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This paper focuses on the structure and substance of the Core Content Framework (CCF), a controversial document which stipulates content that providers of teacher education in England must incorporate in their programmes. We identify both a concept of instrumental trainability and a lack of coherence in the CCF which suggests it is unsuitable as a guide to a curriculum for teacher education. Drawing on Bernstein's work and its application by other sociologists of educational knowledge, we identify how the CCF embeds a 'generic mode' in teacher education that has roots outside of disciplinary structures of knowledge production and therefore foregrounds a type of official pedagogy that sees teaching as a technical performance and leaves gaps in the knowledge and understanding a new teacher requires to make sound educational judgements. Employing Muller's distinction between conceptual and contextual coherence, we argue that the CCF is based upon an imaginary notion of instructional practice that does not fully grasp the context of teachers' work. We illustrate the argument via an analysis of the language, structure, and three of the eight sections in the CCF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic and the ideology of intensive mothering through analysis of posts on lockdown learning in an online mothering community. It is argued that although the school closures seemed to constitute an endorsement and normalisation of intensive mothering ideology [Hays (1996). The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven: Yale University Press] by the machinery of government, and increased the pressure upon many women, some mothers resisted these expectations in this online forum. The online community served as a space in which intensive mothering expectations were articulated [Lehner-Mear (2020). "Good Mother, Bad Mother? Maternal Identities and Cyber-Agency in the Primary School Homework Debate." Gender and Education 33 (3): 285–305] but also offered an arena for cyber-agency, enabling women to express negative emotions, and normalising the rejection of expert constructions of mothering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from 15 semi-structured interviews with UK-based early/mid-career academics, this paper offers an empirically informed assessment of how lecturers teaching/researching the sociology of sport are managing their careers in a changing higher education landscape. Those interviewed were involved in the delivery of sociological content to a range of sports-themed courses with the interviews focusing on the changing fashions in studying sport (including a rapid increase in enrolment on certain sports-themed courses), and on the nature of the relationships with colleagues working in the same area (i.e. sport), but who teach/research it from a different discipline. The paper draws upon the processes of individualisation which lay at the root of reflexive modernisation to better understand the lived experiences of those interviewed. Using the metaphors of tribes, doors and boundaries, I assess the extent to which those interviewed felt there were opportunities for an interdisciplinary pedagogic approach to ‘sport’. The paper explores the relationship between the sociology of sport and its parent discipline (i.e. sociology) and where it might feature in a future (post-disciplinary?) landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this brief paper, I argue that the coronavirus pandemic is functioning like an ethnomethodological 'breaching experiment'. In short, it is putting a gigantic spanner in the works of neoliberal governance, in the process exposing the widening cracks and fissures of what I have called the 'fractured society'. I begin by recalling Garfinkel's notion of the breaching experiment and by listing the principal attributes of the fractured society. I then explore the response to the coronavirus in the UK, from the government's initial commitment to 'herd immunity' to its present policy of 'muddling through'. The bulk of the remainder of this contribution addresses precisely how this global health crisis shines a harsh and unforgiving searchlight on the strategies and policies pursued by governments in the UK since 2010, and most especially after the passing of the Health and Social Care Act of 2012. In the closing paragraphs, I examine possible scenarios for a post-fractured society, making particular use of Fraser's concepts on 'reactionary' versus 'progressive populism', and conclude with a comment on sociology and engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological analysis of eating has for a long time tracked the fate of a popularly endorsed, idealized form of the “family” or “proper” meal. “Snacking” has often been constructed as its symbolic opposite, as irregular, anomic and unhealthy. This paper, based on data from a survey of eating patterns conducted in Great Britain in 2012 (n = 2,784), analyzes eating occasions which respondents stated were snacks rather than meals, focusing on their frequency, scheduling, contents, duration and social context. It finds that “snacks” are taken across all socio-demographic groups and take place in accordance with a common and predictable schedule. Snacks are smaller and less structured than most meals but mostly do not comprise what is generically described as “snack foods.” Snacks are shorter in duration, and less sociable than other eating events, reflecting their size, simplicity and informality. However, most are eaten in company, are planned for, and are wholesome. Common negative evaluations of eating between and outside meals have failed to appreciate the range and character of adjunct eating events, and the degree to which they form part of aggregate patterns and individual routines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we shift from conventional academic writing toward something similar to a dialogue, an encounter, a few hours spent in a virtual café where we chat and systematically try to excavate our respective ethnographic endeavours. Such experimentation in format is needed, we argue, in order to re-approach the questions characterising in-depth ethnographic work from a different, possibly fresher, perspective, and to communicate those more directly and freely. Rather than embedding our doubts, fears and wishful thinking in academic formalism, we spell those out aloud, as a composite and unfinished flow that touches upon relevant literature but is still raw and grounded in our current and respective fieldwork. Relying on our differentiated works with Roma people in Italy, France and Romania (2004–ongoing), in our dialogue we talk about the challenges of positioning; the construction of new (self)identities; the building of relationships of trust, care and affect, and their break; the role of ethnographic knowledge in activist work; the risk and the certainty of failure; the difficulties associated with entering and leaving the field. The aim of our dialogue is not to offer answers to questions that have been at the centre of the ethnographic discipline since the start, but to open a space of incremental and reciprocal learning that may serve as an inspiration for other young ethnographers like us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on the figurational sociology of Norbert Elias in understanding the current housing crisis in the UK: one which emphasizes the social interdependencies between individuals and groups, and the power relations that characterize them, in explaining household behaviour. It is argued that such an approach can contribute to a better understanding of housing processes and their differentiated outcomes. At the same time, this analysis exposes the myriad negative consequences that emerge from short-term housing policies based on static, over-simplified assumptions and applied to an ever-increasingly complex housing figuration, which is constantly in flux. These arguments are made with reference to empirical evidence on the impact of changes to housing benefit in the private rented sector, which shows how neoliberal housing policy contributes to long-term detrimental effects on marginalized households and groups. Through this example, it is argued that the governmental presentation of welfare reforms differs markedly from the reality of consequences on the ground and corresponds to “neoliberal state-crafting”. It is suggested that any approach to understanding the complexities of the housing system must retain a focus on historical change, precedents and fluctuations in power balances to avoid the pernicious “retreat into the present” characteristic of policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Michael Banton's paper provides fascinating insights into his long-running intellectual disagreements with John Rex, the other major post-war figure in the sociology of ‘race relations’. Published work and personal recollections are supplemented by a series of communications by letter to flesh out the precise nature of these debates. They reveal differing views on the ontological status of ‘race’, race relations and racism, as well as a number of criticisms of Rex's work. He argues that Rex was wrong to put so much faith in the ability of classical sociology to address these concerns, and that there was a disjuncture between theory, methods and substance in his empirical work. There is also a suggestion that Rex played down the significance of racism. The greatest difference between them, however, lay in their divergent views on the role of sociology and the sociologist. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that both Michael Banton and John Rex were ‘children of empire’, albeit in starkly different ways, and that these differences were at the core of their querulous exchanges over their long careers. The larger issue, however, concerns the impact of colonialism on sociology, especially in its formative years, and conversely, the role of sociology in providing erudite justification for colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the 1980s, state schools in England have been required to ensure transparency and accountability through the use of indicators and templates derived from the private sector and, more recently, globally circulating discourses of ‘good governance’ (an appeal to professional standards, technical expertise, and performance evaluation as mechanisms for improving public service delivery). The rise of academies and free schools (‘state-funded independent schools’) has increased demand for good governance, notably as a means by which to discipline schools,in particular school governors– those tasked with the legal responsibility of holding senior leadership to account for the financial and educational performance of schools. A condition and effect of school autonomy, therefore, is increased monitoring and surveillance of all school governing bodies. In this paper, I demonstrate how these twin processes combine to produce a new modality of state power and intervention; a dominant or organizing principle by which government steer the performance of governors through disciplinary tools of professionalization and inspection, with the aim of achieving the ‘control of control’. To explain these trends, I explore how various established and emerging school governing bodies are (re)constituting themselves to meet demands for good governance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]