Sociology of Education

Tomas Boronski,Nasima Hassan

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781526471932
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This textbook explains the basic principles of sociology and how a sociological understanding is vital for understanding how ideas about education and schooling have developed over time and how these issues directly affect our own lives today.

This fully updated second edition will encouragestudents to think critically about hotly contested debates in education and what has influenced different perspectives on these issues.

New to this edition:

· Two new chapters on early approaches to sociological research and social class and social mobility

· A new case study feature throughout the book

· Enhanced coverage of recent education policy, child poverty, political extremism and the politics of independent and grammar schools.

This is essential reading for students on undergraduate Education Studies degrees, and for sociology courses covering educational issues.

1 Sociology and education studies

Chapter aims

This chapter will examine sociology in the context of education studies and compare the sociological contribution to that of psychology and philosophy. It provides a brief introduction to the role of philosophy as both the mother and father of all modern academic disciplines, including the foundation disciplines of education studies. However, it also offers a word of warning about the way that such disciplines are used and the need to adopt a cautious and critical approach in our studies as students of education. Finally, there is a brief discussion of how disciplines such as psychology can be enhanced by a recognition of the social context and dimensions of education.

Key words: sociology, psychology, philosophy, educated, education, sociological imagination, disruptive experiment, inductive, deductive, theory formation, evidence, hypothesis, grand theory, middle-range theory, classical theory.

Introduction

This book is about education. More specifically, it examines education from a sociological perspective and provides you with an insight into the ways in which sociology can help us to understand some of the key debates in education today, as well as to challenge some of the things that are taken for granted and often go unquestioned. As students of education, you can probably identify a variety of debates and trends in education that currently attract media and academic attention. However, it is just as important to identify those things we are so used to accepting that they go unnoticed or unchallenged but can, nonetheless, have a significant impact on society. For some critics of the education system, there are a variety of generally accepted assumptions that they might question, such as the notion that our elected politicians should decide how our children need to be educated, that children should be tested on a regular basis and labelled with relevant degrees of success or failure, that schools are the best places to ‘educate’ children, that adults always know what is best for children or that children must acquire certain knowledge to be defined as ‘educated’. These are just some of the issues that you, as education studies students, should be thinking about.

Thinking critically, however, does not necessarily mean thinking negatively, but it does mean challenging accepted wisdom and taken-for-granted assumptions that might seem, at first sight, to be unimpeachable. It also means being open-minded about conventional practices and being prepared to discuss them in a reasoned and academic way rather than on the basis of prejudice or merely personal opinion. Many of us find it very difficult and even stressful to do this because it may undermine our most strongly held views. Some social commentators and writers may seem to say things that sound eccentric or completely unacceptable. In the 1960s, for example, John Holt (1969) suggested that children should be able to choose what they wished to study rather than to be told what they must know. In 1970, Ivan Illich (1971), a colleague of Holt’s at the Centre for Intercultural Documentation (CIDOC) in Mexico, suggested that schools are places that inhibit learning and should be replaced by ‘learning webs’ and ‘skill exchanges’, which can be used by all freely and voluntarily. Schools, Illich claims, are places of control and forced learning that merely create social division and inequalities. More recently, Richard Dawkins (2006) suggested that religious teaching in some faith schools amounts to ‘child abuse’. This is a particularly contentious claim at a time when many faith communities are attempting to set up their own schools, and both main parties have been supporting and encouraging faith schools in their schools policies.

Thinking point 1.1

Identify a value, belief or principle you hold very strongly. This might be religious, cultural or a common-sense assumption. Think of some of the challenges or opposing views to it. Is it easy to take these opposing views seriously or to be open-minded about them? Try to reflect on your feelings.

It may be a good idea to read Dawkins (2006) or Illich (1971), or at least discuss what you have read, with others on your course. Study groups are a good way to share ideas and reflect on the meaning and significance of new and challenging subjects.

A sociological imagination

The key question here is what does sociology have to offer these debates and controversies? At a very basic level, it could be said that such challenges to some of our most strongly held assumptions can act like a ‘disruptive experiment’ (Garfinkel, 1967) forcing us to re-examine the foundations of these beliefs and, perhaps, identify some of their flaws and weaknesses. At a more academic level, it is often said that to appreciate the full potential of sociology we must first develop a sociological imagination. This is a term coined by C. Wright Mills (1959), an American sociologist, who claimed that sociology encourages us to take a deeper look at every-day events and aspects of our society, and to make a point of challenging the familiar things we tend to take for granted.

In his introductory text on sociology, Giddens (1989) uses the example of a cup of coffee to tease out the ways in which we can imagine a cup of coffee. For example, a cup of coffee is not merely a hot drink, it has a history: coffee is a product of colonial contact and (often unfair) international trade, and it is a legal drug; coffee can bring people together: ‘Let’s meet for a coffee’, ‘I’m having a coffee morning’; or it can denote a lifestyle – coffee table, coffee table book, skinny latte.

Thinking point 1.2

A sociological imagination is a distinct way of thinking but can take some practice. You might like to apply it to aspects of education. Try to focus on concepts such as gender, ethnicity, social norms and social class. Again, you might like to do this in your study group.

A key aspect of the sociological imagination according to Wright Mills is the interconnectedness between individual problems and public issues. Individuals experience particular troubles such as poverty, unemployment or educational failure. If an individual becomes unemployed, for example, we may expect them to use their skills and personal qualities to resolve the problem, such as by retraining and attempting to become more employable. However, when such private troubles become widespread and transcend the individual and the local by becoming aspects of the wider society, such as when there is a high level of unemployment, we have an institutional or social problem in that the individual’s personal skills, character and qualities are no longer sufficient to resolve the situation. For Wright Mills, sociology provides the insight that enables us to make the connection between the individual’s situation, and the wider social and historical conditions. However, Wright Mills argues that it is often the case that those in power – policy makers, politicians and business leaders – conceal these public issues by presenting them as private problems, suggesting that the problem lies primarily with the inadequacies of the individuals concerned rather than with the structures within which these individuals exist and act. This can be seen in terms of the current debates in education such as why certain social groups or classes ‘underperform’. Wright Mills’s position on the role of professionals and policy makers is relevant here also because he suggests that many of those in positions of authority and power tend to focus on the ‘pathological’ traits of those who underachieve, rather than on the way in which politicians and policy makers organise the education system. The way that working-class boys are portrayed by politicians provides a good example of this. Responding to an Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) report in 2003 on the ‘underachievement’ of boys, the then School Standards Minister, David Miliband, said:

We have to crack the lad culture that stops too many young boys doing well at school. This culture tells boys that it is fine to play around and not work hard. But this harms their chances of doing well, getting their exams and fulfilling their potential.

(David Miliband quoted on the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) website (Department for Education, 2003).)

It could be argued that narrowing the issue of inequalities in educational achievement down to ‘lad culture’ seems to focus too much on the symptoms when much of the evidence shows that class factors and inequalities play a significant role in this process (Ball, 2008; Bolton, 2010; Dorling, 2011; Ipsos MORI, 2010; Jefferis et al., 2002).

A further dimension of the sociological imagination is that it does not merely accept what are often called common-sense beliefs about society; it encourages us to collect evidence in order to be able to look for patterns and trends, and to be able to support our assertions. Evidence, no matter how convincing, rarely settles any issue because all evidence is subject to interpretation, but it is the basis upon which any credible claims are made. As a general principle, sociology is about theory formation using evidence. Such theory formation can be either inductive, which involves collecting evidence and building a theory on the basis...