Representation of transport: A Rural Destination Analysis

Moscovici’s social representations perspective is applied to a study of transport in a rural destination. The principles are demonstrated using empirical data from a questionnaire survey, developed following in-depth qualitative research. The data analysis strategy was founded on inductive reasoning, by employing cluster analysis and correspondence analysis. A social representations analysis demonstrates how individuals draw on socially accepted explanations of transport where they have little or no direct knowledge or experience of the actual transport modes (notably the alternatives to the car). By so doing, ideas are further perpetuated. Importantly there is ambiguity surrounding responsibility to take positive action yet a key to addressing transport issues is acknowledgement of responsibility. Keywords: social representations, transport, rural destinations

Practical Engagement

This chapter is an extract taken from a book which comprises 25 influential articles by Derek Robbins, one of Britain's leading scholars on Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist. The following sample chapter applies Bourdieu's thinking to educational issues and debates. Focusing in particular on the author’s use of the work of Bourdieu to provide a framework for students undertaking the MA/MSc by Independent Study begun in 1984 at the School for Independent Study at the North-East London Polytechnic

Legitimation

Dictionary entry on Lyotard’s consideration of legitimation in La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir (Lyotard, 1979) [The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Lyotard, 1984)]. As its sub-title indicates, Lyotard’s book was concerned with the nature of knowledge within post-modern societ

Introduction: Bourdieu’s practical logic of the social sciences and its implications for international, cross-cultural understanding.

Introduction to Pierre Bourdieu II. The second volume in a four volume set in which Derek Robbins provides the first complete assessment of the sociological achievements of Pierre Bourdieu one of the key European sociologists of the 20th century

Georges Canguilhem, 1904-1995

An extract from The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology which outlines the work and influence of Georges Canguilhem. Canguilhem made important contributions to epistemology and his discussions of health and disease relate as pertinently to the societal as to the individual condition

The Significance of Socio-genetic Understanding: Response to Fowler

The following article is a published response to a review of On Bourdieu, Education and Society (Fowler, B (2006) ‘Clashing Interpretations of Bourdieu's Theory of Practice: Derek Robbins, On Bourdieu, Education and Society. Oxford: Bardwell Press, 2006. ISBN 0_9548_6836_6’ Journal of Classical Sociology 2007; 7 (3) 367) by Derek Robbins, the original author. In this response Robbins criticises the tendency amongst social scientists to advocate the exploitation of biographical material without challenging the detached superiority of scientific professional. He reasserts the need to develop a sociology of ‘life-world interaction’ but accepts that it must not concentrate on the interpersonal to the neglect of an objective perspective especially concerning conditions of disadvantage and inequality

Kant et les lumieres anglaises

This chapter outlines the development of post-Kantian analysis of the thought of Kant, reviewing studies of Ernst Cassirer and Lucien Goldmann to arrive at the approach of Bourdieu. The author’s intention is to show that Bourdieu's concepts - especially those of habitus and field - could be lent to an appreciation of different forms taken by the Enlightenment in various countries that would not be a simple comparison of influences or only an analysis of variants of a generic structure. The author then indicates some implications for the analysis of the relationship between eighteenth century British and Kantian thought

The origins, early development and status of Bourdieu’s concept of ‘cultural capital’

The paper examines the context of the first introduction of the concept of 'cultural capital' in the sociology of education analyses undertaken in the early 1960s and published by Bourdieu in collaboration with Jean-Claude Passeron in 'Les étudiants et leurs études' (1964a) and Les Héritiers (1964b). It first considers the cultural contexts within which Bourdieu's thinking about culture originated – both in relation to his social origins and in relation to his intellectual training. It then examines the extent to which Bourdieu's early anthropological research in Algeria was influenced by his knowledge of American acculturation theory. It concludes that Bourdieu sought to use acculturation theory in a distinctive way – one which he articulated more confidently as he explored the relationship between agency and structural explanation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The specific educational researches which stimulated the articulation of the concept of 'linguistic' or 'cultural' capital belonged to the period in which Bourdieu was only just beginning to refine his post-structuralist philosophy of social scientific explanation. To use these concepts now involves deploying them reflexively in accordance with Bourdieu's later thinking rather than at face value as they were first developed during the period in which he and Passeron were 'apprentice' researchers

Phenomenology

Dictionary entry on phenomenology in Lyotard's thought, especially in his first book La Phénoménologi

Book review of Frédéric Keck: Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Entre philosophie et anthropologie. Contradiction et participation

This published text, therefore, represents a reversion to consideration of the problem which concerned Keck before his studies of Lévi-Strauss. It chooses to explore the epistemology of the social sciences through its consideration of the inter-disciplinary nature of Lévy-Bruhl’s work but, in doing so, it never reflects sufficiently on the discourse within which that consideration itself is conducted. More than usual here, the conceptual apparatus brought to bear on the object of study is integrally involved with that object