales for such investment despite efforts by the Chinese authorities to retain schooling as a fully-sufficient form of education. The strengthened government policy altered the picture, but it seems likely that in the competitive society many parents will still secure supplementary support to manage what they feel to be a precarious environment.

This paper presents a case study of a Spanish university that sheds light on the precarious nature of many academic posts. It looks at how women academics build their careers in the current neoliberal university, which measures scholarly output through the indexing metric. Application of this yardstick renders many academic careers all the more precarious because it fails to take into account women's care commitments. Because the issue is 'hidden', it is one that is hard to remedy. Based on a quantitative and qualitative methodology, the study's empirical data revealed that the neoliberal university discriminates against women by overlooking the care burden they bear. We conclude that needs to base itself on non-androcentric principles in which care is a key component. This would avoid academia penalizing those people who either require or provide care -- especially women.

Unlike most papers on education and ecology, this one is not concerned with the content of education but its organisation as a system and hence its "purpose" or "finality". The central contention of the paper, which takes English education and training (or "learning") as a case in point, is that in a new market-state formation the pursuit of short-term goals is tied to the global free-market economy over which any attempt at democratic control has been relinquished. At a time when humanity worldwide faces increasing change in the ecology that sustains it, this is considered to be "ecocidally insane" and the opposite of any sort of learning from experience to alter behaviour in the future. The re-regulated new global market is seen in conclusion as a crisis response to the end of the previous Keynesian welfare nation-state formation. As such, it is argued to be unsustainable in any sense.

This paper is intended as a contribution to the longstanding debate about the best way of handling value judgements in social research. In it we make a case for more "ethical reflexivity" in the sociology of education and argue that a systematic attention to value questions should be viewed as a taken-for-granted component of methodological rigour. We elucidate what we mean by ethical reflexivity, why we think it is important and suggest what it entails in practice. Our arguments are developed through a discussion of, and in contrast to, Martyn Hammersley's analysis of the role of values in social research. The central problematic that the paper addresses is the tension between, on the one hand, the goal of insulating the research process from "value bias" and, on the other hand, the goal of contributing to political and social change through research. We suggest that the reason for the intractability of the problem of values in social research is a persistent failure to recognise that, in practice, these two goals are inseparable. We argue that rigour in research demands that both these goals are taken seriously and we set out some of the challenges involved in trying to combine them. (Contains 12 notes.)

This paper discusses Romani mentors' mixed experiences, views and coping practices in an intra-ethnic 'natural mentoring' project targeting young Romani (more commonly known as 'Gypsy') students in Spain. The intervention transforms already existing intra-ethnic bonds into mentorships in local Spanish Romani communities. To meet the aims of this research, observations were conducted at mentors' follow-up meetings and other project activities, and individual semi-structured interviews were held with three female and three male mentors. The mentors' mixed views and experiences are analysed in four dimensions: competence, commitment, project operation and sociocultural change. From a critical stance, the results suggest that mentoring remains highly apolitical, having as its primary object 'people to be developed' and not the structure that is to do the developing. In this endeavour, mentoring is instrumentalized to create self-regulated 'active' citizens desiring to be acted upon through 'technologies of the self'.

This paper draws on qualitative data exploring the experiences of first-generation middle-class Black Caribbean-heritage parents, their own parents, and their children. We focus on the different ways in which race and class intersect in shaping attitudes towards education and subsequent educational practices. We argue that the nature of racism has changed, but it still remains, mainly in more subtle, insidious forms. We conclude that race cannot be simply "added on" to class. Race changes how class works, how it is experienced, and the subjectivities available to individuals. The paper illustrates how the two intersect, in complex ways, in different historical "moments".

This paper provides a critical appraisal of approaches to reflexivity in sociology. It uses data from social network research to argue that Archer's approach to reflexivity provides a valuable lens with which to understand how people navigate their education and career pathways. The paper is also critical of Archer's methodology and typology of reflexivity as "types"; it is argued that social network research suggests people reveal different approaches to reflexivity in different situations. It concurs with Archer that the concept reflexivity is central to our understanding of the relationships between agency, structure and social change.

This paper examines similarities and differences between structuration theory, habitus and complexity theory, as theories of social change. The paper suggests that structuration theory and habitus can theorize change, but that complexity theory offers a more complete theory of change because it focuses on social production rather than reproduction. Although there are elective affinities between structuration theory, habitus and complexity theory, nevertheless there are important differences between them. Complexity theory, being at heart a theory of change and development, differentiation and open systems, is more than merely a reformulation of structuration theory and habitus, and offers a more complete theory of social change than these two. Implications and agendas are drawn for the sociology of education from a complexity perspective.

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)

This paper is concerned with the spatial experiences of Emirati higher education women students. It presents some of the unique ways they engaged with and appropriated their campus space. To understand and explore women's spatial experiences as manifested through their spatial practices, appropriation and emerging spaces, I conducted an ethnographic qualitative inquiry with multiple levels of data gathering and analysis. I utilized social theories of space specifically the social construction of space and Lefebvre's triad as a theoretical framework for this study. The emerging spatial practices of 'togetherness' and 'sitting on the floor' were highly informed by aspects of women students' identity and socio-cultural formation, with an evident link to their traditional past that intersects with their specific nation's modern demands and challenges. Although Emirati women learners' spatiality might resonate with that of other women learners, their spatial practices are context and culture specific.

In 2014, Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-first Century" rocked the economic and political world, with its argument that inequality is destined to increase; in the field of education, however, this book has been almost entirely ignored. I argue that Piketty's treatise is relevant to educational theories for three reasons: his rejection of meritocracy contributes to theories of social mobility; his critique of human capital theory provides fodder for debates about educational purpose; and his interdisciplinary analysis supports the political economy tradition in education. However, I also argue that it is necessary to move beyond the economic determinism in Piketty's arguments, to explore the transformative potential of education as a consciousness-raising process, the agency of communities, the production process, and alternative solutions to inequality. I argue that education scholars should use the renewed interest in inequality generated by Piketty's book to shift the dominant discourses about education, schools, and social justice.

The main objective of this paper is to show to what extent and why students with the same academic aptitude but different social backgrounds have different odds of entering university. For our analysis, we separated primary and secondary factors of social origin in the formation of educational inequalities. The results show that the primary and secondary factors have approximately the same influence on the transition to university. Czech schools do not affect the process of forming educational aspirations and transition to university, and merely "classify" children according to their social origin. This situation emerged during the socialist era and has remained unchanged after the fall of communism (in 1989). However, the mechanism of the social origin effect has changed--while cultural capital with a "direct" impact had a major role to play during the socialist era, at present there is a rather "indirect" influence through economic capital.

This is an attempt to review what I am now. To give some coherence to an incoherent academic life, written against the background of profound changes is what it means to be an academic. The paper begins in a welfare state primary school and ends in a global neoliberal university.

This paper examines the changing relationship between origins, education and destinations in mobility processes. The meritocracy thesis suggests the relationships between origins and education and between origins and destination will weaken while the relationship between education and destinations will strengthen. Comparing data from the 1991 British Household Panel Survey and the 2005 General Household Survey, we test these associations for men and women. We find that the relationship between origins and education and origins and destinations has weakened for both sexes. While these findings are supportive of the meritocracy thesis, they are not, however, evidence of a secular trend towards merit-based selection. Contrary to the thesis, we also find the association between education and destinations has weakened for men and women. The relationship between education and destinations is more complicated than is often assumed and the role of meritocratic and non-meritocratic factors in occupational success needs to be better understood.

In western nations, the social and economic changes of the past 30 years have facilitated a reorientation of the focus of educational institutions. Global capitalism has placed education at the forefront of national competitiveness, and governments have responded with education policies primarily designed to serve the needs of the market. Such neo-liberal economic imperatives have been supported by a variety of neoconservative social forces calling for schools to become sites of cultural and moral restoration. This paper draws upon current theoretical debates about the consequences of such changes and employs ethnographic data from a small qualitative study of Australian youth to argue the case for a more democratic and student-centered approach to educational reform. It contends that in the interests of all young people, it is time for schools to resist systemic impulses to make them producers of "human capital" and claim their role as transformative institutions of "human possibility". (Contains 14 notes.)

This paper presents research findings from an ethnographic study carried out with 24 low-income youths (ages 14-16) living on the economic fringes of urban inner-city Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Our primary aims are: to expose the stratified subcultural articulations of citizenship as they are expressed, through language and symbol, by the young people within our study; and to demonstrate how critiques of (neo-)liberalism in political thought, when combined with a cultural sociology of youth, might alter our subcultural reading of young people's conceptions of citizenship under the dynamics of radical social change. Our ultimate goal is to develop a more nuanced sociological examination of the ways in which young people deploy and utilize the language of citizenship as part of their own cultural struggles, exacerbated in times of state retrenchment, to classify themselves and others as one method of achieving visibility and legitimacy in urban concentrations of poverty. (Contains 3 figures and 10 notes.)

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. (Contains 6 notes.)

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. (Contains 1 note.)

This paper examines how the Durkheimian approach to the 'ideal' delineates a possible way of straddling the dilemma between the normative orientation of 'powerful knowledge' accounts and the critical orientation of 'knowledge of the powerful' accounts. It argues that the normative aims are embedded in the fabrics of the sociological description with which the Durkheimian notion of 'elementary form' is concerned. To see where this enterprise can lead, this paper turns to the sociology of education of Bourdieu and Bernstein. Both draw on Durkheim's writings on primitive classifications in education and society, working towards uncovering the regularities of the world of knowledge classifications. Keeping in line with Bourdieu and Bernstein, this paper argues that one has to make the same refusal to the advocates of an abstract ideal of educational knowledge that is dissociated from its social conditions of historical realization in pedagogic contexts, and to the advocates of a cynical relativism of ideal that rejects any necessities socially established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interrogates the prevailing concept of the state as a regulative idea. Introduces Michel Foucault's notion of "governmentality" and investigates how it has historically been linked to education and to the Scandinavian "Caring State." Explores changing tasks of education and the nature of social contracts that could correspond to the new social conditions. (CMK)

Argues that professionals were once considered to be civic leaders; however, social changes have created a very different relationship between professionals and the public. Reviews changes in professionalism and outlines a new teacher professionalism based on the enabling of learning, the accommodation of difference, and the practice of agreement. (DSK)

This paper intends to develop a sociological thinking of child and youth resilience through recourse to Bourdieu. The paper starts by problematising the misconceptualisation that equates resilience with adaptation. It then marks a clear conceptual boundary between the two notions. This is followed by a review of conceptualisations of resilience across different historical times and theoretical schools, discussing the paradigmatic shifts from the individualistic to the ecological framework. To enable an intellectual and innovative engagement with contemporary developments in resilience research, the paper comes to grips with a sociological reconceptualisation of resilience through Bourdieu's field analysis. The crux here is to grapple with resilience to symbolic violence for emancipation from structural constraints – a thinking largely absent in current resilience work; and to complement the bulk of Bourdieusian research on reproduction by exploring a change-oriented resilience thinking through the work of the famed sociologist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argues that curriculum changes which include content and pedagogical change contain within themselves new forms of social control. Reduction of teacher skill is also an outcome. The argument is based on research in a school employing such a curriculum. (Author/KC)

Three authors review the book by Harold Entwistle about the theoretician of Marxist social theory, Antonio Gramsci. Conclusions are that the book does not accurately reflect Gramsci's view on education. (KC)

Refutes claims of Arnot and Whitty (v3, n1, 1982) that recent Marxist analyses of schooling are theoretically open and use empirical evidence to test social theory. Hargreaves argues that because contemporary Marxist sociology of education is based on a commitment to social change, it is theoretically closed and lacks empirical rigor. (AM)

This paper is concerned with questions of identity, citizennship and social change as these are experienced by young people in the UK today. In the course of recent changes to the context and content of youth transitions the notion of citizenship has come to the fore as a means of discussing young people's move into independent membership of society. Debates about citizenship in the UK currently encompass a range of complex themes -- competency, responsibility and active (community) participation -- which go beyond an understanding of citizenship as a simply technical or legal term. In this paper we adopt a broad conceptualization of citizenship in order to explore the identity work that young people engage in as they negotiate their way through to social majority. In particular, we consider how young people's need for space, and their emergent sense of place, are aspects of a citizenship identity which young people 'learn', work at and negotiate over in their leisure time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explore processes involved in cultural and social reproduction with specific reference to commercial studies in a Queensland Secondary School Reproduction theories are discussed and a framework for analyzing school experience is developed. It is argued that this broad approach to the study of school experience encompasses the formal and informal, the overt and covert, and social relations as well as content aspects of the curriculum Empirical data on the structuring of school experience in commercial studied are presented under the categories organization, content, methodology and general values. The final section of the paper considers the relationship between school experience and the occupational structure with respect to commercial studies. These subjects can be seen to reproduce the patriarchal and hierarchical relationships of office work however, a number of recent changes in the structure of the workforce and the nature of office work, have resulted in a number of 'contradictions' in the school/work relationship. The implications of the study in relation to educational and social change are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the adoption of postmodern theoretical perspectives within educational research has prompted strong critical reaction. For some critics (particularly Marxist researchers), the greatest fault of postmodernism is that it lacks an agenda for social change. This paper takes issue with this argument, and with four associated arguments: (1) that postmodernism disempowers those to whom it claims to give voice; (2) that it appeals only to intellectuals and has no practical value; (3) that it denies the possibility of the construction of a new social order; and (4) that it colludes with the status quo in its refusal to act. Addressing each of these points in turn, the author suggests that, contrary to the view of these critics, postmodernism offers a powerful force for social change, through the acceptance of uncertainty, the acknowledgement of diversity and the refusal to see concepts such as 'justice' or 'society' as fixed, or as governed by unassailable 'truths'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on 1001 home-based interviews with UK adults. It describes their varying patterns of participation in lifelong learning and their use of technology for learning and leisure. It finds that 37% of all adults report no further education of any kind after reaching compulsory school leaving age. This proportion declines with each age cohort, but is largely replaced by a pattern of lengthening initial education and still reporting no later education. These patterns of participation are predictable to a large extent from regression analysis using a life-order model of determining variables--all of which are set very early in life. This suggests that universal theories to describe participation, such as human capital theory, are incorrect in several respects. Where individuals create, for themselves and through their early experiences, a 'learner identity' inimicable to further study, then the prospect of learning can become a burden rather than an investment for them. This has implications for the now widespread and extensively funded notion of overcoming barriers to access via technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I begin by taking a brief glimpse at the current state of global capitalism. I then look at attempts in Britain and the US to argue the case, within educational theory, that postmodernism and poststructuralism can be forces for social change and social justice. Concentrating on some of the work of Elizabeth Atkinson, Patti Lather and Judith Baxter, I argue that such claims are illusory. I make the case that Marxism remains the only viable option in the pursuit of social change and social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current unprecedented levels of academic achievement among girls from all classes raise questions about the contemporary experience of girls in general and, in particular, working-class girls who, historically, perform less well. As the relatively low achievement of working-class girls has been associated with family culture and influence, this, in turn, raises questions about girls' experience in the contemporary family. This paper draws on findings from a recent research project and focuses on the contribution of working-class mothers to girls' achievement. Working-class families were defined as either traditional (retaining traditional gender relations) or transitional (challenging traditional gender relations). Factors which were identified as contributing to a 'transitional' life trajectory for a working-class mother might include: the impact of employment, adult education, the women's movement, and/or the experiences of divorce and lone parenting. The author concludes that while neither traditional nor transitional working-class mothers might become greatly involved in formal aspects of schooling, it is clear that their relationships with their daughters strongly influence their academic experience. Mother-daughter relationship seemed to favour girls' educational achievement in three main and interconnected ways: (a) by emphasising independence, (b) by providing emotional support, and (c) by influencing girls' values in the light of current social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers models of the core curriculum, which it argues an inadequate as their understanding of social difference is truncated. Although these models recognise difference this is located within a pluralist framework and is implicitly viewed as an impediment that hinders equal opportunities. The effect is to normalise the white, male middle class subject and to ignore social antagonism. Skill in the core curriculum becomes technicised, and a differentiated and segmented curriculum is left in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally Headmasters' Conference schools have been concerned with both the reproduction of class relations and gender relations and have served an elite group to males, However, these schools are at present undergoing dramatic changes and by 1981, over half of the HMC schools admitted girls as well as boys. The paper discusses the pressures and processes which led to the introduction of girls and uses interview data from a detailed case study as illustrative material. It is suggested that economic and social changes were important considerations and that the initial phases of the process can be understood in terms of the exploitation of a 'dual student market'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]