James S. Coleman

Dr Jon Clark, Jon Clark

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9781135717377
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

James S. Coleman was one of a distinguished generation of sociology students who passed through the Columbia Sociology Department in the 1940s and `50s. This book critically debates his work and his contribution to society and the social sciences more generally. It consists of 18 major papers by 20 authors from six countries on a range of themes. The volume is framed by an extended editorial introduction reflecting on the five- year exchange of correspondence between James Coleman and the editor, together with two of Coleman's own works.

1

Introduction

Jon Clark

James Coleman and the Evolution of the Volume

The first three volumes in the Falmer Sociology Series—on the work of Robert K. Merton, Anthony Giddens and John H.Goldthorpe—were edited by myself, Sohan Modgil and Celia Modgil. They were begun in 1986 and published in 1990. The idea for this volume was conceived on 30 July 1990 at Nuffield College, Oxford. I had arranged to visit Nuffield Official Fellow John H.Goldthorpe with Christine Cox, the editor of the Falmer Sociology Series, to celebrate the publication of his own Falmer volume. At this point nothing was further from my mind than the idea of editing further volumes in the series on leading living sociologists. I was about to begin fieldwork on a major new research project on ‘managing an automated factory’, and had no intention of letting myself in for further editorial exhaustion of the kind required when editing a series with large numbers of ‘paired contributors’ from various academic cultures with very different definitions of that most elusive of concepts, the deadline. Nevertheless, it was always good fun, and extremely revealing, to ask colleagues whom among leading living sociologists they would choose if there were to be further volumes in the series.

When Christine Cox and I arrived at Nuffield for a pre-prandial sherry, we were met, not just by John Goldthorpe, but by his old friend and colleague (and one of the contributors to Goldthorpe’s Falmer volume), Walter Müller, who was coming to the end of a year at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. We soon began talking about the links between US and European sociology, and as soon as there was a short lull in the conversation, I asked my standard question: whom would they regard as the best candidate/s for further volumes in the Falmer series? Within one minute there was a clear consensus among everyone present—Jim Coleman. To some extent this was influenced by the very recent publication of his mammoth Foundations of Social Theory. But he also fitted the bill of the series in many other ways: his work was internationally recognized in the discipline, was extensive in its thematic and methodological coverage, had excited much controversy (the subtitle of the first three volumes was ‘consensus and controversy’), and was highly relevant to the core of the discipline in the 1990s. The enthusiasm of John Goldthorpe and Walter Müller, together with that of Christine Cox, persuaded me to reconsider my decision not to edit any more volumes in the series.

In just under two weeks I was due to attend the American Sociological Association (ASA) conference in Washington, DC, in part to host an eightieth birthday celebration for Robert K.Merton on behalf of Falmer Press and to present him with a leather-bound copy of his volume on behalf of the publishers. Jim Coleman had contributed to the Merton volume, had already agreed to attend Merton’s birthday ‘bash’, and so I thought I would try and arrange to meet him at the ASA and explore with him the possibility of a Falmer series volume. This was easier said than done. This was the conference at which he was finally elected to be president of the ASA (in 1992), and I was reliably informed by Robert Merton—who had prepared the ground for a meeting—that the only way to get some time with him was to ring his hotel room early in the morning and book a ten-minute slot in what was an horrendously full diary. This was duly done, but the slot then had to be cancelled and eventually we agreed to discuss the Falmer series volume informally at Merton’s birthday celebration.

This was the only time I met Jim Coleman, although I had attended a packed session at the same ASA at which Foundations had been subject to detailed scrutiny by a panel of speakers (Harrison White, Randall Collins and Jeffrey Alexander), followed by a vigorous defence from the author and animated discussion from the floor. After this, and Randall Collins’ description of Coleman as the ‘Karl Marx of the twenty-first century’, I was more convinced than ever that he would be an ideal subject for a Falmer volume. I decided to drop my ‘rational’ decision not to edit any more volumes in the series, borne along by the sheer intellectual excitement promised by an engagement with Jim Coleman’s work together with the infectious enthusiasm and conviction of Goldthorpe, Müller, Merton and many others whom I had consulted. The previous day, I had also been able to speak with Aage B.Sørensen, who had assured me that the Coleman festschrift he was co-editing (Sørensen and Spilerman, 1993) would be unlikely to overlap with my projected volume.

At Merton’s eightieth birthday celebration I only managed to speak with Jim Coleman—bottle of cold beer in hand—for around five minutes, but this was enough to gain agreement in principle to proceed with the volume and to correspond further about the details and timing. The one thing that remains very clearly in my mind from this meeting was Jim Coleman’s answer to my request that he should write a concluding chapter to the volume within around three months of receiving the completed manuscript. He said that he had absolutely no difficulty in writing at present, and that as long as he had advanced warning he could easily turn it round in three months. I had no doubt that he meant it and that I would have no problems on this front.

The day after my return from Washington Malcolm Clarkson, Managing Editor of Falmer Press, confirmed his agreement to publish the volume, and a day later, on 17 August 1990, I wrote to Jim asking him to begin the process of identifying with me the ten or twelve themes in his work against which we would invite ‘pro’ and ‘con’ contributors. I also said that I was not sure how we would deal with Foundations, suggesting we could invite four or five stand-alone or overview contributions rather than a series of ‘pro’ and ‘con’ papers, as in the previous Falmer volumes. My aim was to go ahead fairly swiftly, seeking completed contributions by mid-1992 so that he would receive the manuscript around September 1992, just after the end of his year as ASA President. He responded on 31 August 1990 with an extended handwritten fax:

First pardon the handwriting. I’ve got my secretary tied up with other things, and I wanted to get an initial response off to you before our long weekend.

I’m certainly pleased to be invited to join the distinguished ‘Falmer sociologists’. In some respects, however, I wish this had come a couple of years later, for a single reason: I regard the most lasting and most important part of my work that which is represented by Foundations of Social Theory. I believe, however, that it will take a couple of years of discussion and debate before the implications of the book come to be out in the open, so to speak. What I mean can be compared to the reaction of people (including news analysts) to an event like the US invasion of Grenada, an event which initially created mixed reactions, and then resulted in a crystallization of opinion strongly backing the action and favoring the President’s decision. The problem was that people didn’t know how they felt until they knew how others felt. It took a lot of talking and listening, even by the broadcasters, until people came to have an idea just what the event meant, just how to interpret and react to it.

This is what one would call, I suppose, a social definition of reality, and it clearly depends on more than the content of the event. It depends also upon the social circles within which it reverberates. (As I write this, I am reminded of a picture on television news of frenzied crowds in Baghdad after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, while the definition of the event throughout the West was altogether different.)

This is the kind of phenomenon that will occur with that book. Someone writing a review or making comments on it now will do so without the benefit of the social definition of reality. It’s not principally that they won’t know which side to take. It is, rather, that their reaction will be a ‘thin’ one, without the kind of depth that a subsequent reaction will have after the book has been discussed at length, and after it has had a lot of people scratching through it, attempting to pick off the fleas, so to speak.

For this reason, I would not like to sign up Collins and White [who had discussed Foundations at the ASA session mentioned above, JC] to do something on the book now. Their critiques were o.k., but nothing profound. Over the next year, there will come to be critiques, both overall positive and overall negative, which will have a depth and richness that nothing written or done now will have. All that will emerge. But it needs time to percolate.

I have thought a little about the ten or twelve themes that you mentioned as a starting point, but I find that trying to do this is somewhat distressing. It is, in effect, attempting to sum up one’s life in ten or twelve topics and leads one to say, ‘Does it all come down to nothing more than this?’

As I try to do this it seems to end up consisting of separate themes for each of ten or twelve books. Partly this arises naturally, because around many of the books in particular, controversy circled, and it would be natural to have as a theme each of these (policy-related) topics. But at least on the others, it would seem peculiar to have the themes coincide with the books, rather than in some fashion crosscutting them. But on this I will think further —if you have any ideas or suggestions about how to go about this, please let me know.

The main reasons I wanted to write now were first to let you know that I got your fax, and second, to say that I think it’s important to wait a while before signing anyone up on themes involving the big book.

Jim C.

P.S.Sørensen would be very good as one of the people for the volume.

After speedy consultation with Malcolm Clarkson and Christine Cox of Falmer Press, I wrote back on 7 September expressing complete agreement with his suggestion to postpone the volume pending the ‘social construction of reality’ around Foundations of Social Theory. In the light of his fax I also identified three possible organizing principles for the structure of the volume: the ‘one-theme-per-book’ approach, a thematic approach cross-cutting his books, or simply inviting individuals whom we agreed it would be good to include in the volume to select their own themes. At the back of my mind, too, was the wish to break away from the ‘pro’ and ‘con’ format, which had been invented by the two co-editors of the previous volumes, Celia and Sohan Modgil.

Jim wrote back on 11 September, again by handwritten fax:

I’m pleased that you’re willing to delay the volume until FST has had a chance to undergo, as you put it, the social construction of reality. As far as the rest is concerned, the work in sociology of education will, of course, play a reasonably large role (although my most important book before FST was Introduction to Mathematical Sociology in 1964, which has nothing to do with education). But on the education work, I will send you a draft of a piece I am writing for an education journal. This will give an idea of some themes within that theme.

Jim

That piece ‘for an education journal’ was eventually published in 1991 as ‘Reflections on Schools and Adolescents’, and is reproduced with Jim Coleman’s permission as Chapter 2 of this volume.

Around four months later, after I been able to delve more deeply into his writings, I wrote to Jim Coleman again on 7 January 1991 suggesting we should try and fix on themes for the volume which would encourage contributors to range more widely than simply discussing a single book. As examples I suggested themes such as ‘the social experience of adolescence’ or ‘educational opportunity and school segregation’ rather than book titles such as The Adolescent Society or Equality of Educational Opportunity/High School Achievement. I was also coming round to the view that Foundations would be best treated by a series of freestanding chapters, and not by the ‘pro’ and ‘con’ format. I concluded by asking Jim if he would make an initial attempt at some themes and contributors. He responded on 4 March 1991:

I’m sorry about the delay in response to your letter of 7 January about the book on my work. I will try to respond with a few ideas about themes, and then a few names of people. I will first discuss themes independent of Foundations, then some things related to it, and finally some names.

One theme would bring together The Adolescent Society, Youth: Transition to Adulthood, and Becoming Adult in a Changing Society, together with related papers. This has to do with the social organization of education, and of the period of adolescence and youth. It is broadly concerned with the question of how children grow into adults during the ages of about 14–20, and how the institutional structure in which they find themselves affects that. Some possible people for this would be Sarane Boocock, Aage Sørensen (both former students), Michael Rutter, Torsten Husén (Sweden).

A second broad area would be that represented by the Westview Press collection published in 1990, titled Achievement and Equality in Education. This covers not only Equality of Educational Opportunity and Trends in School Segregation, but also High School Achievement and Public and Private High Schools: The Impact of Communities, and a number of related papers. The last of these begins to move back in more sociological directions by examining the role of families, communities and religious institutions in education, and introducing the concept of social capital. This is possibly too broad an overall area and perhaps should be split. I have had lots of critics in this work, some more extreme than others, along with some who are not so critical. Some economists who have been in on this, from the less critical to the more critical, are Eric Hanushek, Myron Lieberman, Richard Murnane, Glen Cain and Harold Watts. Sociologists are Andrew McPherson, Peter Cuttance (both at Edinburgh), Aage Sørensen, Reynolds Farley, Barbara Heyns and Maureen Hallinan.

Related to this area is something about which I have not written much, but which enters into some of the above writings: the issue of parental choice vs assignment by school district in education. Lieberman from the above list, Charles Glenn, John Chubb and Terry Moe are people who know this work and have written in the area.

There have been several things in my career which have been relatively single-shot activities, though they have had a fairly extensive response. My early participation as a junior author in Union Democracy has had indirect effects on later work. That book has generated enormous response from sociologists over the years, but it is more attributable to Marty Lipset, the senior author. Community Conflict, a short monograph, and a couple of other related publications, is another minor direction. Medical Innovation and a couple of papers constitute still another.

There is one direction of work which is not greatly evident in my publications (there are only 6 or 7 papers in it). It concerns social simulation games, either as a teaching device, or as a form of social theory. This work, which I began about 1960 and continued until about 1973, was the path to the theoretical direction taken in all my theoretical publications since the late 1960s, and culminating in Foundations. There are several publications related to this, although not all of them discuss games. Most are in the general area of collective decisions. People who have done work in this area and who know my work are Erling Schild, Michael Inbar (both in Israel), Gudmund Hernes (Norway), Richard Duke (a political scientist), Benjamin Zablocki, Sarane Boocock.

One theme of a number of my publications has been the role of policy-related or applied research in the social sciences, and its relation both to social policy and social theory. This has been implicit, and sometimes explicit, in some of my work in education, and there have been some papers solely devoted to this. Some people who are relevant here are Peter Rossi, Walter Williams, Carol Weiss, Bob Boruch (a psychologist).

A major direction of my work from graduate school on has been the broad field of ‘mathematical sociology’. My work in this area has been divided in two parts, the first mostly focused around stochastic processes, and the second mostly focused around models of purposive action, and market models. The former had little theoretical content, but consisted of mathematical models for a wide range of social processes. The latter is mathematics appropriate for the theoretical work in Foundations, and is to be found not only there (in Part IV), but in a 1973 book Mathematics of Collective Action, and in some papers in the Cambridge University Press collection. The former is in Introduction to Mathematical Sociology (probably my most highly-regarded book until Foundations) and Models of Change and Response Uncertainty, both in 1964, as well as the paper ‘The Mathematics of Change’, in 1968. People who would be possible authors in this 1955–1968 mathematical direction are Aage Sørensen, Seymour Spilerman, Gudmund Hernes (Norway), Michael Hannan, Nancy Tuma, Kazuo Yamaguchi, David Bartholomew (statistics, England). People who would be good for the 1973–1990 mathematical work are Hernes, Schild, Tony Tam, Piotr Swistak.

Now to come to FST. I believe one might think of the work in the book as falling into three or four areas. The one that is more easily separable is Part IV, Modern Society. This is least related to the con...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Falmer Sociology Series
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Reflections on Schools and Adolescents
• 3 Youth and Adolescence: A Historical and Cultural Perspective
• 4 Coleman’s Contributions to Understanding Youth and Adolescence
• 5 This Little School Went to Market: Private Schooling in Post-Communist Poland
• 6 Early Schooling and Educational Inequality: Socioeconomic Disparities in Children’s Learning
• 7 Coleman’s Contributions to Education: Theory, Research Styles and Empirical Research
• 8 The Sociological Contribution to Social Policy Research
• 9 The Political Context of Social Policy Research
• 10 Games with Simulated Environments: Educational Innovation and Applied Sociological Research
• 11 Methodological Individualism and Collective Behaviour
• 12 Mobility Measurement Revisited
• 13 Self-Employment and Entrepreneurship: A Study of Entry and Exit
• 14 Educational Opportunities and School Effects
• 15 The Violation of Normative Rules and the Issue of Rationality in Individual Judgments
• 16 Foundational Problems in Theoretical Sociology
• 17 Rational Choice as Grand Theory: James Coleman’s Normative Contribution to Social Theory
• 18 Constitutionalism versus Relationalism: Two Versions of Rational Choice Sociology
• 19 Analyzing the Economy: On the Contribution of James S.Coleman
• 20 Can Rational Action Theory Unify Future Social Science?
• 21 A Vision for Sociology
• Appendix 1: Teaching James Coleman, by Robert K.Merton (April 1994)
• Appendix 2: Transcripts of Drafts for a Concluding Chapter, by James S. Coleman (March 1995), with a Commentary by Zdzislawa A. Coleman (June 1995)
• Appendix 3: In Memoriam James S.Coleman (1926–1995), Speeches Given at the Memorial Service, 19 May 1995, in the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, Chicago
• Appendix 4: Curriculum Vitae and Publications of James S.Coleman (March 1995) compiled by Debra A.Milton
• Bibliography
• List of Contributors
• Author Index
• Subject Index