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This paper argues that the recent 'mini-renaissance' in Marxist educational sociology as propounded in particular by Rikowski (1996, 1997) is fatally flawed, not only denying the sui generis (autonomous) properties of the educational system but also precluding practical social theorising per se. The reason for this centres on the adoption of a universal internal relations social ontology, which results in the reduction of concrete social reality to the narrow abstraction of the omnipresent 'Capital Relation'. At the same time, such theorising remains conspicuously silent on the issue of the feasible alternatives to capitalism implied by the (albeit flawed) explanatory critiques of such recent Marxist theorising within the sociology of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorising the interplay of structure and agency is the quintessential focus of sociological endeavour. This paper aims to be part of that continuing endeavour, arguing for a stratified social ontology, where structure and agency are held to be irreducible to each other and causally efficacious, yet necessarily interdependent. It thus aims not to be part of that on-going journey in search of the 'ontological holy grail'. Instead, it offers a way of linking structure and agency which enables the practical education researcher concretely to examine their relative interplay over time. The methodological key to teasing out their relative interplay is held to be analytical dualism. It will be argued that such a methodological device is precluded by Giddens' structuration theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the international momentum of the school effectiveness movement continues, its exponents remain largely impervious to criticism. This paper argues that while they may not readily align themselves with the individualistic aspects of Conservative social philosophy, their methodology necessarily secretes an atomised social ontology. The charge of ideological commitment rests on the fact that the essentially positivist epistemology employed by school effectiveness researchers presupposes an ontology of closed systems and atomistic events. Thus any notion of the structuring of life-chances is automatically ruled out of court. The reciprocity of social ontology and methodology is explored in order to account for the myopia of the school effectiveness movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that sociologist John Hood-Williams article on the rejection of sex/gender distinction is not so much concerned with rejecting the so-called additive approach to the biological and the social where the biological base is seen a priori. Throughout this article the author's main concern is with defending the analytical indispensability of the ontological sex/gender distinction. Whether people are naturally aggressive, or males, or patriarchal or whatever can only be decided by research which pays careful attention to stratification and emergence and is alive to the problems of defining the natural and the social. The prevalent notion that women, naturally want to be mothers because of a supposedly intrinsic maternal instinct, it is in their biological make-up to do so. If everything social could be reduced to the biological then logically there would be no pre-dispositional hormones: either hormone determines or they do not. Whether there may be a biologically based potential for heightened maternal investment is irrelevant, since it is the case that mothers and fathers are equally nurturing.