129 research outputs found
Sociology and postcolonialism: another 'missing' revolution?
Sociology is usually represented as having emerged alongside European modernity. The latter is frequently understood as sociology's special object with sociology itself a distinctively modern form of explanation. The period of sociology's disciplinary formation was also the heyday of European colonialism, yet the colonial relationship did not figure in the development of sociological understandings. While the recent emergence of postcolonialism appears to have initiated a reconsideration of understandings of modernity, with the development of theories of multiple modernities, I suggest that this engagement is more an attempt at recuperating the transformative aspect of postcolonialism than engaging with its critiques. In setting out the challenge of postcolonialism to dominant sociological accounts, I also address `missing feminist/queer revolutions', suggesting that by engaging with postcolonialism there is the potential to transform sociological understandings by opening up a dialogue beyond the simple pluralism of identity claims
From social rights to the market: neo-liberalism and the knowledge economy
Public higher education has a long history, with its growth associated with mass higher education and the extension of a social right to education from secondary schooling to university education. Following the rise in student numbers since the 1970s, the aspiration to higher education has been universalized, although opportunities remain structured by social background. This paper looks at changing policies for higher education in the UK and the emergence of a neoliberal knowledge regime. This subordinates higher education to the market and shifts the burden of paying for degree courses onto students. It seeks to stratify institutions and extend the role of for-profit providers. From a role in the amelioration of social inequality, universities are now asked to participate actively in the widening inequalities associated with a neoliberal global market order
In Defence of Public Higher Education: Knowledge for a Successful Society (The Alternative White Paper for HE)
The present Conservative Government, like the Coalition Government that preceded it, has an ideological predisposition towards the market and its supposed benefits to consumers, but appears to have no vision of Higher Education and its benefits to students and to the whole of society. These wider societal benefits can be summarised under three aspects: * educating the next generation of the population * carrying out research to address social and scientific challenges * maintaining an independent platform for research into society and science to facilitate democratic debate. The last of these, sometimes drawn under the umbrella of âacademic freedomâ, is the basis of the historic contract between Universities and the State. We contend, following the UNESCO Recommendation (1997), that academic freedom must be sufficient to guarantee the independence of scientific inquiry, commentary and teaching. Pressures from funding agencies and the state are usually cited as the principal threats to academic independence. The last decade has seen the rise of a third threat, namely an increasing managerial interference in academic life deriving from the introduction of market imperatives. These three societal benefits are interconnected. Without independent research there can be no scientific independence and no cutting-edge teaching. Without a focus on critique and challenge, students may see âeducationâ as a mere process of accumulating âfactsâ to meet test criteria. A narrow focus on the acquisition of qualifications undermines the education process itself. Employers have criticised graduate recruits for insufficient creativity, of being rote-taught and thus un-adaptable to a modern business subject to rapid technological change. Importantly, critical skills are necessary to meet the challenge of business and for inclusive democratic engagement. The idea of a University that unites these three aspects is undermined by a new model of Higher Education Institution that sees the investment in human capital only as a private benefit. The Governmentâs White Paper, Success as a Knowledge Economy, and associated legislative programme, consolidate a fee-loan (or debt-finance) model of funding which puts the costs of higher education onto new graduates and future taxpayers, while reducing taxes for current taxpayers â many of whom directly benefit from publicly-supported higher education, or from its wider public benefits. The Government suggests that it is merely replacing direct public funding with one that places the âstudent at the heart of the systemâ. But it proposes that public funding should be directed towards the realisation of the private benefits of higher education, and it fails to acknowledge the wider public benefits that higher education affords. In truth, the proposals place the market at the heart of the system and subordinate the student as a consumer of higher education, with loans functioning as a voucher to present at a university of choice (providing that the student has the grades required). It is our view that this new funding model is wrong in principle and deficient in practice. The regulatory framework that is being introduced in its wake will undermine the declared aims to improve teaching quality, to enhance social mobility, and to improve access and achievement. The extension of university title to for-profit providers will also threaten the wider public benefits of higher education, by allowing them to compete as single-function institutions, and giving them access to publicly-supported loans for their students without a guarantee of their longer term stability. This will intensify existing competition and encourage a ârace to the bottomâ. Our defence of an alternative vision of Higher Education takes place in the context of a dismal lack of leadership by the various mission groups representing universities in the sector â for example, Universities UK and the Russell Group â and other bodies responsible for the sector. Their willing advocacy of a fee-loan model of funding (to avoid possible cuts) has abdicated their leadership role in a proper debate on the values of public higher education. This failure to defend the values of the very public higher education they are chartered to provide is in marked contrast to representations made by another group. Lobbyists on behalf of for-profit providers are seeking a supposed âlevel-playing fieldâ in undergraduate degree provision, despite having no track record of success in the UK, a disastrous record in the USA, and no desire to provide any wider public benefit of their existence. The Governmentâs position is also in marked contrast to public attitudes. The British Social Attitudes Survey (NatCen) has, before and since the introduction of tuition fee changes, regularly asked questions about public attitudes to higher education and inequality. The majority of the population has consistently opposed high levels of student debt, believed that education has a value beyond simply providing the means to a better job, and maintained that inequality in Britain is an obstacle to the fulfillment of opportunities. Perhaps surprisingly, this commitment to the values of publicly-funded higher education is especially marked among those without graduate-level qualifications. Politicians who argue that the latter resent paying taxes to finance education for âmiddle-class peopleâ should seek evidence for this assertion. But the âdebateâ among politicians, members of the BIS secretariat and corporate lobbyists over the issue has been remarkable for its superficial, un-evidenced character. It has also been remarkable for the absence of full public debate (Leach 2016). This Alternative White Paper aims to correct this imbalance. We need a proper debate about the future of UK Higher Education
Global social theory: building resources
There has been an intensification of student protests around the world addressing issues of racial exclusion and racialised hierarchy within the university, including its teaching and research practices. These movements point to urgent concerns about what and how we teach and research, and how the resources of universities might be used to support the amelioration of injustice rather than its reproduction. This short piece focuses on the curriculum and points to actions that we can take to build resources for a more dynamic and adequate curriculum within our universities. In particular, it discusses one collaborative initiative that all the authors have been involved in, the website Global Social Theory. This site provides resources for the diversification and expansion of the curriculum for those teaching and studying social theory
Comparative historical sociology and the State : problems of method
Historical sociology can be understood both as a specific sub-field of sociology and as providing general conceptual underpinnings of the discipline, to the extent that it provides an understanding of the specificity of the modern state and the perceived emergence of modernity within Europe. The association of modernity with Europe (and with a European history limited to the self-identified boundaries of the continent) is commonplace and pervasive within the social sciences and humanities. What such an understanding fails to take into consideration, however, are the connections between Europe and the rest of the world that constitute the broader context for the emergence of what is understood to be the modern world and its institutions, such as the state and market. In this article, I suggest that integral to this misunderstanding, and its reproduction over time, is the methodology of comparative historical sociology as represented by ideal types. In contrast, I argue for âconnected sociologiesâ as a more appropriate way to understand our shared past and its continuing impact upon the present. I examine these issues in the context of historical sociological understandings of nation-state formation
Feedback on video recorded consultations in medical teaching: why students loathe and love it â a focus-group based qualitative study
BACKGROUND: Feedback on videotaped consultations is a useful way to enhance consultation skills among medical students. The method is becoming increasingly common, but is still not widely implemented in medical education. One obstacle might be that many students seem to consider this educational approach a stressful experience and are reluctant to participate. In order to improve the process and make it more acceptable to the participants, we wanted to identify possible problems experienced by students when making and receiving feedback on their video taped consultations. METHODS: Nineteen of 75 students at the University of Bergen, Norway, participating in a consultation course in their final term of medical school underwent focus group interviews immediately following a video-based feedback session. The material was audio-taped, transcribed, and analysed by phenomenological qualitative analysis. RESULTS: The study uncovered that some students experienced emotional distress before the start of the course. They were apprehensive and lacking in confidence, expressing fear about exposing lack of skills and competence in front of each other. The video evaluation session and feedback process were evaluated positively however, and they found that their worries had been exaggerated. The video evaluation process also seemed to help strengthen the students' self esteem and self-confidence, and they welcomed this. CONCLUSION: Our study provides insight regarding the vulnerability of students receiving feedback from videotaped consultations and their need for reassurance and support in the process, and demonstrates the importance of carefully considering the design and execution of such educational programs
Social theory and the politics of big data and method
This article is an intervention in the debate on big data. It seeks to show, firstly, that behind the wager to make sociology more relevant to the digital there lies a coherent if essentially unstated vision and a whole stance which are more a symptom of the current world than a resolute endeavour to think that world through; hence the conclusion that the perspective prevailing in the debate lacks both the theoretical grip and the practical impulse to initiate a much needed renewal of social theory and sociology. Secondly, and more importantly, the article expounds an alternative view and shows by thus doing that other possibilities of engaging the digital can be pursued. The article is thus an invitation to widen the debate on big data and the digital and a call for a more combative social theory
Moral economy versus political economy: provincializing Polanyi
This theoretically focused chapter by John Holmwood adopts a strategy of conceptual âprovincializingâ and thereby reveals race as a lacuna in Polanyian and neo-Polanyian scholarship. Alongside its wide-ranging theoretical engagement, including innovative postcolonial reflections, Holmwoodâs discussion is extraordinarily timely, engaging with US ârace relationsâ and the current âasylum crisisâ in large parts of Europe, as well as with wider currents of marketization. Racism is thereby analysed in both its deeper historical and current socioeconomic contexts
Living with the h-index? Metric assemblages in the contemporary academy
This paper examines the relationship between metrics, markets and affect in the contemporary UK academy. It argues that the emergence of a particular structure of feeling amongst academics in the last few years has been closely associated with the growth and development of âquantified controlâ. It examines the functioning of a range of metrics: citations; workload models; transparent costing data; research assessments; teaching quality assessments; and commercial university league tables. It argues that these metrics, and others, although still embedded within an audit culture, increasingly function autonomously as a data assemblage able not just to mimic markets but, increasingly, to enact them. It concludes by posing some questions about the possible implications of this for the future of academic practice
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