This article deploys critical sociology to examine institutions of higher learning, worldwide, within a context of a more utopian set of possibilities. The article contests the idea of universities as marketplaces -- competition, commercialisation and vocationalisation; the synthetic values of docility, conformity, and image/impression management;…

This paper is a rejoinder to James Avis' paper: "A Note on Class, Dispositions and Radical Politics" which is, in turn, a critique of the opening chapter of the book "Education and Working-Class Youth: Reshaping the Politics of Inclusion," written by the authors of this article. Here we deal with each of the criticisms raised…

This paper uses the Habermasian concept of legitimation crisis to critique the relationship between post-compulsory education and training and the chronic levels of youth unemployment and under-employment which now characterise post-industrial Western economies, such as the UK. It draws on data from an ethnographic study of the lives of young…

Public schools around the world have been hijacked and deformed beyond recognition by the forces of the economy over the past three decades. This paper provides an analysis and a way out of this miasma around the notion of the socially just school. While not another prescription, this orientation is argued to be the most hopeful possibility for…

This paper addresses the vexed educational policy aspects of area-based "interventions (ABIs) in neighbourhoods designated as "disadvantaged" in an Australian context. We find that the way in which the policy of ABIs is supposed to operate and impact education is highly problematic. What we present instead in this paper is a much…