Lecture 1: September 4th, 2018

MAPPING RESEARCH IN SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION

General Notes
Examination day: Present your paper in 10 minutes and get feedbacks from the others.

Lecturer Notes
The Craft of Sociology written by Bourdieu and his collaborators will be the main source because in many
lectures, we will return to this book.

When we talk about research traditions, it is important to separate epistemology and ontology.

Subjectivism
Descartes: The distinction between the pure thought (cogito) which has no physical existence and is
located in our brain from the substance that has existence. I am thinking therefore I am. Descartes has
learnt so many things such as math, geometric etc., but He did not trust on them. He also doubted his
senses. Doubting is part of consciousness.

Kant: We could get knowledge through perception and categories of understanding. Our ability to
understand is subordinated to the categories of understanding which is inherited (built in). The criticism
of this idea is that the categories change over time and in different place. E.g. when we understand a tree,
we will locate it in certain categories (time, place, etc.).

Husserl: Reality is as it appears to as. Husserl did not believe in categories of thought.

Objectivism
Auguste Comte
Law of Three Stages
 Theological: the social phenomenon is caused by God
 Metaphysical: there is an abstract force that governs the social phenomena
 Positivistic: science could explain
Science itself develops through those stages. E.g. in early times, science is linked to religion.
Sociology discovers the laws that govern the social phenomena.

Lecture 2: September 6th, 2018

MARX, WEBER, EDUNOMICS

Lecturer Notes

Aims
1. Basic features of the sociology of Marx, Weber and rational choice
2. Marx vs Weber
3. What Sociology of Education draws on Marx, Weber and economic theory
4. Differences among them

Additional readings (not mandatory): Randall Collins (The Credential Society) and Bourdieu (Forms of
Capital in Richardson)
Karl Marx
 Marx lived in England for a long time and pay close attention to the development of capitalism
there.
 Communist Manifesto (1848): The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class
struggles; Society is more splitting up into two great hostile camps: Bourgeoise and Proletariat;
Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to the DOL, the work of the proletarians have lost
all individual character.
 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859): … men inevitably enters into definite
relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a
given stage in development of their material forces of production. The totality of this relations of
production constitute the economic structure of society that becomes the foundation of the
superstructure; At certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come
into conflict with the existing relations of production. The changes in the economic foundation
lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole superstructure. The bourgeois mode of
production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production.
 Method of the political economy (1857): We need to go beyond the common idea of society. We
have to look at the building block(s) of society.

Max Weber
 He is inspired by Marx.
 For Weber, to understand society, you must begin from the individual. The analysis of individual
links to social action.
 The Protestant Ethics and The Spirit of Capitalism (1905).

The Legacy of Marx and Weber

 Unlike Durkheim, Marx and Weber did not write specifically about education.
 However, they could inspire us to make an analysis to relate education and social stratification.

Marxist Sociology of Education

 Most central in the 1960s and 1970s.
 Basic idea that education is an integral part of economy and society and cannot be understood in
itself and that society is dominated by social conflicts. Education often has the function of
reproducing class society and simultaneously legitimizing it.
 Often a critical starting point: change in education and society.
 Representatives: Bowless-Gintis, Apple, Giroux, Althusser, Baudelot, Paul Willis and could be
Bourdieu.
 Schooling in Capitalist America (1976)
This book appeared before the neoliberal wave.
Main arguments:
 Education is part of society and the economy.
 Correspondence between how the economy is structured and how the school works.
 Education changed according to the economic condition.
Introduction part
 The promise that education will bring you to a bright future is false. It is not what it
promises.
 The crisis of the educational system is ultimately a crisis of the capitalist system.
Critique of educational reform
 Educational reforms can be said to emanate from three perspectives on the function of
education: integrative function, equality function and developing function.
 Technocratic-Meritocracy: differentiation is necessary (rooted in functionalism).
 Actually none of those function exists. Class, Gender and Race determines the level of
education attained and not talent.
 The main function of education is to discipline future workers.
Expansion of elementary education
 The expansion of elementary education in the 1800s coincided with the transition from
an agrarian and craft-based economy to an industrial-based capitalist economy.
 Upper social strata and capitalists were very active in establishing elementary mass
education.
 School functions to house people and to discipline them to become a worker.
Expansion of secondary education
 During 1890-1930s, secondary education expanded and it was coincided with the
emergence and dominance of the progressivism in education and a strong concentration
of capital in the economy.
Expansion of HE
 Took place after WW II until late 1960s.
 Private foundations (e.g Carnegie) was very influential in the development.
Conclusion
 No democratization (rather checking and sorting).
 Not controlled by workers’ demand, rather legitimation of the prevailing order.
 The expansion of the three levels on the educational system coincide with the major
changes and tensions within the economic system.
 Economic world changed faster than education.
 There is a potential for change in education but it requires a change in the whole society
first.

Weberian Tradition
 Monopolization of educational resources.
 Closure through education, strategy for professional groups
 Representatives: Frank Parkin, Randall Collins, Raymond Murphy
 Researchers of professions and professional systems: Andrew Abbot and Eliot Freidson.
 Margaret Archer, critical realism and the history of educational systems.
 The Credential Society (1978) – Collins
 Studying the expansion of education in the US and connects it with one hand migration
and culture as explanations and, on the other hand, economy effect.
 The Technocracy Model
School requirements of job in industrial society constantly increase because of technological change. Two
processes: proportion of jobs requiring low skill decreases while high skill increases; the same jobs are
upgraded in skill requirements. Formal education provides training necessary for a more highly skill jobs.
Actually, school is very inefficient as a means of training for work skills.
 The organization of economy: productive labor -> working class, political labor -> middle
class.
  Cultural and economic markets: Economic and Cultural ae on the same level and partially
interwoven. Cultural market contains two types of cultural production that are indigenous
and natural and formal.
 The economic development in the US
The 1800’s: extensive industrialization and mechanization of agriculture, establishment of infrastructure
and concentration of capital by the monopolization of companies.
The 1990’s: extensive and diversified immigration and a stable working class numerically, declining shares
of agriculture, increasing shares of services.
 Sponsored and contest mobility (Turner).
 The American educational system as a cultural market (pg. 92).
 Expansion of education: explained by the contest mobility and immigration.
 Expansion of primary, secondary education and tertiary education
 Conclusion: the professions and groups within bureaucracies have benefited from the
expansion in terms of pay.

Gary Becker’s article

 Human capital is very important in many countries for the expansion of education.
 Based on the idea that individuals behave rational and calculate prose and cons with different
alternatives before acting.
 Behavior is driven by a much richer set of values and preferences.
 Individuals maximize welfare as they conceive it.
 Human capital explains income inequalities, high earners better educated.
 IQ -> education -> higher earnings.
 Human capital also explains gender differences, increasing investments of women in education
and job skills leads to a lesser gender gap.

Lecture 3: September 11th, 2018

DURKHEIM

Lecture Notes

Positivist covers at least 3 different concepts

- August Comte’s version of positivism.
- Logical Positivist: logical empiricism.
- American empiricism. -> It had its heydays in 1950s and 1960s. This is the time of using huge
quantitative method to conduct research. The main idea is data should talk about themselves.
This is what people nowadays usually refer as positivist. In addition, the era of American
empiricism was the time where sociology expanded enormously. This version of positivism is
different from the logical positivism and Comte’s positivism.

Durkheimian Traditions
Here are the collaborators in the first series of L’Annee sociologique
 - Durkheim - Hlbawchs - Fuconnet
- Mauss - Bourgin - Davy
- Hubert - Bougle - Granet
- Herz - Lapie - Levy-Bruhl
- Simiand - Parodi

Durkheim’s tripartite division in art, practical theory and science

- Art (e.g. the art of engineering, medicine etc.). In every society you must have that art.
- Practical theory. It is the theory that tells how to educate etc. Practical theory contains advices.
- Science. It should tell why education as it is.

Find out Moral Education by Durkheim.

The book entitled Evolution of Pedagogic Thought in France is a series of lecture given by Durkheim in
Paris for upper secondary teachers. Acquiring the knowledge does not mean you understand the art of
communicating it. Durkheim stressed that education changed in 1890s where religion and education was
separated. Durkheim also stressed that the educational system has changed in the past and this change
could also occur in the future. Why changes occurred? There was a change in social group relations that
affected the school system.

Social facts: consist of ways of acting, thinking and feeling that are external to the individual and are
endowed with a coercive power by virtue which they exercise control over him. E.g. norms.
We should look at social facts from outside. Social fact is to be searched among other social facts. For
example, in order to understand the diminishing bullying in schools, you should see the changed collective
representations in society or recruitment of students from different backgrounds. So, it is not the wording
in the national curriculum (Foucauldian) or intention of teacher (psychology). In other words, you should
take away your prejudice.

Lecture 4: September 13th, 2018

BOURDIEU

General Notes
When reading, the most important is that you get grasp of the characteristics of the traditions (Comte’s
positivism, Marxist traditions, etc.). Find out the question, the method, how do they accomplish their
work, the kinds of explanation, ways of interpreting and presenting result etc. Thus, you don’t have to
remember all details.

Please email a small (1-2 pages) of your exam paper no later than October 12th 23.59. It will be discussed
on Oct 16th.

Lecture Notes
When Bourdieu talked about cultural nobility, He denoted to those who were rich in cultural capital
(prominent artist and university professors).

Bourdieu noted that there was a struggle between dominant fraction in the upper class (cultural capital
owner vs economic capital owner) to define the most legitimate standard in society. In addition, Bourdieu
stated that a way of life / culture is inherited in the family in the form of habitus through which the
structure is reproduced. The education favors the dominant culture so that the lower class was
disadvantaged. Who was the bourgeoise?

Bourdieu is similar to Durkheim’s social fact when approaching the taste. Bourdieu did not start from the
consciousness of individual (??).

‘Critique of Judgement of Taste’ refers to Kant’s three famous critiques (critique of pure reason, critique
of practical reason, critique of judgment). Kantian idea: a pure aesthetic judgment is an experience when
you have no interest or theory or concept or certain schema to understand it. However, Bourdieu gave
critique that your disinterested/simple/innocent attitude towards works of art is a certain kind of taste
which is inherited from family and acquired in educational institutions.

When Bourdieu showed a picture of old hand, an upper class responded that it remined him/her to an
artist etc. On the contrary, lower class responded that why there is no head etc. Well educated upper
class do not care about the woman/person in the picture which lower class looking for.

The main difference between Bourdieu and Kant could be seen in the dirty map of social science. Kant is
extremely subjectivist whereas Bourdieu has an objectivism stance to a certain degree so that He
discussed social condition, historical development etc. that fall into the objectivism topic.

When using Bourdieu, it is important to study his method of understanding struggle, not the outcome
since the outcome might have been changing.

Key concepts
- Habitus
- Capital
- Field
- Strategies
- Field
Explanation model ala Bourdieu
- What happen in social life is what people carry with them (habitus, capital) and the social world
(social space, fields) in which they enter.
- Individual has strategies to adapt.
- However, strategies are restricted due to their background. Thus, you do not have a wide
spectrum of strategies.

Habitus might be analyzed as incorporated capital. Habitus is how we are prepared to face something. It
is possible to change the habitus, but it takes long time.
 Lecture 5: September 25th, 2018
SOCIAL CLASS AND GENDER

Lecture Notes

Marx
- Sometimes Marx uses dichotomous model (bourgeoise vs proletarian), sometimes He elaborates
them more (industrial capitalist, financial capitalist, landlords, peasantry, petty bourgeoise and
wage laborers).
- Class in itself: a more objectivism idea.
- Class for itself: a more political idea. This is a class that aware of its interest.

Weber
- Class defined according to an economic logic.
- Status groups are defined according to a cultural and social order, based on religion, tradition,
honor, etc.
- Parties can be formed on different grounds including class and status groups. In the case of
Sweden, there are parties that are based on class, but also those who are based on status group.
- Class and status groups are related but not completely overlapping.
- Weber’s notion of class (Economy and Society)
1. What you possess in the market determined your life chances.
2. Class situation is market situation.
3. Classes are stratified according to their relations to the production and acquisitions of good.
On the other hand, status groups are stratified according to principles of consumption which
is represented by life style.
4. E.g. someone who has credential in the labor market which is not shared by all will have better
life chances.

Challenges to class analysis

- Expansion of the middle class, not a polarization.
- Differentiation of ownership (shareholder) and control and management (manager). See, Ralf
Dahrendorf.
- Individualization instead of class for itself.

Marxist Traditions
- Nicos Poulantzas
- Louis Althusser
- Samuel Bowless and Herbert Gintis
- Goran Therborn
- Eric Olin Wright

Weberian Tradition
- Goldthorpe’s class categories

Social Stratification
- Social strata, not classes.
- Hierarchical, but not relational.
- No distinct boundaries between position.
 - Focus on status, not resources or economic aspects.
- Stress on social mobility.
- Developed in US.
- Davis and Moore.
- Blau and Duncan.

Rosemary Crompton
- Differentiates class in itself and class for itself and relates this to two main traditions: class
structures and outcomes and class formation.
- Differentiate according to methods: survey based statistical analysis and case studies of
occupational groups or classes.
- The importance of the entry of women in the labour force and the insufficiency of class analysis.

Bourdieu
- Social space: space of capitals, space of habitus and space of lifestyles. Habitus connects the
former and the third spaces.
- Three dimensions: volume of capital, composition of capital and development over time.
- Social class in Bourdieu’s notion is very complex (pg. 106). So, it is better if we define our focus
from the first place what are we going to analyze. Many researches just focus on the volume and
composition of capital.

Simone de Bouvoir
- The book of Toril Moi analyzes the individual case in relation to the French social structure (highly
socially divided, with a strong cultural domination of the upper class), division of gender
(superiority of man), educational system (gendered).

Lecture 6: September 27th, 2018

SEMINAR: The Craft of Sociology

Lecture Notes
1. It is not enough just to describe a case from the observation (spontaneous sociology) because it
is the task of a sociologist to uncover what is hidden.
2. Bourdieu used statistics to avoid his subjectivism and doing a spontaneous sociology.
3. The first part of the book is about the break from categorization / hypothesis that are developed
within the field.
4. When discussing about vigilance, Bourdieu pointed to a situation where the condition is not fully
covered. In other words, there is another thing we should find out. Moreover, we could translate
vigilance into critique.
5. We should not take for granted any terminologies since they are usually the product of
contestations. For instance, the term working class might be the product of struggle between
administrative officer and politician.
 Lecture 7: Oct 2nd, 2018
SEMINAR: Class and Gender

- Marx’s superstructure is field of art, culture, etc. in Bourdieu’s conception. However, it is

important to underline that Bourdieu stressed the relative autonomy of each field while Marx
tend to see that the base-structure significantly affects the superstructure.
- Since Weber is more complex than Marx, He is rarely combined with other theories. For Marx’s
thought itself, his thought has been combined with other perspectives such as feminist theory.

Lecture 9: October 9th, 2018

FOUCAULT

Lecture Notes
- The archeology of knowledge is Foucault’s only explicitly methodological work. This book explains
how the previous works (e.g. Discipline and Punish) are done.
- Important questions: How and why could something is said or not, how truth is changing over
time.
- His book: The Order of Things
a. In this book, Foucault develops his central claim that all periods of history have its own
underlying epistemological assumptions that determines what is acceptable, true, worth
knowing, meaningful and scientific discourse.
b. Episteme – conditions of discourse, changes over time.
c. In this book, Foucault studies economics, linguistics and biology where He found that
episteme changes over time.
- His book: Surveiller et punir
a. Foucault explores the culture shift in the penal system using historical documents from
France, focusing on the body, disclosing new forms of technical power which can be found in
other places than those for penalty, places such as schools.
b. Power is there with another form.
c. In this book, He explains the panopticon.
d. Capitalist power is manifested in prison. In capitalist society we behave because we imagine
someone else is watching on us. This is what appears in the panopticon.
e. Capitalist society is built upon discipline society.
- Discursive regularities
Four hypothesises: we could analyze the object, concepts, theory of the discourse.

Lecture 10: October 11th, 2018

GOFFMAN

Lecture Notes
- Total institution: a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals
cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time together lead an enclosed formally
administered round of life.
- We sleep, work and eat in different places under different authorities. However, in total
institution you do all things at the same time under the same authority.
- One example of total institution relating to education is a boarding school.
- Another application: focus on the school culture and student life within schools that are its
practices, student unions, school related activities and how these activities related to student’s
life within and outside school. In Ylva’s study, she found that out of school schedule there is
extracurricular activity that resemble schooling activity (debating, philosophy group etc.) which
support the goal of the school. Furthermore, some students field humiliated, but the union leader
said that it is important for students. In your case study it is possible to focus on how extra school
hours could be added to prepare students for the high-stakes testing.
- Goffman used ethnographic method to gather data.
- Goffman actually proved that the goal of the total institution to re-correct / cure people was
wrong since in the institution, people was distanced from the social life so how could they adjust
to the social life after go out from the institution. It is the goal of the total institution to cure/re-
correct people who are perceived as posing threat or do not function well in society.
- Asylum and symbolic interaction perspective: the work of power in social interaction. “The
analysis of power as an approach to understand social life is crucial.

Lecture 11: October 16th, 2018

SUMMING UP

1. When we refer to one research tradition, we have to pay attention on his/her thought trajectory.
E.g. Marx and Foucault developed his thought over time.
2. Bowless-Gintis’ thought is rooted in Marx’s historical materialism.
3. Educational capital is just one part of cultural capital.
4. Marx = Bourdieu
a. Class in itself = Class on Paper
b. Class for itself = Mobilized class
5. Do not trust Crompton too much.
6. Comte’s positivist does not relate with statistics. Comte claimed that we should not use statistic
since human society is complex.
7. Comments on your draft
a. Goffman
Goffman’s total institution is more applicable to a boarding school or school with tight
schedule and system where you spend most of your time in the same place. It is not fair to
analyze ordinary public school.
b. Bowless-Gintis
Historical materialism. Correspondence principle -> domination in school mirrors that in
society. It is deterministic. Bourdieu’s notion of field is ‘better’ since it points to the autonomy
of a field.