The theoretical costs of ignoring childhood: rethinking independence, insecurity, and inequality

Childhood scholars have found that age inequality can be as profound an axis of meaningful difference as race, gender, or class, and yet the impact of this understanding has not permeated the discipline of sociology as a whole. This is one particularly stark example of the central argument of this article: despite decades of empirical and theoretical work by scholars in “the social studies of childhood,” sociologists in general have not incorporated the central contributions of this subfield: that children are active social agents (not passive), knowing actors strategizing within their constraints (not innocent), with their capacities and challenges shaped by their contexts (not universally the same). I contend that mainstream sociology’s relative imperviousness has led to theoretical costs for both childhood scholars—who must re-assert and re-prove the core insights of the field—and sociologists in general. Using three core theoretical debates in the larger discipline—about independence, insecurity, and inequality—I argue that children’s perspectives can help scholars ask new questions, render the invisible visible, and break through theoretical logjams. Thus would further research utilizing children’s perspectives and the dynamics of age extend the explanatory power of social theory.     

Finding common ground: how superdiversity is unsettling social work education

For social work education in the Netherlands, the rapid transition towards superdiversity means that its capacity to adapt to this new reality and to adjust to diverse students’ backgrounds is fiercely challenged. The key aim of this article is to discuss how social work educators are dealing with the unsettling challenges of increasing diversity, based on the research outcomes of an explorative study amongst Turkish–Dutch and Moroccan–Dutch female professionals. Two different groups of educators were asked to comment on the outcomes of this study. One of the dilemmas for educators is to determine what can be considered supportive and inclusive and as reducing inequality in education. The authors used two key theoretical concepts, ‘superdiversity’ and ‘the capability approach’. These theoretical perspectives were used to deconstruct the rather massive concepts of diversity and social justice, by emphasising contextual approaches. Both perspectives stress the urgent need to involve students as ‘active agents of change’, by building a social work community to stimulate and facilitate an on-going dialogue. To successfully fulfil a pivotal role in the upward mobility or emancipation of ethnic minority students, social work education needs to be adjusted to accommodate diverse student groups.     

Sociology and High School Teaching

Teaching opportunities for sociolgy majors have traditionally been oriented to the college or university. There is, however, a clear need for qualified sociolgy teachers at the high school level. Such teachers could generate interest in the sociological imagination among precollege students. By doing so these teachers could provide skills for those students entering the workforce and encourage enrollments among those students opting to attend college. The American Sociological Association is aware of this opportunity and has addressed it in a variety of ways over the past thirty years. There has been renewed commitment by the ASA in the 1900s to develop programs that can enhance high school sociolgy. This article suggest that the state sociological association may be in a strategic position to assess the needs of high school sociolgy teachers, to address their resource needs as well as the concerns of teacher certification and competency. Jan Rienerth, teaching interests are in women's issues, applied sociology, and experiential learning. Her research has focused on women and the elderly in prison. Paul Lindsay, most recent teaching and research interests are in the areas of the sociology of education, educational policy and conflict resolution. Michael Wise, recent teaching and research is in the area of deviant behavior.     

Some reflections upon the macro-micro problem in the sociology of education

The macro-micro problem has been a prominent feature of British sociology of education since the early 1970s. In this discipline macro and micro have each come to be associated with particular theoretical perspectives, notably Marxism and interactionism respectively. This has had several unfortunate consequences. First, arguments about the value of macro and micro work have often been little more than dismissals of one perspective by proponents of another. Second, the macro-micro debate has conflated several quite distinct methodological issues. This article focuses on one of these issues: the question of whether social events can best be explained as the product of large or small scale structures. It is claimed that this issue cannot be resolved by philosophical analysis alone, the answer is a matter for empirical discovery. Moreover, the problem cannot be settled at the moment because we have insufficient well-established theories. Only when more such theories are available will we be able to resolve the question of whether valid macro and micro theories are possible. What stands in the way of achieving this, however, is precisely what led to the fruitless character of the macro-micro dispute in the first place: the organization of the sociology of education around theoretical perspectives rather than around substantive research problems.     

Backlash against the inclusion of students with learning disabilities in higher education: Implications for transition from post-secondary environments to work

Individuals with learning disabilities (LD), the largest group of people with disabilities in the United States, are attending college in greater numbers than ever before. Post-secondary training is critical for individuals with LD to make successful transitions into a changing and ever more demanding world of work. Research indicating that college faculty are willing to provide requested accommodations to students with LD suggests that they are increasingly likely to experience successful post-secondary outcomes, and therefore improve their vocational prospects. However, college students with LD and the accommodations they receive have recently garnered some highly critical press. These portrayals may portend problems in higher education for students with LD, who must self-identify and make specific accommodation requests to faculty in order to receive the instruction and testing environments that they require to succeed. Efforts to ensure that the LD label is not ubiquitously applied and that college faculty attempt to separate the idea of merit from achievement and implement instructional practices to better meet the educational needs of students with and without LD are recommended.     

Great Expectations? A Systematic Review of the Relationship Between the School-to-Higher Education Transition and Social Mobility

Abstract

Education has always been considered as a means for social mobility, leveling off inequalities among individuals and enabling them to realize their potential. Against a backdrop dominated by political discourses on employability, flexibility and performance, there are growing concerns that students’ career decisions may be affected by individual and structural factors undermining the fairness of the transition from school to higher education (HE). To address this issue, this article seeks to unpack the enablers and barriers affecting the school-to-HE transition. To do so, we undertook a systematic review of papers published in psychology, sociology, education and public policy from 1985 to date, a period where major employment and education reforms in advanced and emerging economies were implemented. The findings show that socio-economic, cultural and institutional factors affect students’ access to HE. By taking stock of research on the school-to-HE transition, this article contributes to broaden the debate on the topic and reflects upon the relation between education and social mobility.     

Whatever Will Happen to Industrial Sociology

Industrial sociology faces a renaissance if the leaves of social change can be read correctly. The permissive freedom of the 1960s and 1970s is being curtailed by some harsh economic realities. Parents and students alike are seeking the economic promise of job guarantees when the students graduate. Liberal arts education is on the defensive. Such training must demonstrate it has vocational opportunity or can be converted to such opportunity by postgraduate training. Sociologists who have had the freedom to do their own thing for 20 to 30 years are being forced to make some agonizing appraisals. The entire field of sociology has been placed under scrutiny. The drastic cuts in research funding are only one index of the governmental depreciation of sociology and most other social sciences. The loss of sociology majors and enrollments is another index of student and parental lack of confidence in sociology as a good investment. Academic sociologists who have placed applied sociology in a second-rate category are beginning to recognize that research training of graduate students must turn to applied training or jobs will not be available for many, if not most, of their graduate students. In a similar manner, research funding and graduate fellowships will not be available unless this change is made.     

Listening to Children in Care: A Review of Methodological and Theoretical Approaches to Understanding Looked after Children’s Perspectives

This article reviews 44 refereed journal articles published between 2003 and 2008. All of the articles attempt to directly uncover the experiences or perspectives of young people cared for by the state in foster, residential or kinship care homes. The review reveals that this field is developing a rich body of evidence derived from a broad range of methodological and theoretical frameworks. In this sample, research designs appeared to be influenced by placement settings, as well as theoretical orientations, but comparative and longitudinal designs were used in both quantitative and qualitative studies. Participative research designs were only present in qualitative designs within a broadly interpretive theoretical orientation. It is suggested in this article that researchers should critically reflect on the use of constructs that may negatively label young people in care. It is also suggested that there could be fuller reporting of ethical issues. Despite some identified gaps, such as the participation of young people in quantitative research designs and research with younger age groups, the article concludes that there appears to be an encouraging emergence of theoretical and methodological diversity in this research area.     

Productivity of women scholars and gender researchers: Is funding a factor?

Articles by women scholars and proportions of articles focused on gender have increased steadily in major sociology journals since 1974. Women are more heavily represented as journal authors than as members of graduate-program departments, the institutional bases where most published work originates. We consider whether funding might account for these patterns by examining acknowledgement of support in published articles. We find no significant relationships among author gender, article topic, and notation of internal funding. Male-authored articles focused on nongender topics acknowledge external funding significantly more often than women-authored works and articles focused on gender written by women or men. Funding patterns therefore do not appear to account for increased productivity by women and gender researchers. She is currently studying the educational achievement of immigrant students. Linda Grant is an assistant professor of sociology and faculty associated of the Institute of Behavioral Research at the University of Georgia. Her current research focuses on gender and academic careers and gender relationships in schools. Her current research includes the feminist critique of sociology and publishing, and the U.S. women’s movement.     

Towards a Conceptual Framework of Service User Involvement in Social Work Education: Empowerment and Educational Perspectives

A topic that has recently gained widespread attention in social work education is service user involvement (SUI), a term denoting the call to include users of social work services in teaching social work students. Despite the widespread use of the term SUI, this label includes a wide variety of approaches with different aims and scopes. A conceptual framework that distinguishes empowerment from educational perspectives in current SUI approaches is proposed, and a number of elements that should be discussed in each of these perspectives are introduced: theoretical background, role and tasks of the institution, areas of implementation and role of service users, and effects of SUI and their assessment. Implications for further SUI projects and research approaches are discussed.     

On Accepting Relationships between People with Mental Retardation and Non-disabled People: Towards an Understanding of Acceptance

This article outlines the “sociology of acceptance” as a theoretical framework for understanding relationships between people with mental retardation and typical people. As a point of departure, the authors review sociocultural perspectives on deviance and explore their contribution to the study of mental retardation. Based on qualitative research on community programs for people with severe disabilities, the authors next examine the nature of accepting relationships and describe four sentiments expressed by typical people who form relationships with people with mental retardation: family; religious commitment; humanitarian sentiments; and feelings of friendship. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of a sociology of acceptance for the field of mental retardation.     

The Impact of Gender Characteristics on Mentoring in Graduate Departments of Sociology

There has been much research on gender inequality in graduate education and the benefits of mentoring. However, most of this research focuses on how mentoring addresses female graduate students’ experiences of gender inequality instead of how the gender characteristics of departments impact the level of mentoring they offer. In particular, I examine how the gender composition of departments in terms of faculty and administration as well as faculty awareness of gender inequality or feminist issues influences the types of mentoring structures found in graduate departments of sociology. Bivariate correlations indicated that these characteristics (gender characteristics in particular) had significant relationships with mentoring structures in departments. This study concludes with a discussion of these relationships, an overview of policy implications, and suggestions for future research.     

Educational inequalities and educational mobility under socialism in the Czech Republic

The sociology of education on the Czech Republic has focused almost entirely on relative measures of inequality (based on odds ratio data) than to trends in educational mobility (based on mobility tables). Therefore, there is a significant gap in our knowledge of how the Czech education system has evolved in the long term. Although the periods before and after the onset of socialism appear to have had very specific mobility patterns, we know relatively little about their differences. Therefore, this article attempts 1) to verify the findings to date about the character and extent of educational inequalities in the Czech half of socialist Czechoslovakia, and 2) to update these findings with a new mobility analysis. In this context the article poses two key questions: In what ways are the two mobility systems (pre‐socialist and socialist) different? Was the Czech education system becoming more or less open? Using the mobility perspective and log‐linear modelling, the analysis identifies some specific structural contexts and shows that the level of intergenerational educational reproduction that existed between 1906 and 1938 gradually diminished thereafter, except among women, who experienced a re‐strengthening after 1948. Although after the Prague Spring in 1968 the association between the education of parents and their children began to strengthen, the mother‐daughter association in educational reproduction weakened at the end of socialism.     

Financial literacy education: An opportunity for colleges and sociology

Financial literacy represents the knowledge necessary to manage one's financial affairs in a way that contributes to overall wellbeing, yet financial literacy and financial education are understudied in sociology. While emerging adults have low rates of financial literacy overall, this article focuses on college students due to increasing college access and student loan debt. Based on the limited literature that assesses college financial literacy education, it appears that these types of programs may serve to advance college students' financial knowledge. Additional mechanisms that serve to develop college students' financial literacy include parent socialization, banking experience, and high school financial education programs. However, not everyone has the same access to these resources. Thus, given the magnitude of the US student debt crisis and persistent economic inequalities, college financial literacy education may prove beneficial for all students, particularly those from economically vulnerable backgrounds. This article serves as an invitation to sociologists to consider financial literacy education as both a worthwhile pursuit in application and as a research topic.     

What do we know about LGBQ+ college student academic experiences and outcomes?

In spite of recognition that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer+ (LGBQ+) young adults face challenges associated with their sexual identities, research on inequality in education has only recently begun examining their academic experiences and outcomes in college. Prior work has mainly focused on social and extracurricular experiences during college or academic outcomes among LGBQ+ students in K-12 settings. In this article, we review the growing body of social science literature on LGBQ+ college students' academic outcomes. A strength of our review is our integration of research on individual, interpersonal, and institutional characteristics and experiences that influence LGBQ+ student outcomes. In reviewing the literature, we identify a number of methodological and theoretical limitations, such as a lack of precision and consistency in defining and conceptualizing LGBQ+ identities and experiences and limited attention to intersections with race, class, and gender. We offer some solutions to these limitations and present a theoretical framework that promises to add clarity and further reliability to future research on LGBQ+ college student outcomes. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research.     

Bridging the Gap: ‘Doing Gender’, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity’, and the Educational Troubles of Boys

This article reviews popular and social scientific perspectives on the academic gender gap in education, specifically the finding that boys underperform compared to girls. The article highlights the utility of sociology in analyzing the gender gap and in guiding how educators respond to students’ gender. It suggests that contemporary gender theories ‘doing gender’ and ‘hegemonic masculinity’ offer the best lenses through which to view academic gender differences. These perspectives can frame boys’ academic troubles as an important social problem, but one that is rooted in the social construction of masculinity rather than institutional discrimination against boys.     

The Functionalist Perspective on Social Inequality: Some Neglected Theoretical and Conceptual Roots*

This paper outlines the origins of the functionalist perspective as it was used by American social scientists to explain social inequality during the first four decades of the twentieth century. The author then argues against the assumption that the basis for development of the perspective is found in the work of Parsons and his students who applied Parsons’general framework to studies of social inequality in complex industrial society. Instead, it is suggested that the research of social anthropologists, such as Robert and Helen Lynd and W. Lioyd Warner, was equally important to the development of the functionalist perspective. The author further argues that early twentieth-century British social anthropology, with its strong ties to Durkheimian functionalism, greatly influenced the direction of studies on social inequality. The paper concludes with a discussion of the intellectual ancestries between these theoretical pioneers and Parsonians and offers an explanation why Parsons’work dominated sociology during a critical period of the discipline's development.     

Academic Undermatch: How General and Specific Cultural Capital Structure Inequality

Recent literature has added another dimension to the well‐documented patterns of social class inequality in education: academic undermatch. Undermatch (which occurs when students attend institutions of lower selectivity than they are academically qualified to attend) is both widespread and unequal, with students from less advantaged families more likely to undermatch. Although proliferating, the research on undermatch has focused primarily on documenting the extent of, and less on exploring the mechanisms underlying, undermatch. Moreover, this literature has developed largely independent of the sociological research on cultural capital. Therefore, when scholars consider underlying mechanisms, they often focus narrowly on college‐specific information, without considering the broader cultural context in which students are embedded. Drawing on the literature on undermatch, as well as the sociological research on cultural capital, I differentiate between general and specific cultural capital. Moreover, instead of simply estimating whether students undermatch or not, I consider different types of undermatch. Results from the Educational Longitudinal Survey reveal that the effects of cultural capital are indeed heterogeneous, both with respect to its relationship to undermatch and its contribution to social class inequality. Findings have important implications for understanding undermatch and the role of cultural capital in reducing and reproducing social inequality.     

Racialization in a ‘homogenous’ society? The case of Buraku people in Japan

This paper examines the puzzling status of Buraku people in Japan through the methodological prism of historical sociology. I develop a theoretical approach that emphasizes the concept of racialization to illuminate the historical and social construction of Buraku status. I propose this approach as a complementary alternative to prior analytic perspectives. Two major perspectives have dominated research on the status of Buraku people. First, an earlier approach that focused on the legacy of caste discrimination. The second framework focuses on Buraku people as part of the struggle for universal human rights. This article raises three basic, but interrelated questions about the historical development of Buraku status in Japan. Why did the Buraku people become subject to such overt discrimination in local community life, and through government policy? How was the state involved in the social construction of Buraku people? How did the Buraku liberation struggles challenge formalized discrimination?     

Teaching the history of women in sociology: Or Dorothy Swaine Thomas,wasn’t she the woman married to William I.?

One characteristic of feminist scholarship is the attention paid to the lost history of women in a wide variety of arenas. This interest stems from the insight that history is a social construction. As such, it is likely influenced by sexist assumptions. This train of thought led to the author’s interest in the possibility that sexism had biased both the opportunities for women in the past and the way the history of sociology had been conceived. This article describes an effort to explore these questions in an undergraduate research seminar. The article describes a variety of means the author used to unveil these problems with her students, and to engage them in asking new questions, reading standard sociological materials in critical ways, and working toward the creation of a less biased understanding of the history of sociology. The reactions of the students and professor, and the products of this course are specified. This course is one of many examples of the way feminist questions and perspectives have the potential for transforming sociology. Shulamit Reinharz is an associate professor of society at Brandies University and the author ofOn Becoming a Social Scientist (Transaction 1984). Her recent articles in feminist sociology focus on such areas as the meaning of miscarriage, the integration of gerontological and feminist theory, an analysis of the ideology of socialist Zionist feminist, Manya Wilbushewitz Shohat, and an overview of the work of Mirra Komarovsky.