Search

This essay offers a broken narrative concerning the early history of anti-oppressive practice as an approach in the U.K. to youth and community work and the struggles over this in the context of UK higher education between the 1960's and the early 2000's. Educating informal educators as youth and community workers in the UK has been a site of contestation. Aspects of a genealogy of that struggle are presented in ways which link publicly available histories with personal memories and narratives, through the use of a personal archive developed through collective memory work. These are chosen to illuminate the links between theory and practice: on the one hand, the conceptual field which has framed the education of youth and community workers, whose sources lie in the academic disciplines of education and sociology, and, on the other hand, the social movements which have formed the practice of informal educators. Six have been chosen: (1) The long 1968: challenging approaches to authority; (2) the group as a source of learning; (3) The personal and political: experiential learning from discontent; (4) Paolo Freire and Critical Praxis; (5) A critical break in social education and the reality of youth work spaces as defensive spaces; (6) New managerialism: ethics vs. paper trails. The approach taken, of linking memory work with present struggles, is argued to be a generative form for current critical and enlivening practice.

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to discuss the "Q-Step in the Community" programme, part of the Q-Step Centre based in the Sociology Department at Manchester Metropolitan University, designed to help address the skills gap in quantitative methods (QM) that is evident across parts of the UK higher-education sector. "Q-Step in the Community" is a data-driven work-based learning programme that works in partnership with local organisations to provide placement opportunities for final year undergraduates and postgraduates. Students conduct a quantitative research project, which is typically identified by the placement provider. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use quantitative and qualitative feedback from students and placement providers, along with our own reflections on the process to evaluate the placement programme. Data were collected through a focus group and email interviews with placement providers, along with a questionnaire, which was distributed to "Q-Step in the Community" alumni. Findings: Data-driven work-based learning opportunities allow students to develop and demonstrate their quantitative skills and support networking opportunities whilst also developing valuable soft-skills experience of the workplace that develops their career-readiness. In addition, those opportunities provide valuable research for placement providers, which support their sustainability and enhance their service delivery. Research limitations/implications: The research focusses solely on one programme at one university offering quantitative data driven work-based learning opportunities at undergraduate and post-graduate level. It is not possible to make valid comparisons between those who do a placement with those who do not. Originality/value: Views of key stakeholders in the process have been sought for this research, which can be useful to consider for others considering developing similar programmes for their students.

There is continuing concern about the paucity of social science graduates who have the quantitative skills required by academia and industry. Not only do students often lack the confidence to explore, and use, statistical techniques, the dominance of qualitative research in many disciplines has also often constrained programme-level integration of more quantitative material. However, whilst the topic of statistical literacy is relatively well researched within the more general educational literature, the evidence-base with respect to the effectiveness of teaching and learning of quantitative research methods in the social science remains somewhat limited. This paper describes the development, integration and evaluation of a series of student-led inquiry-based quantitative workbooks within a sociology/social policy undergraduate degree. It outlines how the workbooks were constructively aligned within a "methods spine" and offers some insight into quantitative teaching and learning generally. The paper also discusses some of the opportunities and challenges of taking both an aligned and IBL approach to the teaching of quantitative methods. In doing so it adds to growing evidence that 'problem-based pedagogies' tend to increase educational gain over and above more didactic approaches to learning and teaching. It highlights three key findings: programme-level approaches to curriculum design can be crucial in improving quantitative skills, particularly where they are tailored to student needs; a general indifference to quantitative methods is likely to be due to a process of disenfranchisement that happens before and during students' engagement with university; and, meaningfully engaging students as partners in the process of designing, integrating and evaluating curricula can help to overcome some of the barriers associated with the learning and teaching of quantitative skills.

Religious education was established as a compulsory curriculum requirement in all schools by the 1944 Education Act. It was intended to provide instruction to all pupils in the basic tenets of the Christian faith and ensure that every successive generation of pupils understood the role of Christianity in British history and the national sense of British identity. In examining the sociohistorical context in which this groundbreaking education act emerged it is evident that at that time religious education had a very clear purpose and unambiguous raison d'être. It was a key element in the socialisation process of children which familiarised them with the prevailing societal norms of behaviour, social values and dominant beliefs. By the second decade of the twenty-first century this certainty about a rationale for RE had been lost. Widespread confusion had developed about what the point of religious education actually was, and inspections of RE teaching revealed the subject to be in a parlous state (OFSTED in: Religious education: realising the potential, 2013; in: School inspection handbook, 2019). In 2016 the Religious Education Council of England and Wales established the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) in an attempt to bring some clarity back into the subject. In the years between 1944 and 2021 social norms, values and beliefs had changed significantly and consequently the world RE teachers were seeking to socialise children into was and is very different. The solution proposed by the CoRE is to concentrate on teaching 'worldviews' to prepare pupils to respect the diversity of beliefs in contemporary society. Far from saving the subject, however, this shift of focus can be seen in many ways which are explored in this paper to be more likely to hasten the end of RE as a curriculum subject and to accelerate its replacement by an enhanced form of citizenship education.

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.

This paper examines the temporal and ethical affordances of commercial social media platforms, such as Twitter, as tools for engaging in social research and knowledge exchange. Drawing on activity that took place during the "New Frontiers in Qualitative Longitudinal Research" seminar series, the article reports on using Twitter and other social media platforms to document, share and archive 'data' from a series of research events. It also experiments with new modes of research writing, using fragments of 'data' from Twitter to distil research knowledge and ideas, whilst also capturing the pace and form of this live method of social documentation and knowledge exchange. Bringing together conversations within digital sociology about how to 'do' time in digital research, with methodological debates among qualitative longitudinal researchers about how to research social and biographical continuity and change, the paper argues that the presentist focus in digital research is far from inevitable. Attending to time in digital media demands that we are alert to questions of authorship, audience and co-production, recognizing the labour of research and the provenance of research knowledge, 'data' and ideas.

This paper takes up issues raised in two articles by Nick Zepke and portrayed here as "the Zepke thesis". This thesis argues that the literature on, interest in and practices around student engagement in higher education have an elective affinity with neo-liberal ideology. At one level this paper counters many of the assertions that underpin the Zepke thesis, challenging them as being based on a selective and tendentious interpretation of that literature. It also points out the misuse of the concept of "elective affinity" within the thesis. However, more significantly the paper argues that an understanding of how ideas are taken up and used requires a more sophisticated ontological understanding than the Zepke thesis exhibits. That thesis has strayed into the territory of the sociology of knowledge while ignoring the accounts and debates in that area developed over more than a century.

This paper presents a research-based, theoretically-informed contribution to the debate on "impact" in educational research, and specifically a response to Gardner's 2011 presidential address to the British Educational Research Association. It begins by discussing the development of the research "impact" agenda as a global phenomenon, and reviews the current state of debate about "impact" in the UK's Research Excellence Framework. It goes on to argue that a radical alternative perspective on this agenda is needed, and outlines Bourdieu's sociology--including his much-neglected concept of "illusio"--as offering potential for generating critical insights into demands for "impact". The term "illusio" in particular calls us to examine the "stakes" that matter in the field of educational research: the objects of value that elicit commitment from players and are "worth the candle". This framework is then applied first to analyse an account of how an ESRC-funded project that I led was received by different research "users" as we sought to generate impact for our findings. Second, it is used to show that the field of educational research has changed; that it has bifurcated between the field of research production and that of research reception; and that the former is being subordinated to the latter. The paper concludes by arguing that, despite many educational researchers' commitments to "make a difference" in wider society, the research "impact" imperative is one that encroaches on academic freedom; and that academics need to find collective ways in which to resist it.

This paper uses figurational sociology to explain why Secondary Physical Education teachers' engagement with Health Related Exercise (HRE) is often limited. Historically-rooted concerns surround the teaching of HRE, and these have recently been linked to teachers' limited continuing professional development (CPD) in HRE (HRE-CPD). A two-phase, mixed-method study involving a survey questionnaire (n=124) and semi-structured interviews (n=12) was conducted in the UK to explore Physical Education teachers' engagement with HRE and HRE-CPD over time. The findings confirm that teachers' engagement with HRE-CPD is often limited. Indeed, nearly three quarters of the teachers (73%) also felt that their tertiary education had failed to adequately prepare them to teach HRE. This paper argues that a range of interdependent processes are contributing towards teachers' limited engagement with HRE, and that most of these processes--such as the marginalisation of HRE--are rooted in the privileging of sporting, individualised and performative ideologies within Physical Education. In conclusion, it is argued that informed and strategic action which addresses the above issues and which transcends all levels of the education figuration is needed if the concerns surrounding HRE are to be overcome. (Contains 3 notes, 1 figure and 2 tables.)

The shift towards greater user involvement in welfare provision is typically couched by its advocates as being ethically straightforward and as an unalloyed good, because it represents a transformation of users from a role of passivity and dependence on the paternalism of professionals to more active, empowered and respected autonomous persons. This paper problematises this reading, showing how it fails to represent the ethical complications of partnership working in welfare relationships and how it privileges individualist over more relational and political forms of involvement. In doing so, the paper also seeks to demonstrate some of the ways critical sociological perspectives on changing welfare relationships might be strengthened by a focus on the ethics of practical agency. (Contains 4 notes.)

This paper provides a critical review of papers in this special issue on Bourdieu and practice. What is different about this collection is that, in analysing policy and practice through a Bourdieusian lens, the thinking tools of field, disposition (collective and individual), logics of practice and doxa have been mobilised with regard to the "social practices" of educational policy--its production, circulation and reception. First, these papers illustrate how, as a field, education has its own language, boundaries and power relations informed by particular modes of distinction and legitimation around different forms of capital formation, thus providing explanations for both social mobility and social stratification. Second, this collection foregrounds "policy as practice" in terms of the social practices involved in the production of policy, the practices involved with the articulation and vernacularisation of policy through the processes of its reception, as well as the intent and effects of policy changing practice. Third, in focusing on specific policy problematics in higher education and schools, teacher professional development, leadership and educational reform, these contributions illustrate multiple methodological approaches as to how Bourdieu's thinking tools can be used to theorise educational policy, change, practice and effects. The value of Bourdieu's work lies on getting past the impasses between divisions between material and cultural analyses, between the materialist and linguistic focus, by talking about social practices, what people are doing, how they are thinking and how they are acting.

After briefly outlining Bernstein's personal and educational history, the paper goes on to review the scope of his work over the past 30 years, his theoretical contribution and his position among colleagues in the post-WWII era of British sociology. There follows a more detailed examination of the main tenets of his theory, pointing out that Bernstein's strategy was to present his ideas in the form of dichotomies, such as that between modes of socialization as personal or positional, and of linguistic codes as elaborated or restricted. The paper suggests that while critical issues in educational thinking and in sociology varied through the course of Bernstein's career, such as the study of socialization and its consequences for social reproduction, his dichotomizing remained a constant strategy throughout his writings. I end by briefly referring to my own work that offers some possible alternatives to Bernstein's dichotomies, concluding, however, that the enduring quality of Bernstein owes not a little to the appeal of his overly sharp theoretical distinctions.

The concept of student voice is problematic. This paper considers two different traditions which theorise the notion of voice. The first is located within critical sociological studies of youth identity, drawing upon the notion of the often silenced voices of the marginalised, "Othered" or subordinated as a means of exposing oppressive power relations. The paper outlines an alternative theorisation of student voice we call, following Bernstein, the "sociology of pedagogic voice". Bernstein's distinction between voice and message plays a key role here in discriminating between: social and pedagogic identities; specialised voices based upon power relations and the realisation of those relations revealed in "talk"; and dominant and subordinate voices and the "yet to voiced". This conceptualisation of voice suggests that pedagogies construct the voice/message which teachers and researchers hear--whether "classroom talk", "subject talk", "identity talk" or "code talk". Caution is needed in assuming that power relations can be changed through the elicitation of student talk.

This commentary reflects on the strengths of the paper by Warde et al. entitled "Situated drinking: the association between eating and alcohol consumption in Great Britain". It suggests that practice-theoretical approaches towards studying contemporary connections between foods, food events and alcoholic drinks provides an excellent basis for overcoming the analytical limits of fields such as food studies, drinks studies, alcohol studies and related areas. This is especially so if Warde et al.'s quantitative methodology were to be yoked to two further sources of inspiration, namely Mary Douglas's structuralist analysis of food combinations within food events and Stephen Mennell's utilisation of the concepts and concerns of Norbert Elias to produce a systematic historical sociology of food. An extended inter-paradigmatic approach to the study of how alcoholic drinks relate to foods and eating practices emerges as a result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Horses in Great Britain are living into increasingly older age and are often regarded as friends or family members by their owner. The horse is reliant on their owner to meet their needs and this paper discusses how horse owners frame an issue that becomes a matter of veterinary concern within the context of the older horse. Qualitative methods were used to explore the experiences of owners and veterinarians. Data were collected and analysed using a grounded theory approach during the period 2019-2022. Analysis identified that owners undertook an ongoing and iterative process of assessment, monitoring and decision making in relation to the animal and any changes they observed. Matters that became a veterinary concern required the owner to formulate the issue as something that fell within the knowledge domain of the veterinarian. Veterinarians had a medicalised view of older horse health and their perspectives on socially acceptable care were shaped by their understanding of speciesspecific needs, and whether owners were providing appropriately for those needs. The formulation of a matter of veterinary concern was itself shaped by an owner's experiential knowledge of both veterinary matters and their horse. The extent to which owners felt like they and their individual horse mattered during interactions with veterinarians affected whether they adopted veterinary advice and the nature of future veterinary employment. Findings demonstrate how matters of health, disease, and the role of professionalised forms of medical knowledge, are not static but constantly changing and interacting over time. An issue that became a matter of veterinary concern was contextual, and rooted in individual relationships. The significance of veterinarian-owner interactions in shaping future consumption of veterinary health care may be underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of poor statistical literacy amongst undergraduates in the United Kingdom is well documented. At university level, where poor statistics skills impact particularly on social science programmes, embedding is often used as a remedy. However, embedding represents a surface approach to the problem. It ignores the barriers to learning that students bring to class, which may not always be addressed solely through embedding, such as, mathematics anxiety. Instead, embedding can only work within a much deeper pedagogic model that places students at its heart, as active participants in learning. This paper examines the development of such a model within a large sociology programme, where there was an implementation of a range of pedagogic strategies to support the development of students' statistical literacy.

Drawing on the experiences of a novel collaborative project between sociologists and computer scientists, this paper identifies a set of challenges for fieldwork that are generated by this "wild interdisciplinarity. Public Access Wi-Fi Service" was a project funded by an 'in-the-wild' research programme, involving the study of digital technologies within a marginalised community, with the goal of addressing digital exclusion. We argue that similar forms of research, in which social scientists are involved in the deployment of experimental technologies within real world settings, are becoming increasingly prevalent. The fieldwork for the project was highly problematic, with the result that few users of the system were successfully enrolled. We analyse why this was the case, identifying three sets of issues which emerge in the juxtaposition of interdisciplinary collaboration and wild setting. We conclude with a set of recommendations for projects involving technologists and social scientists.

This article comprises some critical reflections on the teaching of a second year undergraduate module called "Children's Cultural Worlds" in which students are required to engage with original studies which are then used to stimulate self-reflection and engagement with wider issues relating to our understanding of children's place in the social world. It will be argued that when individual memories are shared, it is possible to identify continuities and discontinuities in childhood experiences as well as the intersections between childhood and other social divisions such as gender, class and ethnicity. The requirement that students recall and reflect on their childhood memories and share them with others is a way of students learning through their own experiences, reflecting on their views and values. Furthermore, as it will be shown, it opens up spaces for alternative values and viewpoints to emerge about how we might 'regulate' early childhood because 'When we tell stories and process them, using reflective dialogues, we create the possibility of change in ourselves and others'.

Initiatives, like the UK ESRC's RDI/CI programmes and the Q-Step Centres, have a long-term aim of addressing the well-documented decline in the pool of academics able and willing to teach quantitative methods (QM). However, these initiatives will take time to make an impact; therefore, the upskilling of current staff is a vital strategy if we want to maintain QM in curricula. This paper draws on findings from the ESRC RDI project, 'No More Pointy Clicky, numbers stuff; building staff quantitative skills'. This project focussed on upskilling staff in a large Sociology department. The project was committed to delivering training to develop staff competence in QM; however, it became clear that this alone would not be sufficient to build staff confidence. Therefore, the project rolled-out a more complex strategy that addressed a range of central issues, including, pedagogy, infrastructure, Departmental resourcing and strategy, and staff worldviews, which this article explores.

In this article I correct previous misconceptions about the London-based Imago Group (1954–71). In doing so I provide the first ever detailed history of the group, and of the role of the composer, Robert Still, in founding it in 1953 as an analysand society geared to its members using their experience of having been psychoanalysed in seeking to understand social issues and improve society. Examples are given of papers presented in this vein during the group's history of monthly meetings beginning in February 1954. Reasons for the group's demise following its meeting in July 1971 are also indicated as are examples of its inspiring similar groups in Canada and in Britain, including the Oxford-based New Imago Forum concerned with psychoanalysing social issues today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 explores students' seemingly puzzling engagement with what I call "processes of classification." Whilst most students on the Social Identities module I taught between 2005-2006 and 2008-2009 claimed that "class didn't matter" to them, during 2009-2010 more students engaged with classificatory processes. Using the poststructuralist sociological and Marxist literatures, I suggest that as the former argues, student dis-identification with such processes occurred during the first four years I taught the module. Students' greater engagement with classificatory processes during 2009-2010 may indicate some ways that the deepening economic and political climate of polarisation separating the wealthy elite from all others was impacting student engagement with this aspect of their identities. I conclude by suggesting that in such a climate, Marxist and other progressive academics should seek to realize Mills' sociological imagination more fully. (Contains 10 notes.)

This paper illustrates how critical use of Basil Bernstein's theory illuminates the mechanisms by which university knowledge, curriculum and pedagogy both reproduce and interrupt social inequalities. To this end, empirical examples are selected from the findings of the ESRC-funded project "Pedagogic Quality and Inequality in University First Degrees" (RES-062-23-1438, November 2008-January 2012). The project investigated sociology-related social science degrees in four social science departments in universities in different positions in influential UK higher education league tables. A Bernsteinian lens throws fresh light on how university education might contribute to a more egalitarian society. (Contains 1 table and 5 notes.)

Collaborative learning and critical pedagogy are widely recognized as "empowering" pedagogies for higher education. Yet, the practical implementation of both has a mixed record. The question, then, is: How could collaborative and critical pedagogies be empowered themselves? This paper makes a primarily theoretical case for discourse analysis (DA) as a form of classroom practice that provides a structured framework for collaborative and critical pedagogies in higher education, with a special reference to sociology classroom practice. I develop a tripartite scheme for building a framework for sociological imagination that is, first, sensitive to the discursive aspects of social reality (learning "about" DA). Second, I illustrate the use of DA as pedagogical tool and classroom practice (learning "with" DA). Third, I discuss how discourse analytical ideas can be used in evaluating classroom interaction and how these reflexive insights can be used to enhance student empowerment (learning "through" DA).

"How helpful and how necessary is it for at least some of us to see ourselves as professional educational researchers?" asked Donald McIntyre in his 1996 presidential address to the British Educational Research Association. Still pertinent to consideration of the direction in which the British educational research community ought to focus its development, this question is revisited through examination of whether or not educational research is a profession. Located within a sociological framework, the paper first examines some of the earliest work that established the sociology of professions as a field of study. It then compares this with recent work in the field, before considering whether or not--against the various criteria for professional status that these studies identify--educational research(ing) may be categorised as a profession. Using Noordegraaf's three categories, the case is examined for considering educational research(ing) as a "pure", a "hybrid" or a "situated" profession. The conclusion is that it represents none of these, but that, within the context of twenty-first-century working life, this is less important than the need for educational research to embrace a culture of developmentalism.

Higher education is commonly described as offering combinations of work and leisure, but the implied relationship is often limited. Different conceptions of leisure, especially leisure as pleasurable experience, raise new possibilities for seeing academic activity itself as leisure in several important senses. The importance of identifying pleasure as a necessary component of work and politics is discussed. Several more specific approaches to try to understand such pleasures are reviewed: Cultural Studies approaches, the work of Bourdieu on taste, and some recent work in the Sociology of Leisure.

In response to the article by Dan Moulin it is argued that the representation of Christianity in British religious education relies on central beliefs and practices that are widely shared. In contrast to Moulin we consider that the teaching of doctrine is important in order to prevent serious misunderstanding of Christianity. Focussing on a sociological approach can undermine the importance of taking truth-claims seriously as requiring real reflection. We argue that doctrine should not be thought of, or taught, as something rigid and restricting but rather inviting an on-going re-thinking and re-application. Thus doctrines can be held confidently while remaining open to, and benefiting from, criticism. We finish by asking what can realistically be expected of teachers. (Contains 8 notes.)

This paper traces the relationship between the emergence of disability studies and the struggle for meaningful inclusion for disabled people with particular reference to the work of a pivotal figure in these developments: Len Barton. It is argued that the links between disability activism and the academy were responsible for the emergence of disability studies and that this has had an important influence on mainstream sociology and social and educational policy nationally and internationally. It is evident, however, that the impact of these developments has been only marginal and that in light of recent concerns about the global economy, environmental change and unprecedented population growth, the need for meaningful inclusion is more urgent than ever and cannot be dependent on the work of a few key individuals for its success.

The sociological study of education involves focusing upon teaching and learning, upon explicit instruction and the acquisition of the tacit knowledge and skills that are essential if learners are to become enculturated into a new "habitus". Sociological insight into these processes can come from research on conventional educational settings, but is greater when unfamiliar, settings are studied. This paper focuses upon a pedagogic setting of an unconventional kind--a martial art, "capoeira". (Contains 5 notes.)

This article is the result of a grounded theory investigation into the ways PhD topics are assigned by supervisors in engineering and selected by students in the social sciences/humanities in UK universities, broadly referred to as "topic arrangement", which can be regarded as one aspect of academic socialisation into academic Discourse communities. Interview data was collected from thirteen Iranian PhD students studying in different UK universities and six of their supervisors during 2000-2001. One further interview was conducted with a professor of sociology. The interviews were transcribed, thematically coded, and analysed using NUD.IST. The results show that PhD students themselves often select PhD topics in the social sciences/humanities, whereas PhD topics are often assigned to PhD students by engineering supervisors. The reason for this difference in practice between these two fields seems to stem from different ideologies on what constitutes a PhD across disciplines, as well as funded projects, which are more likely to be available to engineering supervisors and students. Throughout the paper, a modest attempt has been made to draw the attention of EAP practitioners to a redefinition of the concept of Discourse with a big "D", which includes linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of advanced academic literacy. (Contains 3 tables.)

This paper reports on research that has been carried out into the use, process, and effectiveness of an asynchronous online seminar within an undergraduate sports studies degree programme. Contemporary sources are used to justify the use of technology supported learning (TSL) in higher education and to inform a reflective and critical account of the planning and delivery of an asynchronous online seminar. Through student feedback gained from qualitative questionnaires, we conclude that the online seminar made a positive contribution to the learning experience of the majority of participating students. However, encouraging widespread participation was problematical. It was also clear that some participants only took part because of the extrinsic rewards on offer and that this might have had some impact on the quality of their learning experience (Biggs, 2003). Despite the benefits of the online seminar, we would also suggest that where student numbers are manageable, the benefits of a "blended" approach, delivering online seminars in conjunction with more traditional face-to-face seminars, should be considered.

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.

This paper considers Olive Banks' work on charting the history and development of British feminism, and particularly her use of collective biography as a research and analytic tool. It is argued that while this has been seen as the least "fashionable" aspect of her work, it took forward C. Wright Mills' contention for one definition of sociology as the interaction between biography and history, and predated by a decade or so similar work on prosopography by Bourdieu from the 1990s onwards. More recently other sociologists and educationists have taken up this methodological approach, including Jane Martin and Bronwyn Davies and Susanne Gannon. (Contains 1 note.)

The paper approaches the issue of school choice in an indirect manner by investigating the effectiveness of public, private government-dependent and private independent schools in 19 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries selected from the PISA 2000 survey for this purpose. In a multilevel approach we estimate these sector effects, controlling for sociological characteristics of students and parents, school composition, teaching and learning conditions of schools and students', and principals' perception of the climate of their schools. The main explanation of the gross differences in mathematical achievement is the better social composition of private schools, both government-dependent and independent, which is a clear consequence of school choice. But our analysis also reveals that private independent schools are less effective than public schools with the same students, parents, and social composition, while private dependent schools are more effective than comparable public schools. The explanation of these remaining net differences in mathematical achievement seems to be the better school climate of private dependent schools. The comparison concludes that these net differences in mathematical achievement between public and private school sectors are equal across nations, despite the historical and legal variations in their educational systems and school choice approaches. (Contains 4 tables and 36 notes.)

This paper starts from the suggestion that there is a deep historic chasm between the disciplines of sociology and psychoanalysis in the United Kingdom. It proposes that we might look to the group analytic tradition for a psychosocial clinical practice and body of theory that draws on both sociology and psychoanalysis. It introduces the psychosocial and relational ideas of S.H. Foulkes and the move he made beyond the individual/society dualism. The paper suggests that group analysis works with a generative conceptualisation of the constitutive permeability and entanglement of being human that is broader than is generally understood in psychoanalysis and deeper than is understood in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates alcohol consumption within cultures of football fandom through the innovative combination of theories of the carnivalesque and Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field, and capital. Focus groups (n = 79) were conducted with football supporters in England and Scotland. Semi-structured interviews (n = 15) were also conducted with key organizational stakeholders. Research explored the importance and role of alcohol consumption for supporters when watching or attending matches.. Participants confirmed the cultural significance, perceived normalcy and historical links between football and alcohol consumption. Supporters highlighted the importance of the sociability, friendship, and social capital aspects of alcohol consumption. Participants believed football supporters are perceived differently in comparison with supporters of other sports, arguing that legislation surrounding alcohol consumption at other sports allowed supporters to enhance the carnivalesque by drinking alcohol, whereas football fans were more restricted. Participants agreed the habitus of excessive drinking and violence associated with football supporters led to a bad reputation, however, this view was outdated. Participants also recognized a growing drug culture in football. The findings draw attention to the alcohol-sport relationship and the contested relations, and diverging interests and influences, within the social field of football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undergraduate nursing education in the United Kingdom is now at the university level, either through incorporation into universities or in semiautonomous colleges. This has required considerable cultural adjustment and created challenges, particularly with greater interaction of nursing with psychology, sociology, and biology. Changes are examined from the perspective of the biological sciences, indicating some issues to be resolved. (Author/MSE)

Notes that disturbances periodically occur in psychiatric Adolescent Units. Argues that, by delaying full resolution of these social disturbances, maximum therapeutic benefit may be gained. Illustrated by clinical example, shows how prolonging complete resolution can effect change for adolescent, adolescent's social network, and Adolescent Unit itself. Explains phenomenon in terms of philosophy and social structure of Adolescent Unit. (Author/NB)

Sees traditional modernist family sociology as oppressive and reactionary. To examine responsibilities of those who study postmodern family life, explores recent material with regard to theoretical, methodological, and policy-related issues. Links sociological practice, everyday practice, and policy formation. Argues that family professionals must reconcile themselves to personal and professional responsibilities in the study of postmodern family life. (Author/NB)

There is a general consensus that austerity is variegated in nature, but that a generic feature is the construction of discursive institutions framing the necessity for austerity and guiding actors. However, what is missing from accounts within political science and related disciplines is an appreciation of how these work through heterogeneous geographical relations. This paper examines how austerity has been discursively framed, justified and articulated through 'semantic' spatial austerity institutions. Utilizing a 'pragmatic sociology of critique' approach, it examines the UK Government's austerity program. The paper finds that austerity works through spatially configured semantic institutions, and where there has been resistance this has not developed into a substantive social movement. More broadly, the paper argues that political science and public administration need to move beyond analysis of 'singular' geographical relations, to understanding the role of heterogeneous geographical relations characterizing state practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critiques action research from a feminist theoretical perspective, identifying a duality between mainstream and antisexist action research. Argues mainstream researchers' rational distancing fosters self-deception among researchers about what action research can achieve and how it operates. Posits emotional engagement characteristic to antisexist action research can help work through these methodological contradictions. (CH)

This paper draws attention to the health‐related work that disabled people do when engaging with rehabilitation services. Medical sociology has a rich history of looking at the 'illness work' that patients do, while disability studies scholars have explored the cultural value placed upon paid work and the effects on social status of being unable to work. Yet, a longstanding froideur between these two disciplines, which have fundamentally opposed ontologies of illness and disability, means that neither discipline has attended closely to the rehabilitation‐related work that disabled people do. The concept of 'adjusting' to illness highlights seemingly irreconcilable disciplinary differences. Yet this article argues that the notion of 'adjustment work' can elucidate the socio‐political character of the work disabled people do in their rehabilitation, which could create a more substantial and sustainable dialogue on this subject between disability studies and medical sociology. To make this case, we discuss interview data from the Rights‐based Rehabilitation project, which sought to explore disabled people's lived experiences of rehabilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) COVID-19 contact tracing app was announced to the British public on 12th April 2020. The UK government endorsed the app as a public health intervention that would improve public health, protect the NHS and 'save lives'. On 5th May 2020 the technology was released for trial on the Isle of Wight. However, the trial was halted in June 2020, reportedly due to technological issues. The app was later remodelled and launched to the public in September 2020. The rapid development, trial and discontinuation of the app over a short period of a few months meant that the mobilisation and effect of the discourses associated with the app could be traced relatively easily. In this paper we aimed to explore how these discourses were constructed in the media, and their effect on actors – in particular, those who developed and those who trialled the app. Promissory discourses were prevalent, the trajectory of which aligned with theories developed in the sociology of expectations. We describe this trajectory, and then interpret its implications in terms of infectious disease public health practices and responsibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical race theory is growing in popularity in Britain. However, critics and advocates of critical race theory (CRT) in Britain have neglected the racialized social system approach. Through ignoring this approach, critics have thus "missed the target" in their rebuttals of CRT, while advocates of CRT have downplayed the strength of critical race analysis. By contrast, in this paper, I argue that that through the racialized social system approach, critical race theory has the conceptual flexibility to study British society. As a practical social theory, critical race theory provides us with the tools to study the realities and reproduction of racial inequality. To demonstrate this strength of CRT, and to demonstrate its theoretical nature, I discuss the conceptual framework of the racialized social system approach, paying specific attention to the notions of social space, the racial structure and racial interests; the racialized interaction order, racialized emotions, and structure and agency; and racial ideology, racial grammar, and racialized cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides some information about British organization Study Group and its activities since its formal inception at the 1969 Easter BSA conference. At that time sociology of science was not really firmly established as a distinct sub-area of sociology and most people interested in it were primarily either sociologists of organizations and of education or connected with then growing "science of science" area. Papers presented at recent meetings of the group reflects a wide range of interests. Most papers profounded that a sociology of scientific knowledge is possible and the theoretical and epistemological implications of this view have been extensively discussed. A major means of demarcating this area from others has been the emphasis on theoretical aspects of understanding scientific knowledge. Some papers were concerned with issues in the sociology of knowledge and the philosophy of science, as well as with general questions of sociological theory. Science is perceived more as one part of the cultural system rather than as entity separate from society.

After the appointment of its first full-time professor in L.T. Hobhouse in 1907, British sociology lost an environmental approach that might have substantially altered the shape of the discipline. The environmental approach was that of Patrick Geddes, who made the relationship between people and their environments central for individual and social well-being. In spite of the fact that urban Britain was undergoing environmental crisis due to the negative effects of unrestrained industrialization, a range of other circumstances, personal as well as political and both inside and outside the academy, conspired to coalesce in the more or less deliberate exclusion of Geddes' ideas. The paper suggests that sociologists need to take a radically reflexive approach to the history of their own discipline that recognizes its embeddedness in the wider social world, since both individual and social action, as well as structural forces, may be as influential as quality or coherence in determining the fate of the ideas and theories that they create. In Geddes' case, this leads to a re-examination of both the historical context and the debate surrounding the establishment of sociology at the London School of Economics. [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]

Key concepts and theories that are taught in order to develop cultural competency skills are often introduced to medical students throughout behavioral and social science (BSS) learning content. BSS represents a core component of medical education in the United Kingdom. In this paper, we examine, through (auto)ethnographic data and reflections, the experiences of BSS in medical education. The empirical data and insights have been collected in two ways: (1) through long-term ethnographic fieldwork among medical students and (2) via autoethnographic reflexive practice undertaken by the co-authors who studied, worked, examined, and collaborated with colleagues at different UK medical schools. Our findings indicate that despite BSS constituting a mandatory, essential component of the medical curriculum, medical students did not always perceive BSS as useful for their future practice as doctors, nor did they find it to be clinically relevant, in comparison to the biomedical learning content. We suggest that it is paramount for all stakeholders to commit to cultivating and developing cultural competency skills in medical education, through robustly embedding BSS learning content across the undergraduate medical curriculum. We conclude with recommendations for a wide range of educational practices that would ensure a full integration of BSS in the medical curriculum. [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]

An introduction to the articles within the issue of the journal on topics including need post-structuralist concerns of Deleuze and Guattari, sociological commentary on new developments in drugs and historical perspective on the development of anorexia nervosa, is presented.