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Sociology Vol. 34, No. i, pp. 95-111. Printed in the United Kingdom 2000 BSA Publications Limited
abstract This paper argues that the subspecialism of sociology of education has, for a
century , been ambivalent about the 'hooligan. It has both celebrated and excoriated the
anti-school working-class boy. Similarly, the mainstream of sociology has been ambivalent
about sociologists of education, both relying on them and ignoring them. Thirdly, the
paper speculates on the position of hooligans in Britain in 2025 and the relationship
between mainstream sociology and the sociology of education in that year.
The title pays homage to Mary Douglas, who reminds us that: 'Some tribes
reject and fear anomalous beasts, some revere them' (1975:174). This paper explores
the fear/reverence tension at two levels: first, it treats sociology of education as a tribe
and explores how it handles the hooligan; secondly, it treats the discipline of
sociology as a tribe and explores how it handles the sociology of education. I am
arguing that the hooligan is an anomalous beast for sociologists of education, who,
paradoxically, revere him: while the sociology of education is an anomalous beast for
the parent discipline, whose practitioners reject and fear it. The paper therefore
operates at two levels: first, inside a sub-speciality; secondly, inside the discipline as a
whole. The analysis of the past is used to speculate about Britain in 2025, with
particular emphasis upon troublesome young men and the sub-specialism of the
sociology of education.
The paper is not a review of the sociology of education in Britain since 1944, nor
an evaluation of the current state of the subspecialism. Rather it is first a targeted
critique of one colourful and much-cited strand of work in the sociology of educa-
tion and a particular anti-hero it has created. Secondly, it is an analysis of the whole
discipline of sociology in Britain and its uneasy relationship with its Cinderella
subspecialism, the sociology of education. Two of the grand narratives of the
sociology of education are scrutinised, and then the grand narratives of sociology
itself are outlined, before predictions for 2025 are made.
The analyses draw on previously published histories of the sociology of educa-
tion in Britain including Hammersley, Atkinson and Delamont (1988), Delamont 95
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96 SARA DELAMONT
(1989), and Atkinson and Delamont (1997); on research about gender and schooling
(Delamont 1999a and 1999b); and reflections on the sociology of education in Wales,
Scotland and Northern Ireland as opposed to England (Rees and Delamont 1999).
The large claims made in this paper are grounded in more detailed analyses in those
other works.
The first anomalous beast at the centre of this paper is the aggressively masculine
anti-school, anti-social young male. The tribe whose reaction to that beast is
explored is my own, the sociologists of education. Sociology of education has had a
consistently ambiguous response to the delinquent anti-school boy for a hundred
years: he has been lovingly studied and even eulogised, although he embodies much
that sociologists fear and dread. The emblematic figure, and his place in sociology of
education, will be chronicled, and then the paper explores what will replace it by
2025. This exploration allows us to reflect on the tensions between the mainstream
discipline of sociology and its own anomalous beast, sociology of education. For just
as the delinquent macho 'lad' is an anomalous beast for sociologists of education, so
too sociology of education is a 'fearsome scaly monster' (Douglas 1975:174) rejected
by sociology itself. Sociology as a whole has been as ambivalent about sociology of
education as it has been about the anti-school 'lad'.
Through the particular examples of the anti-school 'lad' and sociology of educa-
tion more general themes about class, gender, ethnicity, power, knowledge and
discourse are illuminated. Throughout the paper, the failure of sociology to square
up to the discourses of derision directed at feminist educational campaigns, English
state schools,1 sociologists of education and educational research will be critiqued.
The useful term 'discourse of derision' was originally coined by Stephen Ball (1990)
to epitomise the rhetoric used by right-wing commentators between 1976 and 1988 to
attack state education in England.2 That particular discourse of derision studied by
Ball continued until the 1997 general election in the United Kingdom, and for the
past twenty-five years has obscured the facts about British (as opposed to English)
education in general, and about gender issues in particular. Since the early 1990s
there have also been discourses of derision aimed at feminist educational cam-
paigners for damaging boys' life chances, and at educational researchers in general
and sociologists of education in particular.
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The Anomalous Beasts 97
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98 SARA DELAMONT
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The Anomalous Beasts 99
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100 SARA DELAMONT
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The Anomalous Beasts i o i
about how a rebel is made into a hero, this is a narrative about how a hard-working
Cinderella is neglected, ignored and left in the kitchen among the ashes while her
family go to the Ball. This sad story opens with the 1997 general election in Britain,
which allowed sociology a voice in high places for the first time in over twenty years.7
The close relationship between Giddens and the centres of power, and the appoint-
ment of a series of sociologists as Vice-Chancellors are symbolic of this, as is the
appearance in the Honours Lists of sociologists. There is currently, a sociological
ball. However, sociology of education is a neglected stepchild, left at home. In
Implicit Meanings Mary Douglas reflected on Basil Bernstein's position in sociology,
arguing that he was 'neither fish, flesh nor fowP and commenting: 'In sociology
Bernstein is to some a fearsome scaly monster, cutting across all the tidy categories'
(Douglas 1975:174). In this section a brief discussion of Bernstein as an example of an
uncomfortable thorn in the flesh of sociology leads on to four other examples of
ways in which mainstream sociology has treated the subspecialism of education with
disdain.
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102 SARA DELAMONT
Lack of Defence
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The Anomalous Beasts 103
Lack of a Platform
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104 SARA DELAMONT
Sociological Association (ASA). BJSEs editor has not been honoured by the BSA
advice is not sought, and BSA members are not even encouraged to subscribe to
membership discounts or reciprocal advertising in the BSA's journals. BJSE is
competitor with the BSA's own journals. Negotiating a special subscription fo
members, or arranging reciprocal advertising between the two BSA journals
BJSE , would cost the BSA nothing, but would be a membership benefit for
logists of education. However, the BSA has made no effort to collaborate with B
It is not treated and promoted as a sociology journal.
In 1993 Stanley and Morgan edited a celebration of twenty- five years of Sociolo
a volume that totally excluded education. In the 1988 Register of BSA memb
interests 115 people listed education, but the editors failed to comment on
decision to omit the topic from the collection. 10 These are three indicators o
failure of sociology as a whole to provide a platform for those who study educat
stand alongside other specialisms.
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The Anomalous Beasts 105
their omissions, disdain for sociology of education. They are theorising about major
social changes in capitalist societies, yet they pay no attention at all to the ways in
which those societies reproduce their labour forces.
Sociology of education is a large but low-status specialism, sociology of science is
a small, but highly regarded, one. It is one of the few areas from which British
scholars get recognised for American awards. However, the definition of science used
by scholars in science and technology studies is one that, like other high-status
groups, spurns and ignores education. These researchers are notorious for totally
ignoring any research on socialisation into science. Their subject-matter is the
frontier science produced by elite men in top universities who engage in arcane
disputes and compete for prestigious peer recognition. Sociologists of science gain
status from their association with those elite male scientists, and the distance they
keep from the low-status routine science done by children, students, technicians and
women. They do not themselves study even doctoral students, far less undergraduate
or school-level education (see Ashmore, Myers and Potter 1995) and they ignore
those lesser mortals who do study such scientific contexts. By focusing on the tiny
elite minority of scientists they ensure the prestige of their own specialism and the
disenfranchising of sociologists of education.
These two examples of the ways in which the elite of sociology keep their distance
from those lesser sociologists who study education reflect a disciplinary culture
which permeates the criteria used to judge sociology by successive RAE panels since
1985. There have been three specialist RAE panels, in 1989, 1992 and 1996. Each time
the feedback from the panel to the discipline, and the gossip/hearsay/rumours have
been clear: high-status sociology departments are not active in the sociology of
education.11 Sociologists of education are not seen as important in sociology as
those who work on theory, science, culture, work, gender, the media and sexuality.
In the 1990s sociology has taken a 'cultural' turn. Theory ; Culture and Society
is a top journal, and studies of culture are published by the leading houses. Bourdieu
is in high fashion, the links to cultural studies are strong. It is a paradox that at the
time when sociology is engaged in a cultural turn, it shuns research on the social
structures and processes where culture is reproduced and interrupted. Schools,
universities, colleges of art, music and drama, the youth services, the myriad of
ballet, ballroom and folk dance classes, the music lessons, the choirs, the sports
coaching, are all sites where high and popular cultures are learnt, taught and
disseminated. Studying fans of The Prodigy is more likely to be seen as a valuable
contribution to sociology than research on the fate of school music since the
introduction of the English National Curriculum. This is a very peculiar value
system, worthy of investigation by Bourdieu himself.
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10 6 SARA DELAMONT
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The Anomalous Beasts 107
United Kingdom are too deeply involved with dividing and excluding, and such
processes are so endemic in British society that I cannot see them changing.
Consequently, schools will still be producing cohorts of 'failing', rebellious, resistant
boys, who refuse to benefit from anything the schools offer them, and absorb the
stigma of being 'downstreamers'. Again, we can hope that the sociologists of educa-
tion studying them are working in a grand narrative that is less simplistically heroic
and better balanced.
There is a complication here, however. Mac an Ghaill (1994) found that the anti-
school boys he studied were suffering not only from being failures in school but also
from being English. They felt that other groups (Afro-Caribbean, Irish, Muslim, Sikh
and Hindu) had coherent cultural identities, while the English did not. Given the
resurgence of nationalism in Wales and Scotland, and its persistence in Northern
Ireland, it is likely that there will be considerable variations in the style of anti-school
male behaviour across the United Kingdom. These will be amplified by the
continuing divergence of the education systems.
The educational systems of Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England will
have diverged as Britain has become part of a Europe of the regions. The school
system and higher education will have continued to diverge as they have done since
1988 and 1992 (see Delamont 1999a; Rees and Istance 1997) accentuated by the
political devolution following the 1997 general election. Welsh education will have
celebrated its Celtic identity, and emphasising its linguistic separation from England
built links to that of Brittany, Catalonia and the Basque nation where minority
languages have been re- invigorated by bilingual school systems. Scotland will have
strengthened its separate system, perhaps moving closer to Scandinavian models.
Northern Ireland will, I hope, have abolished the eleven plus, the binary system,
single-sex schools and denominational schools. (In all these four nations, however,
there will be troublesome failing boys.) It would be wonderful to believe that
England will be free of the discourses of derision aimed at State schooling, but there
is no sign of any organised movement geared to the refutation of them, so I do not
predict their diminution. However, it would be nice to imagine that all sociologists
will know the facts about education, will be active in challenging the discourse of
derision, and will also defend their colleagues in sociology of education.
In an ideal world, the people who refused educational opportunities at school
would be able to return later, and would be found doing so. This is the vision of
Britain as a learning society. I would like to believe that lifelong learning would have
become normal by 2025, so that everyone constantly enjoys new knowledge. How-
ever, the findings from Cardiff do not lead me to be sanguine about this. They argue
that for most adults the main barrier to lifelong learning is the idea that learning is
only worth any commitment if it is compulsory or of immediate vocational, instru-
mental benefit. This value system is so deeply embedded in British culture I do not
think twenty- five years will change it.
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108 SARA DELAMONT
Predictions for sociology are hard, and it seems hubristic to make them.
However, I have made one for the sociology of education, and one for mainstream
sociology. In sociology of education I hope that the exponents of the quantitativ
grand narrative are well funded, so we will have regular social mobility studies done
for the whole of the United Kingdom, at intervals of not more than ten years, using
male and female samples, with care taken to get enough representatives of all th
ethnic minorities, to answer all the questions about the impact of educational
change on its objects. The lack of a proper study of men in England and Wales since
1972, and the paucity of data on women, hampers all educational debate. We still have
no decent data on the impact of comprehensive schooling in England and Wales, and
we need good data on the 1988 and the 1992 Acts, the abolition of student grants, an
the youth unemployment of the past twenty years.
Within sociology as a whole, the main influence will stem from the petrification
of a higher education hierarchy or stratification system. Universities will have been
solidified into a prestige hierarchy, with at least three broad categories and laborator
scientific research only funded in a small number of elite places. There will b
sociology in some of the top tier institutions, but, on current form, in England it wi
not include any sociology of education. If there is any sociology of education in the
top tier research universities it will be ghettoised in the education departments.
Conclusions
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
NOTES
1. These issues are specifically English, rather than British. There have not been
attacks on state education in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. (See Delam
and b; Rees and Delamont 1999).
2. Ball's account has parallels with the American book The Manufactured Crisis
Biddle 1995), a demolition of the USA's discourse of derision.
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The Anomalous Beasts 109
3. Berliner and Biddle identify three interlocking groups, the Far Right, the Religious Right,
and the Neoconservatives (1995:133), who with the financial backing of some extremely
wealthy foundations, have publicised and developed the American discourse of derision.
They present a large amount of evidence, reveal how far the discourse of derision has been
based on half-truths, plain bias and distorted research findings, and conclude that
American education is not in crisis, but is in much better shape than the critics believe, and
where there are problems these have origins outside the schools and are imposed upon
educational institutions.
8. Bernstein retired in 1990. There were two Festschriften for him (Atkinson et al. 1995;
Sadovnik 1995), neither of which was reviewed in the three general sociology journals in
Britain. Both were published in the United States, where he is more honoured. The ASA and
AERA had symposia to launch the volumes: no such events took place at the BSA.
9. Every year from 1980 to 1990 I wrote to the BSA proposing education as a conference theme.
Sometimes a reply told me the committee thought the topic dull or unimportant,
sometimes no reply came. In 1991 1 decided to save my energy.
10. In the earliest years of the journal there were papers contributing to educational debate.
Given the large numbers of BSA members who are involved in educational research, its
absence was striking. A volume was drawn from the BSA's journal which failed to deal with
Bernstein, Halsey or Willis - three British sociologists known throughout the world. The
omission of education is not merely a British matter. Bourdieu was not discussed, nor any
of the American writers on sociology of education.
11. One referee suggested that the 'policy turn' in sociology of education (see Delamont and
Atkinson 1997; Ball 1990) during the 1980s helped marginalise it within sociology 'given the
general disdain within certain sections of the sociological community for anything
suggestive of an applied, policy-oriented focus'. I am very grateful for this insight which I
find entirely convincing.
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Biographical note. SARA DELAMONT is Reader in Sociology at Cardiff University. Her books
include Knowledgeable Womeny Fieldwork in Educational Settings , and Appetites and Identities .
Address: SOCSI, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WT.
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