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National styles of 'doing sociology' exist, all celebrating respective 'founding fathers'. Timid, British pragmatism has tended to misrecognise Durkheim ever since our barely transcended early 20th century origins. In relatively low-status teacher education, even when sociology of education was popularly taught from the late sixties through the seventies, Durkheim was presented as a conservative anti-hero. The only important exception to this condition was the teaching and research of Basil Bernstein, unfortunately buried by the excesses both of 'New Directions' and the neo-Marxisms which recoiled from it in the seventies. His always numerous and active group of research students became the main carriers of his voice. There are now some signs that failure strewn, maligned and substantially dispersed sociology of education is evincing fresh interest in his and Durkheim's work. Bernstein's interest, since the middle 1950s, has been the study of symbolic systems which function as pedagogic relays. He alone in modern sociology has attempted to move from the seconds that make up the classroom moment, through institutional to societal power structures, in a way that not only insists on conceptual consistency but thinks it not worth having unless it produces both models and empirical markers. [This paper first appeared as: Brian Davies (1994) Durkheim and the Sociology of Education in Britain, "British Journal of Sociology of Education," 15:1, 3-25 (see https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569940150101).]

The Russian Imperial Baltic Fleet founded by Peter I (the Great) of Russia suffered serious neglect after his death, and Russian grand strategy had to be revised to avoid deploying it in naval combat. During the Seven Years' War, the fleet played a minor, supporting role in coastal cruising and landing troops; its most significant accomplishment was supporting the siege of Kolberg. Upon her accession in 1762, Empress Catherine II (the Great) embraced administrative and training reforms that significantly improved the fleet's operational effectiveness, which was first demonstrated in the Aegean Expedition of 1769-1774. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 the advance of G.A. Rumiantsev's First Army after its great victories at Riabaia Mogila, Larga, and Kagul was slowed by several factors, including the lack of adequate maps of southern Moldavia and Wallachia and the Turkish fortress line along the Danube. This problem was finally addressed by Lt General Friedrich Wilhelm von Bauer (1731–1783), a talented engineer in Russian service, a hero of the Riabaia Mogila and Larga battles, and author of a project to organize a Russian General Staff along Prussian lines. Bauer's surveying work facilitated the Russians' successful drive across the Danube in 1773 and this surveying work informed the remarkably detailed map of Moldavia he published in 1775 and 1781. The data he gathered for a similar map of Wallachia was published in his Mémoires historiques et géographiques sur la Valachie, avec un prospectus d'un Atlas géographique et militaire de la derniére guerre entre la Russie et la Porte Ottomanne (1778). Bauer's work as a geographer and cartographer contributed to European knowledge of the geography and chorography of the Danubian region and illustrated the increasing impact of technicalism upon Russian military development in the eighteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues associated with school absenteeism have attracted considerable attention and have long been one of the focal points of government strategies for school improvement. Pupil non-attendance is not a new phenomenon and featured prominently in Her Majesty's Inspectors' reports from 1839. This paper outlines the patterns of and influences on elementary education in early Victorian industrial Monmouthshire during the period 1839-1865. The twin problems of irregular attendance and early withdrawal of pupils are discussed together with the limitations and unreliability of contemporary statistics. An examination of the reasons for absence is then discussed together with the remedies proposed to alleviate the problem with particular reference to the contribution of the Prize Schemes. The paper illustrates the disadvantages of basing an educational system on voluntary endeavour and enlightened self-interest and highlights the paradox that, despite the introduction of mandatory attendance, the problem is still persistent and protracted and finding definitive solutions still remains elusive.

Drawing on the theoretical work of the British sociologist Basil Bernstein, this paper documents how learning is structured and organised through play in three Early Years Education (EYE) settings catering for children aged three to five in England, UK. Its data address current issues raised within EYE research relating to "quality and high returns" and "school readiness" for compulsory education. The analyses reveal that multiple forms of play are evident in all three settings; however, they are afforded very different status and value in each, influenced by the assumptions practitioners [in this paper practitioner is used because this is what those working in the nursery settings viewed themselves as. Although we acknowledge that early childhood educator is perhaps a more common term in certain countries] make about children and their families' knowledge and resources for learning. The effect of such processes is the reproduction of social class and cultural hierarchies inside EYE settings, reflecting those longstanding in wider UK society. Despite the best intentions of policy-makers and practitioners, EYE play as currently configured does not provide equal opportunities for all.

Despite 50 years and more of "progressive education" in the United Kingdom, classed patterns of educational success and failure stubbornly prevail. So how, where and when does it all go wrong for the many children who continue to fail or underachieve? Drawing on the work of Basil Bernstein, this article centres processes within early years education which are claimed to help launch children into careers as either educational successes or failures. Our data suggest that children more or less happily play their lives away in the progressive play pedagogies of early years education, in the process learning their position in social and ability hierarchies that help define their future careers inside and outside schools. That such hierarchies prevail is the fault of neither teachers nor parents. Indeed, it is what early years education settings are legitimised to do: sieve and sort, and make children "school ready," pliant and prepared for a lifetime of learning to succeed or fail.