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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 reviews the scope of Basil Bernstein's sociology, indicating some of the research that his ideas have inspired, shaped or provoked. Although it takes a roughly chronological approach to the development of his ideas, the paper emphasizes how consistently he explored the making of societies and social classes, and the structuring of social interaction. The title of the paper reflects how successfully Bernstein met Wright Mills' criterion for a true sociological imagination—that it seeks to grasp the extent to which 'personal troubles' are 'public issues' arising from the changing forms of social inequalities as these are produced from generation to generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the close relationship between education and the middle class has long been recognised in the sociology of education, its various dimensions have rarely been examined in detail. Through investigating the educational histories and occupational destinations of 199 recruits into the middle class, this paper explores whether there is any clear connection between educational pathway and occupational location. In particular, it analyses the cohort’s various careers against suggested cleavages within the middle class (professional/managerial, symbolic/material, public/private). The data indicate that educational pathways influence occupational locations along a number of directions. Some schools, notably those that are private and academically selective, feed a greater proportion of students into high-status universities and out into high-status occupations. However, in terms of the level of occupation, the status of university seems more important than the school. Whether a school is public or private does not appear to have influenced the choice of a managerial or professional career path, but school sector may contribute to horizontal differentiation of middle classes in terms of whether they take up employment in the public or private sector. The data suggest that schools reflect and reinforce contrasting allegiances to private and public forms of educational provision that then influence sectors of employment and political preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an assessment of some movements in the theorising of inequality over the last two decades, with particular attention to the Australian context and to the issue of gender as compared with class. It is argued that there has been a useful move from 'inequality as disadvantage' to one which focuses on difference, conflict and the characteristics of the groups previously seen as disadvantaged, but that these moves have been limited, partly by an over-attention to inequality in analysing the content of schooling, and partly by an insufficient attention to inequality in relation to policy and practice initiatives. The discussion of specific examples and issues here suggests also that gender and class should not be treated as simply additive dimensions of a problem, and that analyses should be sensitive to the differing circumstances of countries which are often compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite his undisputed place among the founding fathers of sociology, the work of Max Weber has received less recognition in the sociology of education. The main purpose of this article is to consider Weber's sociology in relation to recent sociology of education, as of 1980. In doing so, various elements of his approach will be introduced, including social action, power, authority and bureaucracy, class, status and party, ideology, and the necessity for value-freedom, but without extensive discussions of their general importance. Another purpose of this article is not to propagate another variety of the sociology of education, but rather to indicate the extent to which the existing forms are compatible with Weberian perspectives, where some of their different elements may find some unity. The distinction between the sociology of education and educational sociology was an important one when the place of sociology in the study of education was originally discussed in Great Britain. It is ironic that the value-laden educational sociology, so much disapproved of then, has some effective currency now. More studies of education following the methods of Weber outlined in this article would help to assert the primacy of the sociology of education.

This article discusses the sociology of education. According to the author, most of the present generation of sociologists of education in Britain commenced their study of the discipline at a time when it was informed by a major consideration of the inequalities of social class. Sociologists and theologists share the gospel that the poor will always be with them, together with a reality of changing situations and definitions and with varying levels of interest and involvement. Some would argue that the cutting edge of the discipline has consequently been dulled, and that the more macro political dimensions of the analysis of education and society have been put aside in favour of smaller practical research questions. At the same time, interest in inequality in education can be seen to have both broadened and deepened. The analysis of social class relations in education has been challenged and extended by research on gender and race relations and policy makers have developed an interest in formulating equal opportunity or equality policies in education in these areas. Sociological analyses of education have in the last decade encompassed many more aspects of schooling. Within an era of economic recession and dominance of monetarist values, ideologies so much part of the educational consensus, such as the concept of equal opportunity, have been reframed and pushed to one side.