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Egalitarianism in English and French Educational Sociology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

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Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1970

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References

(1) Rubinstein, D. and Simon, B., The Evolution of the Comprehensive School (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. 11 sqGoogle Scholar.

(2) Ibid. pp. 41 sq.

(3) Floud, J., Halsey, A. H. and Martin, F. M., Social Class and Educational Opportunity (London, Heinemann, 1957)Google Scholar. Frazer, E., Home Environment and the School (London, Univ. of London Press, 1959)Google Scholar.

(4) Among others, the following reports of the Central Advisory Council for Education reflect prevailing trends in the sociology of education: Crowther, Report, 15–18, London, HMSO, 1959Google Scholar; Newsom, Report, Half Our Future, London, HMSO, 1963Google Scholar; Plowden, Report, Children and their Primary Schools, London, HMSO, 1967Google Scholar.

(5) The participation of sociologists on advisory committees and councils has grown during the sixties. Also their expert role in conducting surveys has been recognised. It is now usual to include such data and sociologists are frequently charged with special research projects for particular reports. These two aspects of the expert role are illustrated by the Robbins, Report, Higher Education, London, HMSO, Cmd 2154, 1963Google Scholar.

(6) For a brief description of twentieth century developments in French sociology of education, see Isambert-Jamati, V., Problèmes actuels de la sociologie de l'éducation, L'Année sociologique (1961), 415430Google Scholar.

(7) Goblot, E., La barrière et le niveau (Paris, Alcan, 1925)Google Scholar.

(8) Girard, A., Enquête sur l'orientation et la sélection des enfants d'âge scolaire, Population, VIII (1953), 649672CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Girard, A., Bastide, H., Orientation et sélection scolaires; une enquête sur les enfants à la sortie de l'école primaire, Population, X (1955), 605624CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(9) Floud, J. et al. , Écale et société (Paris, Marcel Rivière, 1959)Google Scholar.

(10) Girard, A., Bastide, H., Pourcher, G., Enquête nationale sur l'entrée en sixième et la démocratisation de l'enseignement, Population, X (1963), 948Google Scholar. Girard, A., Bastide, H., La stratification sociale et la démocratisation de l'enseignement, Population, X (1963), 435472CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Girard, A., Clerc, P., Nouvelles données sur l'orientation scolaire au moment de l'entrée en sixième, Population, IX (1964), 829864CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Saury, A., Girard, A., Les diverses classes sociales devant l'enseignement, Population, XX (1965), 205232Google Scholar.

(11) Thompson, D., Towards an Un-streamed Comprehensive School, Forum VII (1965), 8289Google Scholar; Pedley, R., The Comprehensive School (London, Penguin, 1963), pp. 88 sq.Google Scholar; Ford, J., Comprehensive Schools as Social Dividers, New Society, 10 1968Google Scholar, no 315. See also Jackson, B., Streaming: an educational system in minature (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964)Google Scholar.

(12) Kelsall, R. K., Report on an inquiry into applications for admission to universities (London, Association of Universities of the British Commonwealth, 1957)Google Scholar.

(13) Bourdieu, P., Passeron, J. C., Les étudiants et leurs études (Paris, Mouton, 1964)Google Scholar.

(14) Floud, J. and Halsey, A. H., The Sociology of Education, Current Sociology, VII (1958), p. 167Google Scholar.

(15) Archambault, R. (ed.), Philosophical analysis and Education (London, Kegan Paul, 1965)Google Scholar; Peters, R. S., Education as Initiation (London, Evans Bros, 1963)Google Scholar; Id.Ethics and Education (London, Allen and Unwin, 1966); Id.The Concept of Education (London, Kegan Paul, 1967).

(16) Peters, R. S., Ethics and Education, op. cit. p. 141Google Scholar.

(17) Ibid. p. 134.

(18) Cf. E. FRAZER, op. cit.

(19) Gross, N., The sociology of education, in Merton, R. K. (ed.), Sociology Today (New York, Basic Books, 1959), p. 144Google Scholar. For a longer discussion of this theme, see Archer, M. Scotford, The Educational Aspirations of English Working Class Parents (University of London [Unpublished Ph. D. thesis] 1967)Google Scholar.

(20) Jackson, B. and Marsden, D., Education and the Working Class (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962)Google Scholar. Here the procedure is not to distinguish and identify subgroups within the working class, but rather to show that the parents of their school achievers are similar to one another in many ways (i.e. tend to be sunken middle class) and then to assume them to be different from a ‘traditional’ working class which is not itself studied.

(21) Swift, D. F., Educational psychology, sociology and environment: a controversy at cross purposes, British Journal of Sociology, XVI (1965), 334350CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(22) Bourdieu, P., Passeron, J-C., Les héritiers (Paris, Éd. de Minuit, 1964), p. 11Google Scholar.

(23) Banks, O., The Sociology of Education (London, Batsford, 1968), p. 66Google Scholar.

(24) Peters, R. S., Ethics and Education, op. cit. p. 129Google Scholar.

(25) Le Pelletier, M., Plan d'éducation nationale, plan presented to the Convention in 1793Google Scholar.

(26) Condorcet, A. J. N., Rapport et projet de décret sur l'organisation générale de l'instruction publique, plan presented to the Législative in 1792Google Scholar.

(27) Davies, I., The Management of Knowledge: A critique ofthe use of typologies n i educational sociology, Sociology, IV (1970), p. 5Google Scholar.

(28) Cf. Halsey, A. H., Education and Equality, New Society, 1965, no 142Google Scholar.

(29) This argument can be defended in economic termssee Layard, R. and King, J., Expansion since Robbins, in Martin, D. (ed.), Anarchy and Culture (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969)Google Scholar. The authors claim that “on a number of quite plausible assumptions, these two rates of return will move in step”, (p. 20). Further research is required to show how plausible these assumptions are, particularly if no restrictions are placed on the choice of discipline studied.

(30) Kerr, C. et al. Industrialism and Industrial Man (London 1962)Google Scholar.

(31) Hall, S., Changing Patterns of Study in the Universities, Universities Quarterly, XIX (1965), p. 118Google Scholar: “What mattered was not whether the educational system could turn out the trained manpower for the jobs which now exist, but whether it turned out men and women flexible enough to ‘change in a changing world’”.

(32) Bantock, G. H., Education in an Industrial Society (London, Faber, 1963)Google Scholar.

(33) Aron, R., Quelques problèmes des universités francaises, Archives européennes de sociologie, III (1962), 102122CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(34) The term ‘sub-élite’ is used to designate a form of university recruitment in which a majority of those graduating are not likely to enter élite posts. It appears preferable t o the term ‘mass’ since both the social origins of students and the posts they take up, place them on the whole in what Dahrendorf calls the ‘Service Class’, not the ‘Ruled Groups’.

(35) Floud, J. and Halsey, A. H., The Sociology of Education, op. cit. p. 170Google Scholar.

(36) Glass, D. V., Social Mobility in Britain (London, Kegan Paul, 1954)Google Scholar; Newfield, J. G. H., The academic performance of British university students, Sociological Review, Special monograph No 7 (1963)Google Scholar. The findings of this study show that at university level social class differences tend to be eliminated.

(37) Bisseret, N., La « naissance » et le dipôme: les processus de sélection au début des études universitaires, Rev. fr. sociol., IX (1968) 185207CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Here it is shown the social class has its greatest impact not on entry to the universities, but on success or failure in the first year examination.

(38) These tendencies are particularly marked in modern American research, e.g. McClelland, D. et al. The Achievement Motive (New York, Appleton, 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosen, B. C. and D'andrade, R., The psycho-social origins of achievement motivation, Sociometry, XXII (1959), 185217CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sampson, O. C., The speech and language development of five year old children, British Journal of Educational Psychology, XXIX (1959), 217222CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bernstein, B., Social class and linguistic development, in Halsey, , Floud, and Anderson, , Education, Economy and Society (London, Collier-McMillan, 1967)Google Scholar.

(39) E.g. Berger, I., Les Maternelles (Paris, CNRS, 1959)Google Scholar.

(40) Davies, I., The Management of Knowledge, op. cit. p. 5Google Scholar.

(41) Isambert-Jamati, V., Problèmes actuels…, op. cit. p. 417Google Scholar.

(42) Bernstein, B. and Davies, B., Some Sociological Comments on Plowden, in Peters, R. S. (ed.), Perspectives on Plowden (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), p. 63Google Scholar.

(43) Girard, A., «Préface», Rev. fr. social., Special edition « Sociologie de l'éducation », 1 (1967), p. 16Google Scholar.

(44) Hopper, E. J., A Typology for the Classification of Educational Systems, Sociology, II (1968), p. 30Google Scholar.

(45) Cf. Castel, J. R., Passeron, J.-C., Éducation, développement et democratie (Paris, Mouton, 1967)Google Scholar, stresses that industrial development is related to educational expansion, but not directly associated with the form or content of education.

(46) A comprehensive bibliography is provided by the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Bibliography on Student Unrest (Paris 1969)Google Scholar.

(47) There are basically two forms of chain reaction theory advanced. The first type depends on conspiracy theory and is advanced by th e Government and the Communist Party alike—in both cases the political groupuscules are responsible. (Cf. Rioux, L. and Backmann, R., L'explosion de mai (Paris, Robert Lafont, 1968), p. 59Google Scholar; also Salini, L., Mai des prolétaires (Paris, Ed. Sociales, 1968)Google Scholar. The second type rejects conspiracy, but substitutes for it a plurality of alternative and intensificatory mechanisms. For example Morin stresses the interaction of student Leninism and government Kerenskyism (Morin, E. et al. , Mai 1968Google Scholar: la bréche (Paris, Fayard, 1968), p. 6869)Google Scholar. Chombart de Lauwe claims the amplification of events was favoured by the convergence of several crises which became linked to that of the University (de Lauwe, P. H. Chombart, Pour l'université (Paris, Payot, 1968), pp. 22 sq.)Google Scholar. This is also close to the view advanced by Aron (Aron, R., The Elusive Revolution (London, Pall Mall Press, 1969)Google Scholar, and in Le Figaro, 15–6–1968).

(48) An extreme case of incorporating causes of origin in causes of continuation is found in Perret, J., Inquiéte Sorbonne (Paris, Hachette, 1968)Google Scholar: “Everything began from a chain of events which were totally unnecessary and basically futile” (p. 16). “The closure of Nanterre was basically of no consequence. But when the closure of Nanterre brought its students to camp in the courtyard of the Sorbonne […] Paris was convulsed” (p. 26). This approach is criticised by Lefort, C., Le désordre nouveau, in Morin, E. (ed.), Mai 1968: la bréche, op. cit. pp. 44 sqGoogle Scholar.

(49) Touraine, A., Le mouvement de mai ou le communisme utopique (Paris, Le Seuil, 1968)Google Scholar. This study should be read against the background of Touraine's theory of the changing class structure. The briefest description of this is Touraine, A., Anciennes et nouvelles classes sociales in Balandier, G. (ed.), Perspectives de la sociologie contemporaine (Paris, PUF, 1968)Google Scholar.

(50) Bourdieu, Passeron, Les héritiers, op. cit.

(51) To Touraine this must not be taken “for a new stage of the proletarian movement, but for a new form of class conflict, as different from the old as the Commissariat au Plan and IBM from the ironmasters and family mill owners” (p. 191). Students however are not considered to be a social class, although to Touraine they might become one, but during May they entered into class conflict.

(52) Touraine, , Le mouvement de mai, op. cit. p. 244Google Scholar.

(53) Ibid. p. 27.

(54) Bourdieu Passeron, Les héritiers, op. cit. See Appendix, table 1.8: “L'origine sociale des étudiants francais. Répartition par discipline et par sexe”, pp. 136–137.

(55) Archer, M. Scotford (ed.), Students, University and Society (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

(56) Cf. Bantock, G., Education and Values (London, Faber, 1965), pp. 138 sqqGoogle Scholar.