Talcott Parsons did not leave us with a global and consistent sociology of education. Instead, different aspects can be found in Parsons's oeuvre in different theoretical contexts. This paper summarises these different parts of Parsons's sociology of education -- his writings on the concepts of education and socialisation, the university, the…

In this article I explore a disposition towards a critique of 'reductionism' and 'determinism' that seems to me to be very much prevalent within British sociology. I take a qualitative educational sociology that uses Bourdieusian concepts as one body of research where this disposition is expressed with particular fervour. A close examination of…

We respond to Malatinszky and Armor's, and Marks' comments on our article recently published in this journal. We agree with Marks in the use of prior achievement to control for spurious effects in school effects research. Marks makes an incorrect statement about our article, refers to dated critiques, and presents an empirical demonstration with…

This article discusses how three other articles have employed E.P. Thompson's concept of the moral economy to analyse movements of resistance to higher education (HE) marketisation processes. Two of the studies relate to the English HE sector while one is a study of the Israeli system. The articles were selected because they are indicative of one…

In a recent article in this journal, Sciffer, Perry, and McConney identify the risk of relying on insufficient within-unit variation as a serious flaw in a number of studies using student fixed effects regression to identify the effects of school socioeconomic composition (school SES) on academic achievement, including one by Armor, Marks, and…

This paper considers the sociology of education (SOE) as a modern human science. It suggests that the SOE is mired in a set of unreflexive, redemptive, Enlightment rationalities, and explores the messy relationships of the sociology with education that result from this. It is argues that the sociology of education has consistently failed to…

Teacher wellbeing is a growing international concern. Despite teachers' experiences being deleteriously impacted by education policies and organisational conditions, dominant discourses of wellbeing focus on strategies that enhance individual self-management of wellbeing. This paper critically examines teacher wellbeing and the counter-discourses…

This paper presents a critical interrogation of the recent drive towards the 'inclusive curriculum' in higher education (HE). Our arguments are grounded in the findings of a systematic scoping review that sought to understand how researchers have, to date, understood, conceptualised and theorised the inclusive curriculum in HE. The findings…

In this paper, we consider the intensifying pressures on critical research and academic integrity in a research policy context that has come to be increasingly dominated by an instrumentalist mind-set. Using sensitising resources drawn from Geoff Whitty's critique of the 'what works' agenda, we reflect on the current conditions of academic labour…

Accelerationism is a theoretical movement that seeks to mobilise reason and technological development as a strategy for moving beyond capitalism. The first wave of accelerationism took the effects of capitalism at their most pernicious and suggested that they have not gone far enough. More recent work has complicated this project and explored…

This article suggests that a process of de-academisation is discernible in the way the Erasmus year abroad is promoted, organised, supervised and evaluated. The article argues that rather than being a product of students' consumerist rationalities, this process is produced within the conditions of the managerialised and under-resourced university.…

This paper introduces the idea of enculturation to sociology as a compliment to socialisation in the context of Bourdieu's "collective enterprise of inculcation" and social theory. Enculturation is positioned as a concept that can be used to address formal education as a factor in social reproduction. Following a discussion of…

In this paper, the authors argue that despite a resurgence of elite studies, the majority of existing scholarship works to reify and legitimize social inequality through its language and method. In particular, the authors utilize Pierre Bourdieu's concept of relational thinking to review and critique contemporary research on elite education and…

Using qualitative data from two Chilean public schools, I interrogate the expectation that standardised testing motivates staff to critically self-assess themselves and to be accountable for failing evaluations. The research findings bring new insights into looking at ways in which school members, especially head managers, strategically debate,…

Cultural theorists have illuminated how photographic images contribute to autobiographical remembering and identity formation. This has new significance given that digital photography now allows personal images to circulate rapidly amongst peer groups. Taking these insights into classroom contexts, this paper draws on recent case-study data to…