Quality in Undergraduate Education: How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality 9781474214490, 9781474214520, 9781474214506

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How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

Also available from Bloomsbury Analysing Teaching-Learning Interactions in Higher Education, Paul Ashwin Reflective Teaching in Higher Education, Paul Ashwin Pedagogy and the University, Monica McLean

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality Monica McLean, Andrea Abbas and Paul Ashwin

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in 2018 as Quality in Undergraduate Education This paperback edition first published 2019 Copyright © Monica McLean, Andrea Abbas and Paul Ashwin, 2018 Monica McLean, Andrea Abbas and Paul Ashwin have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vii constitute an extension of this copyright page. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-1449-0 PB: 978-1-3501-2709-8 ePDF: 978-1-4742-1450-6 ePub: 978-1-4742-1451-3 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents List of Tables Acknowledgements

vi vii

Part 1 Introduction 1 University Education, Inequality and Knowledge 2 Introducing the Four Universities and Departments

3 13

Part 2 Setting the Scene 3 The Patterning of Inequality in Higher Education 4 The Construction of High-Quality University Education 5 The Power of Sociology-Related Knowledge

33 53 69

Part 3 Exploring Educational Quality 6 Comparing Sociology-Related Curricula: The Pedagogic Device 7 Pedagogy for Powerful Knowledge and Understanding

87 115

Part 4 The Powerful Equalizing Effects of Knowledge 8 Disciplinary Identity and Pedagogic Rights 9 Undergraduate Education and Future Lives

147 171

Part 5 Conclusion 10 Socially Just University Curriculum and Pedagogy

205

Appendix 1: Research Methodology Appendix 2: Curricula: Compulsions and Choices References Index

217 229 231 253

Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 6.1 6.2 6.3 7.1 8.1 8.2 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 A1.1 A1.2 A1.3

The position in higher education rankings of the four universities The position in higher education rankings of the four departments Financial comparisons between the four universities Staff population profile in the four universities Staff population profile in the four departments Student population profile in the four universities Student population profile in the four departments Demographics of first-year students interviewed compared to the social studies student population for each university Demographics of case-study students compared to the social studies student population for each university Student outcomes in the four universities Student outcomes in the four departments Distributive rules: Knowledge-as-research Recontextualizing rules: Knowledge-as-curriculum Evaluation rules: Knowledge-as-student understanding Ranking of perceptions of good teaching Pedagogic rights Outcomes of degree Engagement with academic knowledge Comparing university projections and student orientations to graduate employment Community’s case-study students’ future plans Diversity’s case-study students’ future plans Prestige’s case-study students’ future plans Selective’s case-study students’ future plans List of analysed data sets The methods mapped onto the macro, meso and micro levels Scales used with details of authors they have been adapted from

15 15 16 17 17 19 19 21 22 23 23 93 94 96 119 161 168 173 178 180 184 189 194 218 219 224

Acknowledgements The Economic and Social Research Council (RES-062-23-1438) funded the ‘Quality and Inequality in First Degrees’ project for which we are grateful, as we are to the four departments at Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective who gave us access to their degree programmes and allowed us the space to conduct interviews. At the heart of our study were the undergraduate students who agreed to be interviewed and completed a survey. Insight into their lives allowed us to deepen our understanding of how powerful knowledge can disrupt inequalities. We are extremely grateful for their time and interest, especially to the thirty-one case-study students, whose accounts of how they benefitted from university education are central to this book. Many thanks, too, to the academics we interviewed and whose classes we videoed. A special thank you to the ‘key informant’ academics in each department who dedicated time to our project, gave us documents and enlightened us during our conversations with them. A wealth of knowledge and experience distinguished our project steering group members:  Patrick Ainley, John Brennan, Joyce Cannaan, Miriam David, Ken Jones, Ann Meredith, David Mills, Johan Muller and Ken Roberts. We thank them for keeping us on track and helpfully challenging and supporting our ideas. Similarly, we are grateful to the academics and students who attended a day-long workshop on biographical methods and contributed to our edited collection. Gratefully received contributions to our ideas were made also by academics, university managers and policy makers who participated in our two dissemination events at the University of Nottingham and at the Work Foundation in London. In addition, our project has benefitted from regular discussions with colleagues at our own universities as well as those who attended paper presentations throughout the project, particularly at the Society for Research into Higher Education’s annual conferences over the past five years. The project would not have been possible without the additional support provided by the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, and the

viii

Acknowledgements

researchers Alison Kington, Xin Gao. Impossible to thank enough is Martina Daykin from the School of Education at Nottingham, whose outstanding administrative support and commitment way beyond the call of duty was essential for successful completion of the project. Our families’ love and support and their interest in our work are invaluable; we thank them.

Part One

Introduction

1

University Education, Inequality and Knowledge

Education is the most powerful weapon which we can use to change the world. Nelson Mandela, 2003 Young people from established middle class backgrounds, where there is a history of university attendance, far more often have a coherent story to tell about university choice; one with an easily discernable plot and a clearly defined beginning and end, despite episodic uncertainty and stressful periods. The discourses that they draw on are ones of entitlement and self-realization. There is no lurking guilt or shame. Reay, 2005, p. 921 Education is central to the knowledge base of society, groups and individuals . . . Biases in the form, content, access and opportunities of education have consequences not only for the economy; these biases can reach down to drain the very springs of affirmation, motivation and imagination. In this way biases can become, and often are, an economic and cultural threat. Bernstein, 2000, p. xix

Introduction Nelson Mandela identifies an ideal for education everywhere and at all levels. University education is a repository of high hopes for improving the life chances of individuals and creating an inclusive, just society. Too often, however, university education does not fulfil its promise, but rather reproduces society’s inequities and leaves its ills unchallenged. We are academics working in the field of sociology of education in the United Kingdom, and the investigation on which this book is based was motivated by our observation that elite, already advantaged universities and students are further advantaged by a prevailing assumption by

4

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

governments, media, the public and academics that the quality of higher education is better in higher-status universities–universities that have better reputations, more resources, attract students with higher entry qualifications and so on. Despite evidence of systematic differences of experience for different social groups at different universities, as Diane Reay above identifies, we scrutinize this assumption because most judgements about educational quality are based on factors extraneous to what students are taught and what they learn. Our starting point was a connection between the quality of education and the extent to which it reproduces or disrupts inequality. The ‘Pedagogic Quality and Inequality in University First Degrees Project’1 was a three-year, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded, multimethod investigation of sociology and related social science undergraduate degree programmes in departments at four UK university. To reflect their different characteristics, we called the universities Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective. Prestige and Selective are commonly known as old universities and Community and Diversity as new (denoting which were universities before and after 1992). Throughout this book, we refer to higher and lower status universities because we want to focus on the justice of judgements that determine the relative standing of the universities. The project unpicked the connections between, on the one hand, what women and men students from different social classes and ethnic groups, and of different abilities, ages and experiences brought to their undergraduate degrees in sociology-based social science; and, on the other hand, what knowledge they were taught, how and with what results. Our study of curricula (what was taught), pedagogy (how it was taught) and what were the valuable gains for students has allowed us to show how sociological knowledge can be powerful in students’ lives and disrupt the inequalities of socio-economic class (which have been viewed as the primary structuring factor), gender, ethnic group and disability. As will unfold, we came to a provisional judgement about which of the four departments had a better-quality education (we beg the reader’s patience as we show the uncertainties of coming to such judgements). The main outcome is a definition of good-quality university education which benefits all students: what we call ‘socially just’ education2. This chapter sets the scene for the rest of the book. First, we discuss higher education as a site of contradiction, positioning ourselves as cautious optimists for the possibilities of undergraduate education. Second, we formulate our central problem, which is that of equity of access to powerful knowledge. This section introduces the work of the sociologist Basil Bernstein, which framed the research,

University Education, Inequality and Knowledge

5

and of philosophers Miranda Fricker and Wally Morrow, which furthered our understanding of the central importance of knowledge distribution to social justice. Finally, we set out the structure of the book showing how the argument about powerful knowledge, social inequalities and university education unfolds.

The dual potential of higher education Universities have always been sites of contradictory tendencies. On the one hand, an Enlightenment narrative about the connection of reason and progress places them as communities of learning and humane values where truth and knowledge are pursued in the interests of societies3 and of individual character formation (see Clark Kerr, 19634). From this perspective, universities’ potential lies in their multi-functionality. Drawing on Talcott Parson’s seminal The American University (1973), Jurgen Habermas argues for four functions: the production of technical knowledge to serve the economy and citizens’ welfare; the academic preparation of professionals; the transmission, interpretation and production of cultural knowledge embodied in the disciplines; and, a critical function which he calls the ‘enlightenment of the public sphere’ (1989, p.118). On the other hand, historically, in different countries in different eras, universities’ relationship to states has compromised these ideals (Delanty, 2001). Feminist, black and disabled scholars and critical theorists have long argued that universities’ knowledge production is biased towards the interests of a white, male, able-bodied, middleclass elite (David, 2014; Goodley, 2016; hooks, 1994). Currently, there is little in policy discourse about higher education for a better world beyond improving national wealth and individual prosperity. The lacuna reflects the ascendency of neo-liberal politics and policies which emphasize the active responsibility of governments to facilitate free-market capitalism (Olssen, 2011). In a neo-liberal climate, the social functions of higher education are sidelined. Social inequalities remain:  while, increasingly, individuals across the world aspire to higher education to improve their life chances, the benefits are fewer for those who are relatively economically and socially disadvantaged than for more advantaged students. Moreover, universities’ potential for the common good has been eroded by an ideology of privatization and choice, which positions higher education as a marketplace, shifting it from a public to a private good with a discourse centred on economic outcomes alone (e.g. Bok, 2003; Collini, 2012; Marginson, 2016b and 2016c; McGettigan, 2013). These two problems of inequality and constructions of ‘quality’ are expanded on in Chapters 3 and 4.

6

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

For many, ‘the dream is over’, as Simon Marginson (2016a) puts it when discussing Clark Kerr’s vision (see endnote 4). Most scholarly commentary on the current state of higher education globally, as well as informal discussion among academics, is negative. It is difficult not to be pessimistic. Yet, our position is one of cautious optimism or moderate pessimism distant both from deterministic narratives of decline and forms of golden ageism (Holborn Gray, 2012). Universities do not have a history of uninterrupted progress; they have always adapted to different sociocultural conditions, particularly in times of crisis (Delanty, 2001). In our times of late or postmodernity there are serious challenges, as summarized by the Yerevan communique that emanated from the Ministerial Conference of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA): ‘Continuing economic and social crisis, dramatic levels of unemployment, increasing marginalization of young people, demographic changes, new migration patterns, and conflicts within and between countries, as well as extremism and radicalization’ (2015, p. 1). Despite constraints, there is reason to think that higher education can achieve transformative social goals responsive to current crises. In Habermas’s (1989) view, universities cannot avoid involvement in the production and reproduction of the human ‘lifeworld’ (society, culture and individual identity). He argues that they are sites of ‘learning processes’ which are located between the lifeworld and the ‘system’ of organizations and institutions which use money and power to serve their own interests. Moreover, because universities are structurally connected to democratic decision-making, characterized by argumentation and communication, they cannot be dominated exclusively by the official, bureaucratic sphere, but must also face towards transformations in society and the individual. Many take the same view: critical, feminist, black and disabled scholars propose hope for socially transformative knowledge within universities (Amsler, 2015). In a world of rapid advancement in knowledge and technology higher education is complex and multifunctional. Our endeavour is to spotlight teaching one undergraduate discipline in one country to reveal the possibilities of university education for societal and individual transformations.

Epistemological access and powerful knowledge Knowledge is the main currency of universities. Our focus is undergraduate sociological knowledge and our argument is that first, the quality of university education resides in access to disciplinary knowledge; and second, this access, known as epistemological access, disrupts inequality. We selected undergraduate

University Education, Inequality and Knowledge

7

sociological knowledge for the investigation of distributive biases. We concentrated on one cognate discipline because, although there are many generic aspects of good-quality teaching, specific disciplinary aspects have often been neglected. There were three reasons for choosing university sociology: unlike some disciplines, it is taken up by all socio-economic classes and is increasingly taught in courses in which the discipline is applied to practice (Brennan et al., 2010); it is a discipline that historically pursues social and moral ambition, allowing exploration of the contribution of sociological knowledge to individuals and society beyond economic goals (the discussion of sociology as a discipline is taken up in Chapter 5); and, we believed that our own knowledge of sociology would help us evaluate the quality of the curriculum and pedagogy we investigated. We will show that sociological knowledge carries its own power, which is distinct from that of other disciplines. The quotation of sociologist of education Basil Bernstein (d. 2000) which heads this chapter refers to systematic biases in epistemological access in education systems:  that is, elite groups have more access to powerful knowledge, perpetuating inequalities in society. Bernstein’s work resonates strongly with our concerns about educational quality and inequality because it shows how curriculum and pedagogy are implicated in social reproduction by shaping consciousness, identity and aspiration. In Bernstein’s theory, education is a system of power and control and, therefore, of ‘major channels for persistence and change’ (Halliday, 1973, p. ix). We will introduce relevant concepts as the book proceeds. Briefly, Bernstein saw inequality through the lens of educational knowledge: How a society selects, classifies, distributes, transmits and evaluates the educational knowledge it considers to be public, reflects both the distribution of power and the principles of social control. From this point of view, differences within and change in the organization, transmission and evaluation of educational knowledge should be a major area of sociological interest. (Bernstein, 1971, p. 47)

Three main ideas from Bernstein underpinned our investigation. First, knowledge is central to the reproduction or disruption of inequalities because it creates specific relationships between the inner worlds of individuals (broadly, what and how they think and feel) and the enablement and constraints in the outer world of systems and structures. What people know, therefore, influences what they can become and do. The main issue for justice is the extent to which people have access, through knowledge that is abstracted from everyday, concrete matters, to the capacity to be agents who can change the inner/outer relationships in their

8

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

lives. Second, education distributes knowledge in society unequally according to its hierarchies. Much of the research carried out by Bernstein and his students in the 1970s showed how curricula for working-class students contained less conceptual high ground and were taught in ways which compounded educational disadvantage (e.g. Jenkins, 2000; Morais et al., 1992). This tendency is revealed in recent studies of schooling (Vitale and Exley, 2016). Third, in all education systems, knowledge is distributed by way of curriculum content and the ways that content is taught. While these three ideas drove how we approached our research, Bernstein used neither the term powerful knowledge nor the terms epistemic injustice/inequality and epistemological access. Philosophy illuminates these terms. Combining the ideas of Wally Morrow and Miranda Fricker elucidates what is at stake:  the knowledge provided by higher education has the power to open access to people participating in society as citizens who possess valuable or useful knowledge. In South Africa, Wally Morrow (2009) coined the term epistemological access to explain his anxiety that the post-apartheid government’s prioritizing of access to university for black students would be at the expense of ‘epistemic values’. He meant that students should be taught ‘to understand and come to care about . . . the telos or fundamental rules and principles’ (ibid., p. 38 and p. 121) of a discipline because disciplinary understanding bestows the power to practice innovatively and freely. Morrow conceptualized the pedagogic goal as students learning to participate in communities of enquiry. Adding a further dimension, UK philosopher Miranda Fricker (2009) conceptualizes individuals as having rights as knowers, enquirers and tellers in society. She identifies two forms of epistemic injustice:  first, distributive injustice when people do not have access to epistemic goods, such as education; and, second, discriminatory injustice whereby people’s knowledge is not taken as credible or is not understood. For Fricker, epistemic injustice is done to people when they cannot contribute on an equal basis to the shared stock of society’s meanings, ideas, arguments and so on. This is what we mean by powerful knowledge: it is knowledge which allows social contribution. So, this book charts how university education can enhance what Fricker calls the capability for social epistemic contribution. Conceptually, the potential of universities to form the capability for social epistemic contribution appears possible and desirable; however, empirically it is not always achieved. For us, what is at stake is understanding the conditions for more students to gain powerful knowledge, especially those who are relatively disadvantaged. Epistemological access is both epistemic (i.e, about inter/

University Education, Inequality and Knowledge

9

disciplinary knowledge) and pedagogical (about how knowledge and students meet to enhance their social epistemic capability). The questions raised are: Do graduates who have studied the same disciplines in different universities acquire comparable knowledge-derived confidence to speak and expect to be heard in the public sphere? Do students who attend lower-ranking universities have their academic, personal or professional aspirations curtailed by acquiring less powerful knowledge? Are working-class students and those with other and/or intersecting disadvantages epistemically wronged when they attend higher-status universities?

Structure and argument of the book Chapter 2 ‘Introducing the Four Universities and Departments’ completes the introductory part of the book with information about the four universities and departments (Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective) using quantitative and qualitative data about their reputation, wealth, staff populations, and student populations and outcomes. It also introduces some students based on what they told us in their first year about their hopes for university and the course of study they had chosen. Part II ‘Setting the Scene’ comprises three chapters dealing with inequalities in higher education, quality in higher education and sociological knowledge. Chapter 3 ‘The Patterning of Inequality in Higher Education’ shows how inequalities play out for different groups: socio-economic classes, groups based on gender, ethnic minorities, those with disabilities and of different ages, and those living in different countries and parts of the world. Globally, including the United Kingdom, there has been an unprecedented increase in participation in higher education. The reputation of a country’s higher education system tends to reflect its wealth: the poorer the country, the poorer its reputational quality; so, the developed world dominates in global rankings. Within countries, the more unequal the society, the more stratified the higher education system, which, in turn, tends to reproduce rather than disrupt inequalities. Again, students from the study are used to illustrating the experience of facing disadvantage at university. Chapter  4, ‘The Construction of High-Quality University Education’ engages with the meanings of a high-quality university education available in public policy. Neo-liberal ideology foregrounds global economic competition as the best route to the general well-being of countries and the prosperity of people, driving governments to ‘marketize’ public services, including higher education,

10

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

a lucrative and expanding market. University rankings are used to rank excellence. The United Kingdom is used as an extreme example of this trend. By contrast, we argue that rankings using quantifiable metrics to meaure inputs elated to wealth and status serve neither equity nor good-quality education. In terms of equity, global and local rankings of universities reinforce the widespread perception that undergraduate education is better quality at higher-status universities than at lower-status universities, an assumption we shall challenge. Chapter 5 ‘The Power of Sociology-Related Knowledge’ argues that sociology and its related disciplines as it is reproduced in university teaching activities carries the potential to be powerful in students’ lives because it offers powerful ways of investigating, understanding and acting in the world. From a Bernsteinian perspective all disciplinary knowledge is powerful because it is abstracted from mundane local contexts and everyday experiences. It is argued that in university curricula, sociology and its related disciplines are united by social or moral ambitions and by the ‘sociological imagination’, which is the means of creating what Bernstein called a ‘discursive gap’ between sociological theory and the everyday world in which students understand more about themselves, others and society. Chapters  6 and 7 constitute Part III ‘Exploring Educational Quality’. Chapter  6 ‘Comparing Sociology-Related Curricula:  The Pedagogic Device’ defines and explains Bernstein’s concept of the pedagogic device. The chapter uses the rules of the pedagogic device to compare curricula in the departments at Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective. We conclude that, regardless of status, the departments sent strong and similar messages about what sociologyrelated social science knowledge is and what a sociology-related social science knower should be like. Yet, we also show how the articulation of the pedagogic device at the different universities positioned students differently in relation to the discipline, the self and society. Chapter 7 ‘Pedagogy for Powerful Knowledge and Understanding’ explains Bernstein’s pedagogic theory in which curriculum, pedagogy and assessment are ‘message systems’ about what is legitimate to learn and how. A detailed analysis of specific aspects of pedagogy in the four departments demonstrates how judgements can be made about the comparative quality of teaching and about whether inequalities are likely to be disrupted by students acquiring powerful sociological knowledge. Part IV ‘The Powerful Equalizing Effects of Knowledge’ is made up of Chapters 8 and 9. Chapter 8 ‘Disciplinary Identity and Pedagogic Rights’ presents a Bernsteinian analysis of the outcomes of the sociology undergraduate education we investigated using the concepts of a specialized sociological identity and of pedagogic rights. For sociological knowledge to be powerful students

University Education, Inequality and Knowledge

11

must form a specialized identity which gives access to three pedagogic rights: at the personal level, to increased confidence and to broader horizons; at the social level, to being included by having a special role and place; and, at the political level, to having the capability to participate and influence the social order. In all four universities, students of sociology or sociology-related subjects studied formed a specialized sociological pedagogic identity and accessed pedagogic rights. Chapter  9 ‘Undergraduate Education and Future Lives’ draws together insights from previous chapters to engage with what happens in the convergence between, on the one hand, students with specific backgrounds and interests, and, on the other, curriculum and pedagogy in different status departments, particularly in relation to future lives. Using a Bernsteinian lens, the chapter explains the way variations in engagement with sociological knowledge influenced how students thought about who they were and what they would like to do. It is tentatively proposed that one department’s education was of a better quality than that of others because the curriculum and pedagogy empowered students more. Part V, ‘ Conclusion’ consists of Chapter 10 ‘Socially Just University Curriculum and Pedagogy’. This chapter ends the book by defining socially just undergraduate education in sociology. It cautions against making swift negative judgements about the quality of education at lower-status universities and against restricted and inauthentic measures of good-quality education. It restates the importance for justice of giving people access to the rights to speak and be heard: the capability of social epistemic contribution. Calling for cautious optimism, it reasserts the possibility of good-quality undergraduate education giving access to powerful knowledge which can disrupt (a little) society’s inequalities.

Notes 1 RES-062-23-1438. 2 A detailed description of the project’s methodology is in Appendix 1. 3 Often traced from Wilhelm von Humboldt, founder of Berlin University in the nineteenth century. 4 Clark Kerr developed a Master Plan for California’s higher education in 1960. It was a vision which combined excellence with equality of opportunity and is still widely read. Marginson (2016c) observed that ‘all of us working in higher education in some sense live in California, identifying with its goals and drawing from its fecund freedoms, its vision of growth and opportunity’ (p. xi). For Marginson, some of Kerr’s ideas were overly utopian, while others have deteriorated and should be restored.

2

Introducing the Four Universities and Departments

Do not use statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts, for support rather than for illumination. Lang, 1910

Introduction In this chapter we introduce Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective and the four departments where we investigated three-year Bachelor of Arts degrees:  criminology at Community; sociology at Diversity and Prestige; and sociology and other sociology-related degrees at Selective. Following an overview of the four universities, we present quantitative data about their reputations, wealth, staff populations, and student populations and outcomes. Then we paint a qualitative picture of how the universities and departments we studied are positioned in relation to each other. An initial sense of the students in our research is offered by selecting two from each university and outlining what they hoped to gain from their degree when they arrived. A convincing and consistent narrative can be told about the differences between Prestige and Selective, on the one hand, and Community and Diversity, on the other, which determines their relative status. However, this narrative is based largely on differences in inputs to the educational process. The data on outputs is less clear and there is practically no evidence about the quality of educational processes in the four departments. This lacuna is the starting point for the rest of the book, which examines whether the differences in educational inputs of the four departments play out in the educational processes and outputs in the ways that are implied by the rankings and reputations.

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How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

Introducing the four universities The pseudonyms Prestige, Selective, Community and Diversity reflect a broad dichotomy between what in the United Kingdom has a range of nomenclature: old and new; research-intensive or led or teaching-intensive or led; selective and recruiting; elite or local, and so on. New former polytechnics or colleges of higher education were given university status in 1992;1 they tend towards more vocationally or employment-focused courses, although such high-status professional fields as medicine and engineering are more likely to be found in the old, pre-1992 universities. These latter universities are wealthier and of higher status than new universities and are further classified and stratified into ‘mission groups’ with Cambridge and Oxford as elite universities at the top. Prestige and Selective are higher-status old universities and Community and Diversity are lower-status new universities.

A snapshot of the universities and departments This snapshot focuses on the universities when the students in our study entered them in 2008. The biggest change since then has been the trebling of undergraduate tuition fees to approximately £9,000 per annum; a further change has been in how the quality of research is measured, which is a significant indicator for university rankings. In 2008, the Research Assessment Exercise was the national system for judging research quality; it has now been superseded by the Research Excellence Framework that produced its first outcomes in 2014 and will run again in 2021. The data we present are from a variety of sources, including data held by the Higher Education Statistics Agency and from the Unistats website (https://unistats.direct.gov.uk), which provides prospective students with information about different degree programmes that they might choose to study, as well as from national and international higher education rankings. To protect the anonymity of the four universities, we have rounded the data so that they cannot be identified.

The positions of the four universities and departments in higher education rankings National and international higher education rankings give a consistent picture of the relative quality of our four universities and departments. In national and international rankings, Prestige has for some years remained the most

Introducing the Four Universities and Departments

15

Table 2.1 The position in higher education rankings of the four universities Higher Education Rankings

Community Diversity Prestige Selective

The Guardian (to nearest 10) The Good University Guide (to nearest 10) The Complete University Guide (to nearest 10) The UK Research Assessment Exercise (to nearest 10) The Times Higher Education Global Ranking (to nearest 50)

100

100

10

40

100

100

10

40

100

90

10

40

90

70

10

30

200

400

-

-

Table 2.2 The position in higher education rankings of the four departments UK University Rankings

Community

The Guardian (to nearest 10) 80 The Good University Guide n/a (to nearest 10) The Complete University 80 Guide (to nearest 10)

Diversity

Prestige

Selective

80 70

10 10

20 20

70

10

20

highly-rated of the four universities; its position in the top 20 per cent of UK rankings has been established and maintained since rankings began. Selective has been placed in the second quartile for some years; Community has moved between the third and fourth quartiles of most league tables during the past few years; and, Diversity has been in the fourth quartile. The pattern can be seen in how the universities were positioned in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise with Prestige in the top ten, Selective in the top thirty and Diversity and Community in the bottom half of universities. Only Selective and Prestige had a position in the global rankings of universities, with Prestige again positioned above Selective. Table 2.1 shows the positions of the four universities in the year that our students began their degrees. The four departments were positioned in similar ways in the subject rankings as their universities. Table 2.2 shows that again Prestige was in the top ten, with the department in Selective in the top twenty, slightly higher than the university taken as a whole. Community and Diversity were clearly positioned in the bottom 25 per cent of sociology departments. Positions in league tables tend to remain stable over the years.

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How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

While national and international higher education rankings give a consistent picture of the relative quality of our four universities and departments, we discuss in Chapter 4 how the measures privilege some universities because of their primary focus on educational inputs.

Wealth While evaluating the relative wealth of universities is not straightforward, three indicators suggest that the financial disparities between the four universities are striking. These are illustrated in Table 2.3 and show that Prestige has at least double the net assets and double the income per student of the other three universities. It also has a higher level of endowment per student. The starkest differences are in terms of research income, with Prestige having over double the research income per student of Selective, nine times that of Diversity and nearly forty times more than Community. In congruence with university rankings, wealth and resources tend to remain stable and are associated with status, hugely advantaging some universities.

Staff profiles At the time of our research, most academic staff at Prestige and Selective had a PhD, whereas in Diversity and Community the figure was between a third and a quarter (Table 2.4). The expectation at Prestige and Selective was that legitimate teachers would have completed a research degree. However, differences

Table 2.3 Financial comparisons between the four universities Financial Comparison

Community

Total income per student 9,000 (nearest £000) Research income per student 100 (nearest £00) Net asset per student 5000 (nearest £000) Endowment per student 50 (nearest £10) Source: Higher Education Statistical Agency

Diversity

Prestige

Selective

10,000

22,000

9,000

400

3,700

1,400

5000

14,000

7,000

70

100

60

Introducing the Four Universities and Departments

17

Table 2.4 Staff population profile in the four universities Staff Profile

Community

Diversity

Prestige

Selective

Total academic staff (nearest 100) Total non-academic staff (nearest 100) % staff female (nearest 5%) % staff white (nearest 5%) % of academic staff with PhD (nearest 5%)

700

1800

1900

1500

600

1000

3200

2200

40% 90% 30%

50% 70% 25%

35% 80% 75%

45% 70% 55%

Source: Higher Education Statistical Agency

Table 2.5 Staff population profile in the four departments Staff Profile

Community Diversity Prestige Selective

Total academic staff (nearest 5) Staff:student ratio (nearest 5) % staff female (nearest 5%) % staff white (nearest 5%) % of international staff % of staff under 40 % of academic staff with PhD (where known nearest 5%)

30 1:20 50% 90% 15% 20% 30%

15 1:20 50% 80% 30% 41% 40%

30 1:15 40% 80% 35% 35% 80%

35 1:15 50% 85% 15% 50% 55%

Source: Higher Education Statistical Agency

in gender and race were not split in terms of status of university: Prestige and Community academic staff were more likely to be male (60–65 per cent) and white (80–90 per cent) than in Diversity and Selective (50–55 per cent and 70 per cent respectively). There were stark differences in the number of non-academic staff at each university. Prestige, Diversity and Selective had the highest number of academic staff, reflecting their larger size. However, Prestige had three times the number of non-academic staff as Diversity, and Selective had twice as many. This suggests that the two wealthier, higher-status universities provided more support staff for students and academics than did Community and Diversity. This information was consistent with the differences in the presence of administrative staff that we will highlight in our qualitative descriptions of the four departments. We found similar differences at the departmental level. Table 2.5 shows that Diversity had many fewer academic staff than did the other three departments.

18

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

When we took student numbers into account, staff to student ratios were lower at Selective and Prestige (around one staff member for fifteen students) than at Community and Diversity (around one staff member for twenty students). Aligned with the university as a whole, in the departments at Prestige and Selective most teaching staff held doctorates, while the figure was 30–40 per cent for Diversity and Community. Prestige and Selective also had a higher proportion of staff under forty years of age in the departments we studied.

Student profiles The student profiles in the four universities are outlined in Table 2.6. Community was the smallest in terms of student numbers and had the most homogeneous student population, with 90 per cent of its students taking their first undergraduate degree, 85 per cent of its students describing themselves as white, and the lowest proportion of international students, and, with Selective, it had the highest proportion of students with disabilities. Students from Prestige and Selective were more likely to be middle class than students from Community and Diversity. Using the National Statistics Socioeconomic Classification (NS-SEC),2 Prestige had the lowest proportion of students from routine and manual occupation backgrounds with 80 per cent of students coming from NS-SEC categories 1–3 (covering managerial, professional and intermediate occupations). Similarly, Selective had 70 per cent of its students from these backgrounds. As its pseudonym suggests, Diversity had the greatest diversity in its student population. It had the highest proportion of female students; about a third of students defined themselves as white; and, nearly half its students came from routine and manual occupation backgrounds. With Prestige, it also had the highest proportion of international students. In terms of student numbers, Table  2.7 shows that the departments at Community and Selective were bigger than those at Prestige and Diversity. In relation to who could gain entry to study in the departments, there are again differences: the equivalent of two grade Bs and one grade C at A level (BBC) were needed to gain entry to Selective and Prestige; and, two Cs and a D required for Community and Diversity. This was even more strikingly reflected in the actual grades that students achieved, with the 95 per cent students at Prestige gaining the equivalent of an A and two Bs in their A levels, compared to 10 per cent of students at Diversity.

Introducing the Four Universities and Departments

19

Table 2.6 Student population profile in the four universities Student Profile

Community

Total students (nearest 5000) 10,000 % first degree undergraduates 90% (nearest 5%) % students female (nearest 5%) 55% % students white (nearest 5%) 85% % international students (nearest 10% 5%) % students with disabilities 10% (nearest 5%) % NS-SEC 1–3 (of students 60% classified) (nearest 5%)

Diversity Prestige Selective 25,000 70%

30,000 20,000 70% 75%

60% 35% 25%

50% 55% 25%

55% 65% 15%

5%

5%

10%

55%

80%

70%

Source: Higher Education Statistical Agency

Table 2.7 Student population profile in the four departments Student Profile

Community

Diversity

Prestige Selective

Total students (nearest 50) Staff: student ratio (nearest 5) % first degree undergraduates (nearest 5%) % postgraduate % full time % students female (nearest 5%) % students mature % students white (nearest 5%) % international students (nearest 5%) % students with disabilities (nearest 5%) % NS-SEC 1–3 (of students classified) (nearest 5%) % 320 UCAS points or over (ABB)

400 1:20 100%

200 1:20 85%

250 1:15 75%

350 1:15 85%

0% 95% 70% 15% 95% 0%

15% 80% 80% 15% 30% 5%

20% 90% 80% 5% 70% 15%

15% 90% 75% 15% 70% 5%

15%

5%

5%

10%

55%

50%

80%

70%

20%

10%

95%

40%

Source: Higher Education Statistical Agency

Aligning with the university as a whole, the department at Diversity had the most diverse student body with by far the largest proportion of students from minority ethnic backgrounds, students from routine and manual occupational backgrounds and part-time students. With Prestige, it also had a higher

20

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

proportion of female students, although in all cases the students were predominantly female (ranging from 70–80 per cent of the students). Prestige had a much higher proportion of overseas students and postgraduate students than did the other three departments.

The profile of the students in the research To explore how students experienced educational processes and the influence of curriculum and pedagogy in our four universities, we interviewed ninetyeight students in the first year of their degrees and thirty-one students across the three years of their undergraduate degrees. We aimed for a representative sample from each university, and Tables 2.8 and 2.9 show how the demographic information for the students interviewed compared to the students studying social studies degrees in each of the universities. It will be noted that some of the figures are different from those reported in Table 2.7. This is because that table gives the figures for all students in the department, whereas 2.8 and 2.8 focus on undergraduate students only. They show that, while the students we interviewed included a slightly higher proportion of older students, male students and students who identified themselves as having a disability, the proportions are broadly similar to those of the population of all students studying social studies in the four universities. This means that for a qualitative convenience sample we have a good representation of the diversity of student backgrounds on which to base our conclusions.

Student outcomes In terms of student outcomes, Table 2.10 shows that the main differences were in relation to degree results and graduate jobs. At Prestige 75 per cent of students achieved at least an upper second class degree compared to 55 per cent of students at Community. In relation to graduate jobs, two-thirds of students at Community and Prestige gained a graduate job compared to about half of Selective students and a third of students at Diversity. In terms of student satisfaction, outcomes were similar, with students from Community appearing to be the most satisfied. Very similar proportions of graduates from the four universities were working or studying six months after graduation.

24 (89%) 90%

16 (59%) 70%

Ethnicity White British

Gender Female

Not available 16 (70%)

4 (17%)

18 (78%)

3 (13%)

13 (57%)

1st year

Diversity All

1

0 (0%)

80%

All1

5 (20%)

Not available

10%

18 (72%) 70%

14 (56%) 50%

17 (6%)

1st year

Selective

Not available 2 (8%)

10%

17 (74%) 80%

13 (57%) 40%

20 (87%) 100%

1st year

Prestige

Not available 3 (13%)

0%

80%

20%

80%

All

1

1 Based on Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) figures for Social Studies in 2008–9. Figures rounded to nearest 10% to protect the anonymity of the universities. HESA do not hold data on whether students are living at home.

Living at home Yes 2 (7%)

Identified self as having a disability Yes 7 (26%) 10%

24 (89%) 90%

All

1

18–21

Age

1st year

Community

Table  2.8 Demographics of first-year students interviewed compared to the social studies student population for each university Introducing the Four Universities and Departments 21

8 (89%)

Living at home Yes

0

7 (88%)

5 (36%) 1 (11%) 1 (11%) 1 (11%) 1 (11%)

8 (88%) 1 (11%)

Sample

Not available 1 (11%)

0%

80%

20% 10% 10% 20% 40%

80% 20%

All1

Prestige

2 (29%)

4 (57%)

3 (43%) 1 (14%) 3 (43%)

3 (42%) 4 (58%)

Sample

Not available 1 (14%)

10%

80%

40% 0% 0% 10% 40%

100% 0%

All1

Selective

Not available

10%

70%

50% 10% 0% 10% 30%

80% 20%

All1

1 Based on Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) figures for Social Studies in 2008–9 (HESA Reference: 30690). Figures rounded to nearest 10% to protect the anonymity of the universities. HESA do not hold data on whether students are living at home. 2 Based on HESA categorization of ethnicity.

Not available

3 (33%)

Identified self as having a disability Yes 1 (17%) 10%

0

6 (66%)

70%

2 (33%)

Gender Female

1 (11%) 2 (22%) 2 (22%) 2 (22%) 2 (22%)

90% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Ethnicity2 White British 6 (100%) Black British British Mixed Ethnicity Asian British International

4 (44%) 5 (56%)

Sample

90% 10%

All1

Diversity

4 (66%) 2 (33%)

Age 18–21 22+

Sample

Community

Table 2.9 Demographics of case-study students compared to the social studies student population for each university

22 How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

Introducing the Four Universities and Departments

23

Table 2.10 Student outcomes in the four universities Student Outcomes

Community

Diversity Prestige Selective

% first class degrees (nearest 5%) % upper second class degrees (nearest 5%) % student satisfaction (nearest 5%) NSS % working and/or studying (nearest 5%) % graduate job (nearest 5%)

10% 45%

10% 50%

20% 55%

15% 50%

90%

85%

85%

80%

85%

85%

85%

90%

60%

30%

60%

45%

Source: Higher Education Statistical Agency and UniStats

Table 2.11 Student outcomes in the four departments Student Outcomes

Community

Diversity Prestige

Selective

% first class degrees (nearest 5%) % upper second class degrees (nearest 5%) % drop out between Year 1 and Year 2 (nearest 5%) % student satisfaction (nearest 5%) NSS % working and/or studying (nearest 5%) % graduate job (nearest 5%)

5% 45%

5% 55%

10% 70%

10% 45%

5%

20%

10%

10%

90%

85%

85%

80%

90%

95%

85%

85%

60%

55%

65%

55%

Source: Higher Education Statistical Agency and UniStats

At the departmental level, Table 2.11 shows some sharp contrasts in student outcomes across the four departments, yet different departments performed better on different outcome measures. Students at Selective and Prestige were twice as likely as students from Community and Diversity to achieve a first-class honours degree. Eighty per cent of students at Prestige gained a first or uppersecond class honours degree compared to 50 per cent to 60 per cent of students in the other three departments. Drop out between the first and second year was highest at Diversity and lowest at Community, which also had the highest levels of student satisfaction. Diversity had the highest proportion of students in jobs or further study six months after graduation, but the lowest number in graduate level jobs. Prestige had the highest proportion of students in graduate jobs six months after graduation.

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How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

A qualitative picture of the four universities and departments While quantitative data reveals the main similarities and differences between the four universities, they do not convey what the universities and departments were like to study in. Therefore, in this section we offer qualitative descriptions based on university and departmental websites, the physical space of departments, student handbooks and our observations of teaching in the departments. Prestige, Selective and Community are campus universities near comparatively small towns, while Diversity is based in several locations in a large city. All three campus universities highlight a packaged experience with easily accessible shops, food, restaurants, libraries and bars; close proximity to like-minded people of a similarly young age; exciting and diverse social lives strongly focused on choices of bars, clubs, social spaces and shopping opportunities; and, a high standard of modern accommodation. They make a feature of their attractive nearby cities and towns, describing them as a means of having a convenient and exciting lifestyle. Diversity markets its city location emphasizing bars, attractive social space and significant historical connections. At Community, Prestige and Selective, the students are depicted on websites as young, clean and smartly dressed in the latest fashions – there are no older students with families or disabled students on the main pages and videos, as there are on Diversity’s website. Prestige and Selective advertise access to arts venues for students, which are not mentioned at Community or Diversity. The higher-status universities also stress that a continuing relationship between students after graduation will be an asset for life, suggesting that they will accumulate social capital for the future from having belonged to these particular universities. Prestige and Selective students are also told about chances of international travel as part of their experience. In the subsections below we show how at the time of our research Prestige and Selective presented as research departments, and Community and Diversity as teaching departments.

The research departments: Prestige and Selective The departments at Prestige and Selective could be clearly read as research environments. Prestige was bright, modern, clean and welcoming and Selective was quieter, rather shabby and dated. Both departments signalled political and intellectual activity by way of highly visible posters, advertising events, seminars

Introducing the Four Universities and Departments

25

and conferences. In both departments, there were at least four different research groups that varied both in the topics investigated and in the theoretical and methodological approaches taken. It was clear that at Prestige and Selective, a necessary condition of being a legitimate academic was to be an active researcher. There was, however, a sense of distance between students and academic staff: the doors of individual offices tended to be closed with signs letting students know that appointments were necessary. In both departments, administrative staff were evident, appearing to be part of the departmental community. The focus on research was also reflected in the undergraduate student handbooks at Prestige and Selective. Most academics were research active; and, international stars were advertised. At Prestige, the extensive and internationally renowned research achievements of academic staff were foregrounded in the handbook. Such accolades as fellowships, research grants, involvement in prestigious projects and high-profile academic and public positions were outlined; the publications of the members of staff were listed and clear links made between the degree programme and research. The academics in the department and their international research were presented as the department’s most valuable assets. Similarly, at Selective, while the student handbook did not list the research interests of academic staff beyond their broad subject area, it was clear that optional modules were specifically related to individual research interests. There were posters and a carousel of tutors’ books in the foyer and next to the office where students handed in work. Research activity was emphasized on the academics’ individual web pages where the relations between teaching and research were articulated. Teaching was evidently informed by research and was internationally inflected. We observed an internationally renowned academic teaching her specialized area of sociology to a first-year seminar group at Prestige; in a secondyear seminar a tutor was teaching qualitative interviewing, drawing on his own research experiences abroad; and, a lecturer teaching a third-year seminar in an optional module relating to international policy was also an expert in her field. At Selective, the relations between research and teaching were more varied. In the first and second years, we videoed seminars focused on core areas of sociology, which were not directly related to the seminar tutors’ research interests. However, in the third year, the seminar was part of a module that was run by a single member of staff and was directly focused on his area of research expertise (all third-year modules were optional and tended to be specialisms). While there were differences between the two departments, Prestige and Selective presented themselves as internationally significant research

26

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

departments, in which the students benefitted from encountering active researchers and the curriculum drew strength from the presence of a high volume of high-quality research.

The teaching departments: Community and Diversity As a campus-based university, Community allowed free public access to the department, whereas metropolitan Diversity had an entry-card system with security staff on the entrance to the building. Both Community and Diversity were socially pleasant environments that ‘buzzed’, conveying the message that they were teaching environments. Posters on the walls focused on employability and the importance of meeting deadlines, and political posters focused on academic trade union activity rather than on wider political issues. There were no administrative staff within the departments and no social space for the students (Diversity students met in the café). The academic staff shared offices, the doors of which were usually open, with students popping in without appointments. Community and Diversity had fewer, smaller research groups and less variety in the theoretical and methodological approaches than those at Prestige and Selective. The research groups were more likely to be faculty-wide rather than based in a single department. The academics who were part of our research were research active in funded and unfunded local research, about which students were not informed. In contrast to Prestige and Selective, in the student handbook of the degree programme at Community, academic staff were listed in relation to their administrative roles in programmes, rather than their research interests. Nevertheless, a few academics had prestigious research careers and indicated how their teaching was linked to research. Overall, the levels of academics’ research achievement at Community were more varied than at Prestige and Selective. Similarly, in Diversity’s student handbook, academic staff were not presented as active researchers and there was no indication of the connections between their research and their teaching activities. On the webpages, it was difficult to find the publications of members of academic staff. While some of the teaching was related to the research interests of academic staff, it was not emphasized. There was wide variability in the evidence of research activity and only one or two academics appeared to have elite research careers equivalent to those presented at Prestige and Selective. When we observed teaching, tutors at Community and Diversity referred to their research expertise, but did not link specific examples of research to points made the seminars, as tutors did at Prestige and Selective.

Introducing the Four Universities and Departments

27

Overall there is consistency between these qualitative depictions of the four universities and the quantitative data discussed earlier. But how do these accounts relate to the experiences of the students involved in our study? This is the focus of the book. In the next section, we start by showing the motivations of some of the students for studying at Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective.

An introduction to some students Students from Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective told us in their first year what attracted them to the university and course of study. To show that things were not quite as consistent as suggested by our quantitative and qualitative depictions of the four universities, we have selected students with divergent demographic profiles and different reasons for choosing each university: they are not all typical of the universities they attended. It should be noted that our study took social class as the primary structuring factor, considering its intersections with other groupings. Throughout the book students are identified as working class or middle class (as well as given an ethnic group; being described as young or mature and indicating whether he or she had a disability). Designating social class is not straightforward:  our first designations include such descriptors as ‘skilled working class’ (those who completed an apprenticeship or had qualifications) and ‘lower middle class’ (the lower-paid professions). However, for clarity, we decided to make a judgement to categorize each student as either working or middle class: Appendix 2 gives a detailed explanation of how we did this. Hannah:  Community, working class, white British, young. Year 1. I  picked this university because my mum found it on the website and I fell in love with it. It’s beautiful and a lovely city and the course sounded amazing so I came to an open day and the tutor who was doing it is head of department and I thought he was brilliant. He made me want to do it. I liked sociology and criminology. In A-levels they had bits on crime and I enjoyed doing that, so I thought I would carry it on. To start with, when I was younger I wanted to be a lawyer. But there is still crime involved. I hope to gain a better perspective on the criminal world and get a job at the end of it. I want to work in a youth detention centre. I am not sure what else. To get a better life experience. I’m interested in people, knowing what is going on in people’s minds. Studying different groups. Hattie: Community, middle class, white British, young. Year 1. The course sounded interesting. I  thought I’d better do things that are interesting, rather than things that I’m known to be good at. Then I chose Community because

28

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality when I  came to visit, it was really nice and, you know, when you start to get a feeling? Then it was between Community and [another] University, but its grades were higher and so I chose this one. It felt friendly and relaxed, like it would fit my personality . . . I’m expecting a social life . . . I’m interested in going into the police, so I was hoping the course would help me find out if I was interested in going towards that kind of career. Sagara: Diversity, working class, British Bangladeshi, young. Year 1. I’ve been interested in sociology since Year 10 and I realised that it was a very broad subject, which talked about a lot of different issues relating to the individual and society whether it was family or crime or what else. And I enjoyed it because it was something different and I  thought it was something that I  could relate to my life as well. I thought that if I studied sociology it would make a difference and it would make changes in people’s lives for the better. Coming from an ethnic minority and being a female and being a Muslim I thought that many other people in my position would be at a disadvantage because you are taught that you have to be middle class to achieve a higher standard of life. And I just thought about the labelling in school and then the labelling within society that affects a person’s educational achievement and I thought that if I learnt about it and if I understood about it then I could teach other people to make a difference and not accept their stereotype and to prove people wrong. I am from an ethnic minority, I am Muslim, I am female but I have achieved a lot in my life. Sade: Diversity middle class, black British Caribbean, young. Year 1. I was doing marketing [at another post-1992 university] and as I was doing the course I thought . . . I wanted more options when I graduate and so I thought if I did sociology then I’d have more career options, for example I can work in the public sector as well. I was looking at the programme and the topics that we were studying and they seemed interesting and the location of the uni was practical. I like all the topics that it covers, I like learning about people and how they interact with society and I just think it’s an insightful topic. I don’t have one career option in mind yet, I’ve got quite a few, I could possibly go into social care or social work. I’ll probably work in the public sector. Jennifer: Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 1. My mum was on a bit of a mission, I wanted to go to uni, I don’t know what I want to do as a career . . . I wanted to do psychology first and then when I was revising for it for my A-level essays, I didn’t find it interesting, whereas sociology I found interesting and I changed my mind. I told my mum that I wanted to do sociology and she just literally typed in The Times, a university list, the best ones for sociology. So, she just pretty much looked at the grades, and was like ‘Jennifer you’re capable of getting this, do you want to’ . . . and that was it really. I didn’t really know at all [what she wanted to get out of it].

Introducing the Four Universities and Departments Jim:  Prestige, part-time, working class, black British Caribbean, mature (50s). I saw this advert [in the local newspaper] for part-time degrees and [it] has always been my desire to go to university. And then my son said, ‘Just go for it’. I made a call to the university. Actually, it has always been my desire that I should have a professional qualification [because] from my experience I’ve seen that people with professional qualifications can be anywhere and do their jobs, since the qualifications are universal, you can be employed anywhere in the world. I used to work with social workers. I could see there were no limitations . . . They could say to me ‘No you can’t do this because you are not trained, you ought to be trained so as to do this.’ Then it was always in my mind ‘I should also go back to school,’ and crash that barrier of them saying ‘You can’t do this because you are not trained.’ Elisabeth:  Selective, working class, black British Caribbean, young. Year 1. First of all, I chose to do social work and I found I didn’t want to do it. So, I was interested in criminology and I wanted to do it, they told me to do sociology as well, so I went through clearing and I got in. I think mainly that working at the Home Office when I did my work experience in Year 10 enabled me to look into that field. I also did extra research into it, I like the criminal aspects of things. That’s because a lot of people round where we live are into a life of crime. I wanted to see different reasons as to why they’re in crime. And from doing sociology, crime and deviance in college it made me look at . . . the sociological aspects of that. . . . I hope to have a successful job afterwards making sure that I do my best to get the best grades possible and I would also like to make friends. Ed:  Selective, working class, black British Carribbean, young. Year 1. From secondary school I’ve been driven to attain a degree. I was the first person in my family to go to college and pass it. And I think it was ‘Well, I’m doing this so that I can make sure that the rest of my family have better than what they had before.’ . . . So, I think that’s always been a massive drive for me. I wanted to do criminology and social policy, I  thought the description of it sounded interesting, I enjoyed doing criminology at college as well, for A level and social policy sounded quite interesting. I’m interested about the law and how it affects people . . . Yes, and things like property, homelessness and crime was interesting to me. I mean from the degree hopefully I’ll get an understanding of the way the world works and really fill out my own arguments and my ideas, and my own sense of politics and my understanding of people. I think it’s important to have a rounded and thought out understanding of the world around you. Well, afterwards I’d like to become qualified as a teacher and to teach in poor inner city areas. I know it sounds a bit of a cliché, but I would like to get people thinking about current affairs. And introducing people’s ideas about equality and diversity, and feminism and different central theories. That’s exciting and something that I would have loved as a young person to come across.

29

30

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

Conclusion In this chapter, we have introduced the four universities and departments in our study, as well as some of the students. We have shown that the reputations of the universities and the material conditions that students experienced were different and unequal; that a higher proportion of academics at Prestige and Selective held PhDs; and, that students at Community and Diversity were more likely to have lower prior educational achievement and come from workingclass backgrounds and students from Diversity were more likely to have come from black and minority ethnic group backgrounds. Overall our quantitative and qualitative pictures of the four universities and departments are in line with what we might expect given their different reputations. However, in terms of student outcomes the picture is more varied, and given that Prestige and Selective admit students with higher levels of prior educational attainment, it is not at all clear that the differences in students’ outcomes can be attributed to differences in the quality of the educational experience. This book will explore the extent to which differences in the reputations of universities are related to the quality of educational processes. We will examine whether the advantages of higher-status universities always plays out in the quality of the curricula, the pedagogy and in the experiences of and outcomes for the students. We start in the next part of the book by examining whether the differences in the reputations for highquality teaching in the four universities are fair or whether they simply serve to reinforce inequalities. A discussion of these inequalities is the focus of the next chapter.

Notes 1 Readings observes: ‘The sudden redenomination of polytechnics as universities is best understood as an administrative move: the breaking down of a barrier to circulation and to market expansion’ (2006, pp. 38–39). 2 file:///C:/Users/monic/Downloads/nssecusermanual200_tcm77-231563.pdf (accessed 7 May 2017).

Part Two

Setting the Scene

3

The Patterning of Inequality in Higher Education

My interest in sociology has, in part, been focused on education and social mobility – a great social issue that is amenable to ‘arithmetic’ analysis but is also liable to be inflamed by deeply moral and political passions. Halsey, 2013, p. 645 I grew up on a West Midlands council estate as part of an extended family which would once have been described as ‘respectable working class’. I went to school in the eighties and nineties on the same estate, in an educational environment which didn’t expect or prepare young people to stay on beyond sixteen, and progressed from there to a sixth-form college in a middle-class area full of straight-A students. I went on to the University of London, and from there, eventually, I got to be here: writing books about the anxiety induced by being socially mobile. The questions for me have always been: how did that happen? Why does it induce such anxiety? Hanley, 2016, p. ix

Introduction Higher education’s limited contribution to social mobility remains a ‘great social issue’ (to quote Halsey). This chapter establishes the wider context for understanding the universities, departments and students featured in this book. It shows how inequalities play out for different groups:  socio-economic classes, groups based on gender, ethnic groups, those with disabilities and of different ages, and those living in different countries and parts of the world. What individuals and groups can gain and lose by enrolling in higher education is contested: we look at who is going where for higher education (and who isn’t going

34

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality

at all) and who is getting what (qualifications, knowledge and jobs) at different levels of the system. We briefly sketch the global context before discussing inequalities in England in terms of access, participation, outcomes and who takes sociology-related inter-disciplines. The picture presented is bleak, but the book will argue that, while undoubtedly some students are systematically disadvantaged, there are also spaces for transformation. We conclude this chapter by introducing Bernstein’s concept of code to present synopses of eight of our case-study students to illustrate how intersecting inequalities and embodied experiences of class, gender, disability, ethnicity and age relate to the choice to study a sociology-related course at university.

The global higher education context All over the world, the appetite for higher education is keen. Approximately onethird of the university-age cohort worldwide is taking an undergraduate course, that is 137 million students (Marginson, 2016b and 2016c). Moreover, participation is growing at an unprecedented rate (Guri-Rosenblit, 2012). Nevertheless, a clear majority of people do not go to university. Participation varies widely from approximately 60 per cent of the school-leaving cohort in 2015 (South Korea, Finland, Greece, United States, Canada and Slovenia) to 0.2 per cent, in Mauritius (UNESCO)1. Within all countries, the most advantaged go to university whether at home or abroad (Brooks and Waters, 2011). For example, in Mexico about 23 per cent of the population under 24 are at university, but only 3 per cent of the indigenous population (Barrón-Pasteur, 2010); and, in South Africa, 80 per cent of the population are black and of these 14 per cent attend university, whereas, 9 per cent of the population is white and of this population 57 per cent attend university.2 University graduates are more likely than non-graduates to be influential and powerful in their societies and to earn more money; only the university-educated will work in high-end professions. Global disparities of wealth, quality, reputation and achievements in higher education are rooted in histories of global inequality and exploitation: the systems in different countries mirror national disparities in economic development and the developed world has continuously dominated over the developing world in global league tables (Altbach et al., 2009 and Altbach, 2014 ). Moreover, with a dramatic increase in demand and countries’ inability to supply university spaces, international higher education has become a marketplace in which high-income

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countries benefit the most from receiving students and setting up franchises and outposts. England operates within the global trends and so now we rehearse the overall dynamics of inequality in England.3

Inequalities in higher education in England For some decades, the United Kingdom has aimed at making higher education available to more people from all social groups. The main underpinning policy interests are in a skills shortage and social mobility. Research on efforts to increase participation in higher education has focused on lower socio-economic groups and intersections with other groupings: gender; black and minority ethnic groups; age; and disability. In this section, we unpick how these groups fare in English higher education. In 1963, the Robbins report called for immediate mass expansion of higher education, establishing the principle that ‘courses of higher education should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so’ (p. 7). At first (1960s–1980s) national standardized grant and admissions systems and more universities and polytechnics were established. Since then, the issue of encouraging a broader social demographic in universities has been encapsulated in the term ‘widening participation’ meaning access to higher education by social groups who often go by the nomenclature non-traditional. The equity questions are: Who gets a university education? Who goes to which kind of university; who studies what? Who has a good experience of university, and who achieves the greatest ‘graduate premium’? Laying out what is known about the answers to these questions, the discussion unfolds in relation to three areas: access, that is who goes to which university; experience of participation, including what is taught and learned and how (which is the focus of our research); and, employment, social mobility and other outcomes, valued by graduates and stakeholders. Some inequities are convincingly established, and others are elusive, nuanced and context-dependent.

Access to higher education Access to higher education relates to policies for redressing systematic imbalances in who goes to university and in how social groups are differentially distributed in universities of different status. Statistics about who goes to university and where are publicly available4 and inform a widely agreed view of how inequality in higher education is patterned.5 A caveat is that statistical work is as

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yet limited and a range of complex factors (for example, academic performance, family position, beliefs and attitudes, and geographical location) pertain which are difficult to take into account in a single survey (Mangan et al., 2010). That said, variation in both aspects of access – whether a person goes to university at all and, if she does, to which university – are strongly associated with socio-economic class and with parents’ occupation, income and level of education. Most quantitative studies show that when pupils complete compulsory schooling, there is significant variation in academic achievement according to social class: for example, those taking free school meals are half as likely to go to university as more affluent pupils. Few students from the lowest socio-economic groups go to university. So, the most socially and economically disadvantaged university students are usually not from the most disadvantaged groups in society; for this reason we use the term ‘relatively disadvantaged’ for the workingclass students in our study. Once admitted to university, students from lower socio-economic groups (NS-SEC 4–76) are more highly represented within the lower-status universities (Havergal, 2016). Although those in the lowest socio-economic class are circa 30 per cent less likely to attend high-status universities than those in the highest socio-economic groups, the percentage point drops to 2 per cent once prior academic achievement is accounted for. Nevertheless, if the focus is shifted from admissions to applications the picture changes dramatically and depends on a variety of factors. Traditionally underrepresented applicants to the most selective universities are less likely to be offered places than their more advantaged peers, even when their qualifications compare (Boliver, 2015a). Most strikingly, there is strong evidence that, when previous achievement has been accounted for, black ethnic minority students7 are concentrated in the lower-status universities and are significantly less likely to be offered places in all types of universities, especially higher-status universities, particularly students of Black Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage8 (Boliver, 2015b). Type of schooling has an effect at the elite end of the higher education system. After taking account of A-level scores9 the proportion of university entrants going to Oxbridge and other prestigious universities from the top-performing independent schools is considerably higher than from comprehensive schools (Davies et al., 2008). Lower-income prospective students are more ‘debt averse’ (Callender and Jackson, 2008) and possibly because of this, more likely to apply to their local universities. So, if there is no local higher-status university, whatever their previous academic achievement, students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to apply for a lower-status local university (Mangan

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et  al., 2010). Geography plays a role:  London, for example, has considerably higher participation rates than anywhere else in the United Kingdom (though parts of the city have very low participation) and has much higher graduate employment rates than other parts of the country (Savage, 2015); and, the North East of the country and belts of rural and coastal regions have very low participation rates (HEFCE, 2014). Women studying at university outnumbered men by record levels in 2015, young women in England are 36 per cent more likely than young men to apply to university (Universities UK, 2015). However, discipline has an effect. Women now constitute more than half of students in two-thirds of subject areas, with female applicants dominating entrance to medicine, law and biology undergraduate degrees.10 Yet, they are under-represented in high-status STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects, most notably in engineering and computing science; moreover, participation and level of pay are not matched in the labour market three years after graduation (David, 2014). Women are particularly strongly represented in subjects allied to medicine,11 though students from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds are under-represented in law, medicine, veterinary studies and dentistry. Men are under-represented in teaching, health and social care, although they are over-represented at the top of these fields. There are increased acceptances for disabled people12 and Asian and black ethnic groups,13 with a falling proportion for students from independent schools because there has been a growth in students from the state sector.14 Mature student applications in England have fallen by more than 18,000 (a 14 per cent decline) since the introduction of the new £9,000 fees regime; and, part-time students’ applications have fallen considerably since the introduction of higher fees, probably because they are typically older students with responsibilities who are nervous about taking the financial risk (Heller and Callender, 2013, Hillman, 2015). Overall, then, access to university in England is systematically and structurally unequal. The choices to go to university and to which university are influenced by schooling and the geographical distribution of higher-status universities, especially for poorer students who decide to live near home for financial, family or social reasons. Moreover, national and local policies shape what individuals in different social groupings think they are able to do. Despite the apparent straightforwardness of some of the correlations – especially that academic achievement in school accounts for so much of the variation in access – cautious interpretation and getting behind the numbers are required. Statistics do not show how the middle class consistently positions its children to be educationally advantaged, at the expense of others (Power et al., 2003, Reay

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et al., 2011). Policies of educational ‘choice’ have exacerbated this tendency, as Diane Reay (2012, pp. 591–592) puts it: The working classes predominantly constitute those people who are not able to exercise ‘choice’. This is because they get ‘crowded out’ of the best areas in which to send their children to school (because they cannot afford a house in ‘good’ catchment areas) or because they do not have the knowledge to fully understand or the resources to make the best use of information about schools. One consequence of a choice-based system is that the working classes have largely ended up with the ‘choices’ that the middle classes do not want to make.

One of the choices which the middle classes do not want to make is for lowerstatus universities. Behind the not-making-a-choice lies what Reay (2005, p. 911) calls the ‘psychic economy of social class’ that can applied to other groupings: she argues that in their practices teachers and parents send messages to children about their capabilities, what they should do, how hard they should work, and what is possible in their futures. One such practice is streaming for ability, where by and large in socially mixed schools, white middle-class children are educated separately from their working-class and black peers (Reay et al., 2011). So, feelings of being incapable of academic achievement are unevenly distributed across social groups. We can, therefore, speculate that schoolchildren anticipate the qualifications that they will attempt when deciding what effort schoolwork is worth. If, as Archer et al. (2007) found, university is ‘not for me’ then achievement reflects expected barriers. This premise underpins the establishment of university widening-participation units where new professionals design and deliver outreach and access interventions to encourage under-represented groups of children to aspire to university. But policies are contradictory. On the one hand, there have been attempts to coerce higher-status universities to attract and support disadvantaged students,15 and on the other hand, the government cements the status divide by pursuing stratification, allowing unrestricted recruitment of the highest-achieving students and reallocating places to universities charging lower fees. Poorer students are disproportionately concentrated in lower-status universities which will inevitably have a detrimental effect on social cohesion.

Participation in higher education: Retention, experience, success The question for this section is: Are the experiences, opportunities and benefits from undergraduate education fairly distributed? We examine evidence about how the experiences at university of different groups of students in different

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types of universities influences progression and performance. For us success is centrally to do with engagement with academic knowledge, however, this aspect of university experience is largely absent from policy and scholarly literature. Since the late 1990s retention and success in universities have attracted much interest. In England, retention has become a proxy for the quality of education and universities must make public how many students do not complete the course. The measure is both narrow and unfair:  it is consistently shown that students from poorer backgrounds are more likely to drop out (Chowdry et al., 2013; Jones, 2008).16 Most research does not allow for the interrelated factors that influence staying the course, which include: preparedness for higher education, again related to social class; match with student expectation and the course; financial matters; personal circumstances; pedagogical experiences; and, sense of fit and belonging in university and department, including the quality of relationships with academics and other students17 (Chowdry et al., 2013; Jones, 2008). The positive face of these factors is more likely to be experienced by more advantaged students (for example, those whose parents have gone to university are more likely to give financial support and advice about the challenges of university life and study). Moreover, individual universities can act in relation to some of the factors (for example, creating an environment in which students feel they belong), but not in relation to others (financial matters). The factors listed above not only influence whether a student stays the course, they also constrain or enable success defined both as outcome in terms of degree awarded and as employment. Students from poorer backgrounds are less likely than those from richer backgrounds to be awarded the highest degree classifications.18 In terms of other social groupings, a well-established marker of inequality is the black and minority-ethnic ‘attainment gap’ which is shorthand for the phenomenon that across UK higher education (HE) the students from these backgrounds achieve significantly fewer upper-second and first-class degrees than do white students.19 Young men at university drop out of their studies more than women (8 per cent and 6 per cent respectively); and, more women than men attain a 2:1 or above classified degree (69 per cent and 73 per cent respectively) (Hillman and Robinson, 2016). Older students are more likely to achieve third-class degrees and fails (Million+ and NUS, 2012). As with questions about who gets access to higher education, the figures mask the interrelationship between what students bring to university and what they experience while studying. Students who do not stay the course are often conceptualized as deficient which amounts to seeing students from richer backgrounds as displaying more resilience, motivation, or independent study

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skills than those from poorer backgrounds. A fairer view is that richer students experience fewer external pressures and unexpected challenges. This experience is central to our interests and we turn now to other studies which have made a significant contribution to our understanding of how students’ sociocultural, economic backgrounds interact with the environments of different universities to shape experience systematically by social groupings, including social class, gender and age. Qualitative research undertaken in universities of different status by Diane Reay and colleagues exposed the perpetuation of inequalities by using Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts: universities comprise a field whose structures mesh with the habitus of middle-class students, excluding, both literally and symbolically, working-class and ethnic minority students.20 Sometimes this research shows students-as-agents responding in multiple ways to their university education and successfully dealing with challenges (mainly in the higher-status universities). But the main story is that students’ experiences of higher education are unequally differentiated according to social group: ‘structured by the differential wealth and organisation of the universities, and their expectations of students, the subject sub-cultures, and students’ own socio-cultural locations, namely class, gender, age and ethnicity’ (Crozier, 2008a, p. 167). In the lives of relatively disadvantaged students this is a dichotomous experience. On the one hand, experience in higher-status universities is likely to be more uncomfortable and difficult. They must do ‘identity work’ to ‘fit in’ (Reay et al., 2010, p. 121). Yet, it was shown that for those students who can take up the challenges of fitting in, high expectations supported their reaping the benefits of being at a privileged university and becoming middle class (Crozier and Reay, 2011). On the other hand, it was found that ‘for the most part working-class students are in universities seen to be “second class” both by themselves and others’ (ibid.). In these lower-status universities where students regarded other students as ‘like us’, they were under-challenged by a ‘dominant tendency [on the part of tutors] to “tip toe” around the students for fear of putting them under too much pressure’ (Crozier and Reay, p. 150). Students were anxious not to appear ‘nerdy’ and did not develop strong, confident learner identities. So, this body of research suggests that higher-status universities serve relatively disadvantaged students better than do lower-status universities. The ‘paired peers’ project explored whether and how higher education functions as a vehicle for social mobility (Bathmaker et al., 2016). Students at the University of Bristol (an old research university) were matched by social class and discipline studied with students attending the University of the West

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of England (a new teaching-intensive university). The analysis focused on how students’ class backgrounds impacted on their choices, experiences and achievements. At every stage of their degrees, the experience was harder for working-class students who were not as prepared or well informed before they went to university; who faced considerably more financial hardship than their middle-class peers when at university, which curtailed their involvement in extracurricular activity; and who did not have the networks to help them get work experience and internships, which were critical for moving into employment. Social divisions were evident. Some working-class students found it hard to fit in at Bristol and some middle-class students found it hard to fit in at the University of the West of England. Whether students were working or middle class at the University of the West of England, they thought employers valued them less than they did students at Bristol, but middle-class students mobilized their financial, social and cultural capitals to overcome the perceived disadvantage. Yet, these desolate stories about disadvantage are not the only ones. University also transforms the lives of relatively disadvantaged people. The paired peers project found students in both universities who valued becoming more independent; gaining confidence, developing the capacity to engage with a broad range of people; and, generally broadening their horizons. Similarly, Stuart’s (2012) life histories of first-generation entrants to a range of universities reveal how the experience opened ‘gateways to other worlds’ (p. 124). And Brennan et al.’s (2010) five-year study found that whatever university students attended, for the majority ‘the experience of university is associated with the achievement of greater confidence, independence, communication skills, understanding of other people, and maturity’ (pp. 155–156). These alternative accounts are important both because they valorize rather than diminish the experience and achievements of more disadvantaged students and universities; and, because they offer the possibility of analysing what does enable a genuinely good university education for all students. Systematic differences and inequities in the experience of university education cannot be gainsaid, but as Crozier and Reay (2008: 167) put it: ‘An interrelated spectrum of differentiated experiences exists across and within institutions rather than simply stark polarisation.’ Our research explored the ‘interrelated spectrum’ both to ascertain who gains what from learning sociology-related knowledge at university and to understand the processes of achieving educational gains valued by students and society. Next, we conceptualize gains as two types of outcomes: employment after graduation and other benefits.

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Outcomes of higher education Currently, fair distribution of the benefits of a university education is seen mainly in terms of the wage or graduate premium. There is a strand of common-sense wisdom purporting that a university degree is worth a good deal less than it used to be and that students attending lower-status universities earn a good deal less than those attending higher-status universities. Yet the picture is more complex. There have been few studies and there are methodological problems in establishing facts (Mangan et  al., 2010). Nevertheless, those who attend university are likely to earn considerably more than those who do not: the latest analysis was a study carried out by Walker and Zhu (2013), whose estimate of the return of a degree relative to two or more A levels is 23 per cent for men and 31 per cent for women. There is not yet enough data about those graduating in the late 1990s to establish whether the premium is waning. Graduates from black and ethnic minority groups are systematically discriminated against in the labour market (Zwysen and Longhi, 2016). Even if most graduates earn more than most non-graduates, a further question arises of whether graduation from a higher-status university generates a higher wage premium than graduation from a lower-status university. The highly elite universities, Oxbridge and Russell Group universities appear to command a greater graduate premium (Hussain et al., 2009). Yet, this phenomenon does not tell us about the quality of the education received; it merely informs us that the graduates are from national and international elite groups. Elites from a handful of universities secure education that provides the networks and connections that allow them to dominate in high-prestige global employment (Brown et al., 2011; Brown and Lauder, 2017; Savage, 2015; Tholen et  al., 2013). Generally, once student background is controlled for, university-status appears to have less influence on the graduate premium (Walker and Zhu, 2013). Nevertheless, subjects associated with highly-paid professions, such as medicine and economics, are concentrated in elite universities (Johnston et al., 2014; Davies and Durden 2010 McGuinness 2003). Notwithstanding the heavy emphasis on the economic benefits of higher education, there is evidence of a range of other valuable non-economic outcomes related to producing educated citizens. Although little is made of it by the UK government, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2013) points out that, compared with non-graduates, graduates live longer; engage more in civic activity, including voting; and, are more satisfied with their lives. Despite the efforts of social scientists to take account of income

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and social class, the casual effect of higher education on health, civic engagement and subjective well-being is still debated. Overall then, there is substantial evidence of inequity in the English higher education system. In particular, the middle class is more likely to attend university and more likely to attend higher-status universities and study higher-status subjects; less likely to have to make difficult and uncomfortable adjustments in order to enjoy and do well at university; and, more likely to get better paid employment after university. Intersections of gender, disability, ethnicity and age exacerbate these inequalities. Nevertheless, there is also evidence that all students benefit from higher education, which is the focus of our interest.

Undergraduate sociology-based social science in England In this book, we make claims for the effects on individual students of acquiring sociology-based knowledge, and for the effects on society as a whole of a body of sociology graduates. For knowledge to be powerful in society it must circulate and be used by people with different backgrounds, in places where it can lead to significant change. As Fricker (2009) suggests, powerful knowledge can give voice to the previously disempowered so that their vision can shape the world. So here we sketch what is known about who has access to sociology-based subjects in England. Records are approximate and the numbers studying sociology are obscured by its embedding of sociology within other social science disciplines (such as criminology). The failure of sociology as a single discipline to grow over recent years is balanced by rises in subjects which contain sociology: for example, sports studies, education, media studies, youth studies, childhood studies, health and social care subjects, and business studies (ibid.). Sociology-related courses both appear to appeal across social-classes and are found more in the lower-status universities. In 2015 sociology as a single discipline was taught in ninety-seven higher education institutions: forty old and fiftyseven new universities (Universities UK, 2015). The proportion of UK-domiciled black and minority ethnic students studying sociology-related university courses increased from 1,235 in 2002–2003 to 2,545 in 2012–2013 (HEFCE, 2014a), and they made up around 23 per cent of undergraduate students studying social studies in 2013/2014 (Universities UK, 2015). Undergraduate sociology has a good geographical spread across those parts of England where higher education provision exists (HEFCE 2014b). Students from ‘low participation neighbourhoods’ are just as likely to take up sociology-related subjects as any others (HESA 2015). Women are most likely to study sociology: in 2012/13 of 31,000

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students who registered in sociology undergraduate degreesa pproximately 73 per cent were women (Higher Education Information Database for Institutions [HEIDI] 2014). The number of disabled students taking sociology has increased by just over 50 per cent between 2002/3 and 2012/13 (1170) (HEFCE, 2014b) and the number of mature students has fallen considerably over the same period (HEFCE, 2014b).

The concept of code: The individual student and inequalities in higher education The accounts below of individual students in our study illustrate intersectionality. For Brah and Phoenix (2004, p.  3) the concept signifies the ‘complex, irreducible, varied, and variable effects which ensue when multiple axis of differentiation – economic, political, cultural, psychic, subjective and experiential – intersect in historically specific contexts’. In other words, individuals experience the effects of class, gender, ethnicity, age and disability uniquely through varied experiences. In our analysis, Bernstein’s concept of ‘code’21 is central and overarching because it is the mechanism which connects the inner worlds of individuals and the outer world of systems and structures. We have seen, for example, the outer world of university access, participation and outcome. In sum, students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, black and minority ethnic groups and those who have disabilities usually enrol in lower-status universities; they are more likely to take on employment to finance their studies, to have personal or financial problems and to drop out. When they leave university they achieve lower-classified degrees and are disadvantaged in the labour market and in postgraduate education and training, compared to middle-class, white, ablebodied students. In these circumstances, through family, schooling and other life experiences the students in our research had developed different forms of inner life: of consciousness about who they were, who they thought they could become and what they thought they could do. While Bernstein concentrated on social-class codes and this is what we foreground, we include gendered (Arnot, 2002), age, ethnic, and disability codes which act as cultural transmitters governing human responses to social structures. The students we introduce here – Maurice, Mary (Community); Lucia, Lamar (Diversity); Faith, Faziah (Prestige); and, Ed and Elizabeth (Selective)  – are a selection of case-study students. They had specific configurations of disadvantage

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and advantage which they talked about in interviews. We shall return to these students in various chapters and in Chapter 9 we discuss the whole of their university trajectory.

Maurice: Community Maurice was working class, white, and 19 in his first year. His father was a lorry driver and qualified mechanic; his mother worked for a taxi firm and had three GCSEs. Maurice was pleased to enter Community with three A  levels (BCC) and was grateful to his mother for being supportive without being pushy. Being working class in England often means living in rented housing, but Maurice’s family had bought their council house when he was young and then moved for his secondary schooling. Only Maurice had gone to university in his family, which was stable, close and extended. Students at Community were from similar backgrounds so he fit in culturally, although this was not a reason for his choice. He chose Community because it was close to home and he had recently been diagnosed with epilepsy, a disability defined as a ‘substantial and long-term need’ (Equalities Act, 2010). At first, Maurice applied to study criminal law, but at Community’s open day he liked the focus on the political and sociological aspects of criminology, so he accepted a place to study criminology with an ambition to join the police, although his epilepsy obliged him to rethink. At the start of his degree, being working class and male, Maurice was more likely than his middle-class peers to drop out of university and to get a lower degree result. Added to this, there is a greater drop-out rate for students with disabilities, perhaps because of lack of support. However, Maurice was in receipt of a disabled student allowance.

Mary: Community Mary was raised by her father alone from the age of three when her parents split up. She came from a geographical area of low participation in higher education and was the first in her family to attend university, which she saw as a benchmark for her extended family; despite this, her younger brother did not intend to go. Her father’s highest qualification was as a chef at further education college. He was interested in education and was now a learning support officer. The council house estate on which Mary grew up was rough, giving her, she said, an interest in crime and psychology, and prompting her to choose criminology. Mary appreciated the city in which Community is located, enjoying the

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beautiful cathedral and being somewhere big enough to be different from her rural home village, but which, Mary said, was not ‘like London’ which would have been ‘too much’ for her. When she started, Mary planned a career in the prison service. She wanted to give her future family a good life and make money enough to own a home, have holidays and a car. Being working class placed her as likely to do less well than did her middle-class peers, while being female, white and not having a disability were positive indicators.

Lucia: Diversity Born in England, Lucia was in her 40s and of British, French and Pakistani background. Lucia told us that she chose sociology at Diversity because she wanted to be ‘an advocate for the oppressed’ in community work. Her father had worked for the civil service and her stepmother was a full-time carer. Lucia’s mother died when she was four and her father quickly remarried. At 13, she was taken from comprehensive school against her will and said that she was ‘imprisoned’ in relatives’ house in Pakistan for two years. Later, after she completed school, Lucia told us that a traumatic forced marriage ended before she went to university – she was involved in a complicated divorce throughout her degree. When pregnant with her second child, Lucia was expelled from her parents’ home by her stepmother. She had a lifelong love of education. As an adult with two children, she began a further education college access course where a diagnosis of dyslexia helped her understand why she struggled with studying. Lucia’s son had a disability and required attention and specialist care. She was engaged in continuous negotiations with authorities about him. She lived in social housing and worked part-time to manage financially. Lucia faced multiple disadvantages as a mature, ethnic-minority student with dyslexia whose financial and housing situations placed her in a lower socio-economic group. Typical of mature students, Lucia dealt with events in her life such as her divorce and her battles over her son’s care and education. She was less likely to stay the course and do well than her white, middle-class and working-class peers. On entering university, Lucia’s disadvantages were many and her privileges few.

Lamar: Diversity Lamar was a working-class black British student in his 30s who was registered blind. His father was unknown to him and his mother was of Jamaican origin, a registered nurse and ward sister. He was brought up in social housing. He had

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suffered institutional and family abuse and had witnessed and experienced physical violence: when he was 13 his friend was stabbed; Lamar’s teeth were knocked out with a cricket bat, and he was unconscious for four days following a hit-andrun accident. Lamar attended a specialist primary school where he learned to touch type, a skill he appreciated, despite having gained it in an institution in which he was abused. When he joined mainstream comprehensive school for secondary education Lamar told us that his teachers considered him ‘very bright’ but that he was ‘aggressive and disorganised’. As a young adult, Lamar’s life was chaotic. He had been involved with the church as a child and gained some support there, but as an adult he said that he was ‘mixed up in things’ he preferred not to talk about. He had little support, and his sight impairment was progressive and would progressively worsen. However, after his recovery from the hit-and-run accident he changed his attitude to life and his ambitions. A charity supporting blind people and a social worker encouraged Lamar to go to university. At 33 he took an access course achieving high marks of which he was proud. He chose to study sociology and psychology at a university that was near enough to his flat for him to manage and that appeared to offer good support for disabled students. He hoped to become a social worker and was supported through a grant, loan and benefits including a disabled students’ allowance (DSA). The intersecting disadvantages affecting Lamar were his social class, his ethnicity, his disability (although being in receipt of DSA improves students’ chances of success), his age and his gender. Like Lucia he had few advantages. Universities often struggle to fulfil their obligations to support students with sight impairments and Lamar complained about the lack of support he received.

Faith: Prestige Faith was mainly bought up by her mother in a working-class neighbourhood in London. She was black (Nigerian), and her estate was rough, her family was poor, and she was one of eight children, including step-siblings. She changed primary schools three times, moving between England and Nigeria. The last primary school gave her a mentor and teacher programme which worked well for her and she went on to grammar school. She did not like it, so for A-levels she went to a local further education college. She was told that she wouldn’t reach the standard of qualification to get into Prestige, which she had picked because it was a green campus. Despite being poor, Faith’s parents had degrees. So, while Faith was disadvantaged by poverty and perhaps by aspects of the culture on her housing estate, she

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had a close family who understood higher education. Her biological father got his degree when she was very young, her mum when Faith was 9 and her stepfather (who married her mother during high school) also had a degree. However, it seems that they did not attend the kind of elite institutions that Faith was entering. Her 17-year-old brother was planning to go to university. Faith’s intersecting disadvantages were ethnicity, class (finance and home culture), and some advantages were gender, age, her parents’ education and having no disability.

Faziah: Prestige Faziah was wealthy:  her father and the uncle who became her guardian were small business owners living in a privately owned, four-bedroom house. Nevertheless, her school was comprehensive and she was the first in her family to go to university. Describing some family members as ‘dumb’ and uninterested in education, she said she wanted to ‘stand out’ from them. She was, however, encouraged by her older sister whose arranged marriage had failed and could see the advantages of university for her sister. And her younger brother planned university. As the first generation to attend, Faziah was not familiar with university culture or requirements. Additionally, as a British Asian she was less likely than white peers to do well at university. Moreover, her young life had been traumatic. When Faziah was 4, her mother, an accountant, died, and when she was 9, her father died from alcoholism. Faziah then lived with her uncle and other members of her extended family, which was difficult although she said they were close. She had an eating disorder for several years after her father died.22 Yet, Faziah entered Prestige with three A-grade A levels, which is a predictor for getting a first or upper-second degree.

Ed: Selective Ed was of mixed ethnic origin, white English and black Caribbean. He was working class and reported being a ‘high achiever’ from early in school life. For the first year of his life he lived with his 17-year-old mother, his sister and his grandmother and when his mother was 18 she moved with the children to a council flat in a rough area. Ed’s mother gave up her job in banking to look after her children when they were young, then, when they went to secondary school, she worked for the National Health Service (NHS) Ed’s father, whom he didn’t see much, worked in social care. Ed told is that his mother ‘fought’ to get him into a good secondary school with mostly white students in a richer area. But Ed

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was unhappy because he didn’t feel he fitted in: he was taunted about his mother being on unemployment benefit. He was the only person in his family to go to university so far, though he thought his younger brother might. Ed’s interest in poverty and inequality and his desire to lift his family economically motivated him to study sociology. His aspiration was to work with disenfranchised groups similar to those he encountered on his council estate. Being male, ethnic minority and working class put Ed more at risk of dropping out and not achieving as highly as female, white and middle-class students. However, he entered university with good A levels; and, arguably, the strong motivation to improve others’ lives increased his chance of success. He was also young and without disability which gave him an advantage over such students as Lucia and Lamar.

Elizabeth: Selective Elizabeth was black Caribbean. Her parents had split up by the time she went to primary school and she was bought up by her mother and, for a short while, a stepfather who left her mother, taking her new sister with him. Elizabeth’s family lived in social housing in an inner city where she witnessed domestic violence among her neighbours, which was a vivid, unwelcome memory for her. She had an active relationship with her grandparents, but saw little of her father who worked for the Home Office. Her mother was educated to the level of further education and her father to A levels. Elizabeth went to an all girls’ secondary school and did very well academically, though she did not enjoy the social side. On her mother’s side of the family she was the first to go to university, however, her father’s and aunt’s work at the Home Office suggested that Elizabeth was lower middle class. Work experience at the Home Office and the violence she saw on her estate motivated her to want to work in criminal justice. She wanted to work in administration, middle-management perhaps. Like the other students described here, Elizabeth’s ethnic minority and relatively poor background meant that the outcomes of her university education were not entirely secure when she entered Selective with three good A levels. These eight case-study students are chosen to highlight how the intersecting, diverse inequalities of natal contexts and background experiences shape possible futures. As we will show, these students did achieve valuable outcomes but they had great challenges to face to succeed at university and they were not unique among our sample. In a quotation at the beginning of the chapter, Lynsey Hanley asks how she got from her working-class background to attend university and to write books; it can be seen in the accounts how sometimes it appears to be

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serendipitous life events which support students who otherwise might not have got to university and stayed the course: for example, Mary’s father was interested in education; after a serious accident, Lamar’s social worker encouraged him; and, Faith’s parents had degrees themselves despite a life of poverty. The experiences of these and other students at the four universities will be returned to as we progress.

Conclusion To summarise, it is evident that the English system is characterized by inequalities. While access to university might be more open now than twenty years ago, a highly stratified system limits the benefits of higher education for those who, economically and socially, are relatively disadvantaged. Nevertheless, there is a desire for university education on the part of these students and evidence that there are valuable outcomes beyond the economic, but securing those outcomes is more difficult for some students and some universities. What made a difference to the students we introduced here was the quality of their educational experiences, and, as the book progresses, we will show how configurations of curriculum and pedagogy can empower students with multiple disadvantages. In the next chapter, we explore how specific conceptualizations of quality combine with the practice of ranking universities to reinforce inequalities between types of universities and, therefore, between their students.

Notes 1 2 3 4

http://data.uis.unesco.org. chet.org.za/data/sahe-open-data. Statistical sources are different for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. From the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA); Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). 5 The account of access to higher education in this section is based on the following work by economists and social scientists interrogating and interpreting large data sets: Bekhradnia, 2003; Chowdry et al.2008 and 2013; Connor et al., 1999; Crawford et al., 2016; Davies et al., 2008; Gorard, 2008; Mangan et al. 2010; Noble and Davis 2009, 2010.

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6 This is the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification. UK universities are benchmarked by the proportion of students from socio-economic groups that are underrepresented in higher education generally and elite higher education, in particular. These groups are: small employers and own account workers (NS-SEC4); lower supervisory technical occupations (NS-SEC5); semi-routine occupations (NS-SEC 6) and routine occupations (NS-SEC 7). Students from NS-SEC 1 (higher managerial and professional occupations), NS-SEC 2 (lower managerial and professional occupations) and NS-SEC 3 (intermediate occupations) are seen as traditionally well-represented within elite higher education. NS-SEC class 8, longterm unemployed or never worked, is included in the unknown classification in UK HE Performance Indicators. 7 ‘BME [black and minority ethnic] students were reported to comprise 16 per cent of the undergraduate population in England as opposed to 9 per cent of the working population’ (Tatlow, 2015, p. 10). 8 Black and minority ethnic groups are often discussed as an entity, but the picture differs when disaggregated (Boliver, 2015). 9 In England, A-level or ‘advanced level’ examinations are usually taken at 17/ 18 years and are the main qualification considered for university entrance. 10 The success of female applicants mirrors the trend in GCSE and A-level results, with girls outperforming boys across the grade scale. In 2013, girls received A* or A grades at GCSE in 25 per cent of papers taken, compared with nearly 18 per cent of boys’ papers. Mary Curnock Cook, chief executive of UCAS, has commented: ‘There remains a stubborn gap between male and female applicants which, on current trends, could eclipse the gap between rich and poor within a decade’. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/21/ gender-gap-university-admissions-record. 11 In 2014, 32,000 more women were accepted and in medicine and dentistry – among the most competitive undergraduate courses – there were 5,000 women and 3,800 men accepted last year. 12 UCAS claimed a record 36,000 UK applicants who declared a disability were accepted by universities – an increase of 3,700 on the previous year (2013). 13 The 45,000 UK students from Asian ethnic groups and 30,000 from black ethnic groups were the highest numbers ever placed through UCAS. 14 The growth in students from state schools has lowered the proportion of UK entrants from the independent sector. In 2007, privately educated students made up 11 per cent of the 256,000 acceptances but last year the proportion was 9 per cent of 307,000. 15 For example, the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) was established by the government at the time of the large fee increase in 2012 to regulate fair access to higher education in England. It is soon to be abandoned.

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16 Students from the top socio-economic quintile group remain 3.4 percentage points less likely to drop out within two years, and 5.3 percentage points more likely to complete their degree within five years (Chowdry et al., 2013). 17 Liz Thomas’s work with the Paul Hamlyn Foundation found this factor of high importance. (http://www.lizthomasassociates.co.uk/student_retention.html). 18 Students from the top socio-economic quintile are 3.7 percentage points more likely to graduate with a first or a 2:1 than young people from the bottom socioeconomic quintile group (Chowdry et al., 2013). 19 It has been found to be about 18 per cent in a wide range of studies (HEFCE 2010; National Union of Students (NUS), 2012; Stevenson, 2012). 20 Crozier and Reay, 2011; Crozier and Reay, 2008; Crozier et al., 2010; Crozier, Reay et al., 2008; Reay et al., 2009; and, Reay et al., 2010. 21 The concept is close to the more widely used Bourdieuian concept of habitus, except, as we shall explain later includes an explanation for how it is produced. 22 Approximately 27 per cent of students claimed to be suffering from a mental health problem in 2016 (YouGov, 2016).

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The Construction of High-Quality University Education

It is the little, pathetic attempts at Quality that kill. The plaster false fireplace in the apartment, shaped and waiting to contain a flame that can never exist. Or the hedge in front of the apartment building with a few square feet of grass behind it . . . If they just left out the hedge and grass it would be all right. Now it serves only to draw attention to what is lost. Pirsig, 1974, p. 375 Then again there’s ‘university’ and there’s ‘uni’. I’ve never got on with this casualized and truncated form of the original word. It suggests . . . a refusal to respect or measure the weight of it . . . Rather than stepping up to the ‘elaborated’ multisyllabic breach, this new and widened cohort of students was encouraged to chop it down to fit the ‘restricted’ code they knew. The newest wave of universities – formerly polytechnics – have tended to pile it high and sell it cheap, marketing themselves as distinctly ‘local’ universities which will give you a degree without trying to force you out of your comfort zone. Hanley, 2016, p. 155

Introduction The quotation from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig, 1974, p. 375) nicely conveys the distortions of false, official proxies for genuinely goodquality university education. We want to understand what fires students’ minds and imaginations. Moreover, to overcome the disadvantages with which they arrived at university the students we introduced in the last chapter need goodquality education. In this chapter, we discuss the problems with current official configurations of what constitutes good-quality higher education, which did not

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coincide with what the students and academics in our study thought of as goodquality education. Strong motivation for our research was our perception that injustices were being done by how reputation circulates in a hierarchically stratified system (Dill, 2007). Lynsey Hanley (2012 and 2016), quoted above, writes about her own experiences of growing up working class on a large council estate and then going to a high-status university. In the quotation above, she expresses a dim view of lower-status, new universities, invoking Bernstein’s notion of elaborated and restricted code1 to suggest that they are letting down the working-class students who attend. She uses the work of Diana Reay (2012) to argue that students opting to attend universities where they feel they ‘fit in’ entrenches existing inequalities because the middle class will go to higher-status universities, thus limiting the potential of working-class students. Moreover, she takes for granted that the quality of the education in the lower-status universities is worse because the students are not ‘force[d] out of [their] comfort zones.’ The assumption that educational quality follows status is widely held. Government, the public, media and academics themselves take for granted that old, higher-status universities appearing high in university rankings offer higher-quality undergraduate education than new universities where there have been reports of so-called Mickey Mouse degrees and ‘dumbing down’. In our experience2 these reputations are not always deserved. Global and local higher education rankings order universities according to purported excellence which is a mantra for private and public services. Bill Readings (1996) proposed that what is excellent can be agreed on because ‘as an integrating principle, excellence has the singular advantage of being entirely meaningless, or to put it more precisely, non-referential’ (p.  22). Such empty, hyperbolic terms are used to pit universities against each other, and for this reason we adhere to the modest term, good quality. In this chapter, we engage in the debate about what constitutes good-quality university education first by setting it in a global context, drawing attention to how higher education systems everywhere are developing similar types of quality regimes, motivated both by market competition and by the potential to make social contributions. To clarify the English context of our study, we draw selectively on our Bernsteinian analysis of English higher education policy documents showing that overall the market model dominates, though some policy discourses allow alternative ways of thinking. Finally, the students in our research give their own definitions of good-quality university education.

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Global higher education, quality assurance and rankings Despite the emphasis on deregulation and open markets, under neo-liberalism some markets are highly controlled (Olssen, 2011; Stiglitz, 2013). This trend is evident globally in what Michael Power (1994) has called the ‘audit explosion’:  governance of organizations is reconceptualized as contracts linking incentives to performance and the quality of services is pursued by way of quantitative performance indicators or metrics. Efficiency and performance are the watchwords and those receiving services are customers who, above all, should be able to choose between competitive providers and receive value for money. Higher education is not exempt either from becoming a market or from quantified forms of measuring the quality of education. Students and their parents are expected to use information to make the right choice, even though, as we will show, the information is far removed from the kind of educational quality that is of most interest and choice is constrained, particularly for those with lower entrance tariffs and less money. Globally, the demand for student places has outstripped supply. Higher education is a lucrative market, which, in turn, has led to more diverse institutions and modes of undergraduate education. Simultaneously, higher education harmonization has been pursued to allow student mobility. In this situation, quality assurance regimes have both proliferated and aligned (Harvey and Williams, 2010a and b; Turner, 2012; Voegtle et al., 2011). Most countries either have or aspire to national quality assurance agencies such as the UK Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and the Australian Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) (Chao, 2014). There is increasing convergence in the shape and length of degrees, benchmarking practices, accreditation processes and what constitutes good teaching, and divergence from global standards is increasingly interpreted as low quality (Dill and Beerkens, 2013). The question is whether converged quality assurance and enhancement addresses socio-economic inequalities by improving the quality of teaching, learning and curriculum. Certainly, across the world, there is a marked interest in equity expressed as social mobility and it is implied in policy documents that standardizing the quality of higher education will lead to greater equality and contribute to the well-being of individuals and countries, for example, from Europe:  ‘We will enhance the social dimension of higher education, improve gender balance and widen opportunities for access and completion, including international mobility, for students from disadvantaged backgrounds’ (EHEA’s

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Yerevan Communique, pp.  2–3). Or from the English government’s consultation paper ‘Fulfilling our potential, student mobility and student choice’: ‘The Government is committed to increasing access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and under-represented groups and ensuring good outcomes for these students’ (Department for Business Innovation and Skills [BIS], 2015, p. 22). Such claims are welcome, but they are hypothetical. Moreover, as we will show, it is difficult to achieve equity when institutions are in an unfair competition and ranked by measures of quality which are quantitative and removed from the actual quality of education. University rankings reflect social hierarchies, internationally and nationally.3 International university rankings remain stable. For example, Hazelkorn (2014) emphasizes the inflexible nature of inclusions and exclusions by noting that since 2003 only Serbia and Greece have penetrated the top 400 Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities; and, that the Times Higher World University rankings has had the same number of countries since it started in 2010–2011. It might be argued that since the rankings are so steady, they are hardly worth it. Nevertheless, they capture attention and are heavily marketed and, because the public is inclined to take them at face value, universities strive to maintain or better their position within the rankings. Rankings further advantage the already advantaged by combining indicators of pedagogic quality with other indicators that depend on institutional status and wealth, thereby conforming to general suppositions about the hierarchy of universities (Amsler and Bolsmann, 2012; Ashworth et  al., 2004). For example, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (2016–2017) leave only 30 per cent for teaching and learning measures: 15 per cent is based on universities’ reputation for teaching among invited academics (this directly favours high-status, research-focused institutions with global reputations); 4.5 per cent is based on the staff-to-student ratio (closely related to wealth and resources); 2.25 per cent is based upon the ratio of doctoral students to undergraduate students (again related to wealth and status and seriously disadvantaging teaching institutions); 6 per cent is based on the number of doctorates awarded in different subjects (again disadvantaging undergraduate, teaching-focused institutions); and, 2.25 per cent is based on institutional income scaled against the number of staff (Times Higher Education World University Rankings, 2016). These measures derive from existing reputation and wealth; are proxies for actual teaching and curriculum design; do not consider curriculum content or pedagogic processes; and, ignore student progress and the differences involved in teaching students who begin university with lower qualifications

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and little familiarity with the idea of higher education (Forsyth and Furlong, 2003; Houston and Lebeau, 2006). Despite effects being more or less extreme in different countries, there is widespread criticism that internationally, league tables and quality systems combine with economic and social forces to create inclusions, exclusions and inequities that do not benefit most people or most education systems (Ramerez and Tiplic, 2014). University rankings, then, are biased towards privileging wealth and established status, thereby confirming the ranking of universities as if it were the natural order: rankings reflect social hierarchies. So, despite formal efforts to ensure comparative standards, educational standards are represented and thought of as lower at lower-status universities. We set out to investigate this assumption.

Policy constructions of good-quality undergraduate education in England The higher education system in England has been identified as an extreme example of a punitive audit culture (Strathern, 2000, Vidovitch and Slee, 2001). The policy landscape has been shaped as one in which both good-quality teaching and social mobility are positioned as coming from a diverse, competitive, highly regulated market of multiple providers. In this context, scrutiny of teaching is intensifying, even as the market of institutions opens up. Thus, England is, indeed, a particularly stark example of a global phenomenon and, as such, an instructive case by which to consider the broader problems associated with framing the quality of university education exclusively in terms of a market ideology. As part of our research, we examined policy documents for how a goodquality undergraduate education was represented (Ashwin et al., 2015).4 Policy documents reflect struggles about this representation between different higher education stakeholders: agencies of the state; business groups; university, educational development, lecturer and student groups; and, actors from the international field such as organizations focused on international cooperation. In the analysis, we employed Bernstein’s concept of recontextualization which concerns the production of pedagogic discourse, meaning that discourse relays messages about what is to be taught and how. For Bernstein, ‘Pedagogic discourse is constructed by a recontextualising principle which selectively appropriates, relocates, refocuses and relates other discourses to constitute its own order’ (Bernstein, 2000, p.  33). In education systems, these processes of

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recontextualization take place in both an official recontextualizing field, that is the state and its agencies, and in a pedagogic recontextualizing field, that is, those directly concerned with education. In the subsections below, we offer a flavour of what documents from both official and pedagogic fields convey in terms of the features of a good-quality system; good-quality teaching; good-quality teachers; and, the quality of students (although, of course, documents tend to use the terminology of excellence and high quality). We show some resistance to dominant official trends from the pedagogic recontextualizing field.

The features of a high-quality system: Providing market choices The dominant model of what constitutes a good-quality higher education system is reflected in the policy documents of both the official and pedagogic recontextualizing fields. There is strong consensus that a higher education system should contribute to social mobility, which is constructed as a matter of individual choice in a flourishing, competitive higher education marketplace. Almost every group accepts that higher education should offer a diversity of institutions, a range of types of degree courses and modes of study responsive to the preferences of students. Above all, prospective undergraduate students should have information about this range:  ‘The key to quality is information: our proposals rely on student choice to drive up the quality of higher education. Students need access to high quality information, advice and guidance in order to make the best choices’ (Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance, 2010, p. 28). The best choice is the university that renders the student most employable at the end of the course thus achieving value for money.5 However, rather than a range of disciplines, what is emphasized is the flexibility of the system as whole to offer different structures of undergraduate programmes in a range of institutional settings driven by the choices of students. Yet, from academics in the pedagogic recontextualizing field there is some opposition to student choice driving what constitutes a university education: The essence of true choice in university is embodied in the diversity of subjects. It will be eroded by the proposals to allow narrowly-based new providers to cherry-pick courses, by the removal of public funding from the arts, humanities and social sciences, and by the proposals to reinforce the market position of ‘selective universities’, which will make them not simply more selective academically, but also more selective socially. (Campaign for Public Higher Education et al., 2011, p. 14)

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Good-quality teaching: England’s teaching excellence framework In England, for the first time, teaching is to be ranked and linked to differential fees. This move provides an example of how the quality of teaching is evaluated when the higher education system is configured as a market. The government justifies the scrutiny and ranking of teaching because students need information to make ‘reliable comparisons’ (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2015, p. 19). The new Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) proposes ‘simple [and] robust’ (ibid., p.  31) metrics based on data about employment or destination; retention; and, student satisfaction (already measured by a National Student Survey). Adjustments for the gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, disability and age of typical student cohorts should ameliorate some of the problems for equity that this kind of data carries. So, in terms of graduate employment, TEF rankings should consider that differences in graduate salaries are generated by factors unrelated to the quality of teaching, for instance, the prestige of a given university in the highly stratified higher education landscape; systematic discrimination at work of ethnic minorities, older people and people with disabilities; the gender pay-gap; and, the social capital already possessed by more privileged students. These adjustments will probably render the differences between universities indiscernible, nevertheless the commitment to making them means that the TEF will offer a fairer picture of student outcomes than the other rankings we have discussed. However, nothing in the document relates directly to the quality of the curriculum and teaching. A bottom line is proposed: ‘We want to ensure that, as a precondition of the TEF, the sector observes the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)’s published guidance on how consumer protection law applies to higher education providers’ (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2015, p. 27). This means that universities must give information about course content and structure; how the course will be delivered (contact hours, teaching modes, expertise of teachers, expected workload and so on); and, what are the costs. Students should expect this kind of information, but it is insufficient because it cannot provide a picture of the quality of programmes and teaching. Sleight of hand persuades the reader that information and quality are synonymous. What counts as excellence is how information and choice interrelate for the individual student. The implication is that, up until now, students have not accessed excellence because they have not had access to information about courses which allowed them to choose excellence. The students’ search for excellence will somehow

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produce excellence: it seems Kafkaesque. As we show in Chapter 7, this is not how our students saw good-quality teaching. The quest for metrics that are both fair and reflect authentically the nature of good-quality teaching is elusive. It is evident from the quotation to follow that excellence, as Readings observes, ‘is invoked here, as always, to say precisely nothing at all: it deflects attention from the questions of what quality and pertinence might be’ (1996, p. 32): There is no one broadly accepted definition of ‘teaching excellence’. In practice it has many interpretations and there are likely to be different ways of measuring it . . . : ●

●

●

●

excellence must incorporate and reflect the diversity of the sector, disciplines and missions – not all students will achieve their best within the same model of teaching; excellence is the sum of many factors – focussing on metrics gives an overview, but not the whole picture; perceptions of excellence vary between students, institutions, and employers; excellence is not something achieved easily or without focus, time, challenge and change. (Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, 2015, p. 21)

In this view, therefore, excellent teaching has no specific qualities or outcomes.

Good-quality teachers: Toe the line If good-quality teaching is reduced to a set of dubious metrics, academics-asteachers are constructed in documents as troublesome. Stefan Collini (2016) observes ‘the curious spectacle of a right-wing government championing students’ (p. 33). While it was once students who were seen as recalcitrant, now: ‘If students will set aside vague, old-fashioned notions of getting an education, and focus instead on finding the least expensive course that will get them the highest-paying job, then the government wants them to know that it will go to bat for them’ (ibid., p. 33). The government is batting against academics who need to be ‘incentivised’ by targets and assessments if they are not to ‘revert to type as feather-bedded, professional-class spongers’ (ibid.). This volte-face can be seen as part of what Onora O’Neil (2002) called ‘a question of trust’ in the Reith Lectures in which she argued that under a ‘managerial state’ the trustworthiness of public sectors

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workers has been questioned. She described the administrative control of working lives dedicated to service as ‘detailed conformity to procedures and protocols, detailed record keeping and provision of information in specified formats and success in reaching targets’ (p. 46). These regimes, she argued, damage and distort ‘real work’ (p. 49). There is much anecdotal and research evidence that a dirigiste culture accompanies quality regimes. For example, in Louise Morley’s (2003) study academics experienced multiple losses: of confidence and equanimity; of a sense of security; of academic identity and autonomy; and of interest in core teaching and research work. More recently, Frankham’s (2016) study of academics’ experiences of the National Student Survey (NSS) unearthed similar problems, for example, ‘The culture of university meetings militates against academics airing open disagreement in the face of bureaucratic definitions of “quality” issues’ (p. 12). Academic teachers are affected by the apparent need to satisfy students, even though the research underpinning the NSS suggests that seeking student satisfaction will, in fact, not result in a better score: it is important to understand teaching from the perspective of students, but the risk is that academics equate good-quality teaching with student contentment and with what senior managers require, in order to satisfy the demands of audit mechanisms (Gibbs, 2010; Ramsden, 2003). Despite this climate, in all our departments we found sociology academics using strong academic and disciplinary values to resist and accommodate official recontextualizing discourse (Abbas and McLean, 2010). They were dedicated to passing on knowledge to students, a quality of teaching that cannot be detected in policy documents.

The quality of students: Customer identities The state in England does not directly influence the university curriculum as it does in schools. However, university teaching has been politicized: the bias and focus of the policy texts attribute specific moral dispositions, motivations and aspirations to students. In Bernstein’s theory, this process of attribution is the projection of pedagogical identities, that is the attempt to regulate being, becoming, feeling, thinking, relating and motivations and desires. Here we discuss the dominant identity projected for students in the official recontextualizing field. Although Bernstein did not use the words customer or consumer to emerge from what he identifies as the ‘de-centred market model’, he did propose an ‘instrumental’ pedagogic identity which is externally

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oriented towards consumables, is free of content knowledge and is essentially individualistic: [Teaching] here arises to produce an identity whose product has an exchange value of the market . . . The focus is on the short term rather than the long term, on the extrinsic rather than the intrinsic, upon the exploration of vocational applications rather than upon exploration of knowledge. Transmission here views knowledge as money. And like money it should flow easily to where demand calls . . . The position constructs an outwardly responsive identity rather than one driven by inner dedication. (2000, p. 69)

From a Bernsteinian perspective then the dominant market-oriented discourse projects specific student identities and relationships to their university education. The logic is value for money and in the higher education market the student is a customer who will receive the quality of education s/he is willing or able to pay for:  a Skoda or Mercedes. Neither (inter)disciplinary nor vocational knowledge is mentioned in most policy documents about teaching. Rather, definitions of quality are focused on generic modes which develop the correct dispositions in students (employability skills) that will equip them with flexible, enterprising identities suited to the ever-changing employment market so that future earnings are secured. Within this generic discourse, the identities of a gendered and ethnically and socio-economically highly diverse student body are reduced to those of ‘intelligent customers of an increasingly diverse provision’ (Department for Education and Skills, 2003, par. 4.2). Commentators observe that constructing students as customers or consumers of an educational product (a degree) largely defined by how employable it makes them has deleterious effects on learning, teaching and the curriculum (Brown and Carrasso, 2013; Collini, 2012; Holmwood, 2011). The role of the teacher as an expert guiding the student or as a partner co-constructing knowledge is dismissed, as is the role of the student as active, engaged learner. Student choice is valorized as both a means of attaining quality (which is conflated with students being satisfied) and as a worthwhile end in itself: ‘We want to put students at the heart of the system. Students are best placed to make the judgement about what they want to get from participating in higher education (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2010, p. 25). What is invoked is a ‘cost-benefit relationship’ (ibid., p.  32) between student and university whereby education becomes a commodity. Bill Readings put it nicely, indicating the student ‘is situated entirely as a consumer, rather than as someone who wants to think’(1996, p.  27). Similarly, the goals relating to the contributions that graduates might

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make beyond the economic are absent:  students are seen as becoming more instrumental, individualistic, self-interested and less concerned with moral and social issues (Colby et al., 2007, Klemenčič, 2011; Naidoo and Williams, 2015; Williams, 2012). In the chapters that follow, we will show that we did not find students or their teachers succumbing to the instrumental discourse. There is some alternative discourse in some policy documents, which emanates from the pedagogic recontextualizing field:  academic, education developer, university and student groups. Yet, these groups do not offer robust, coherent alternative models, despite a strong interest in the quality of teaching. An alternative model of good-quality undergraduate education could be constructed by combining elements of the policy documents of these groups. Inter alia, this model would feature: actively maintaining a diversity of students and disciplines; curricula jointly designed by students and academics, actively involved in scholarship and research; meeting students’ wider social and cultural needs, including work with local communities; and, improving quality by rigorous teacher education and the engagement of students in quality processes. However, different groups offer different mixes of the dominant and alternative models. For example, students reject a purely consumerist approach:  ‘The consumer never grows, is never challenged, is never made to understand the vastness of the knowledge that exists and that has yet to be created’ (NUS, 2012); and academic groups focus on broader social and cultural needs and those of local communities:  ‘That vision is founded on a fundamental belief in the intrinsic value of education as a force for the enhancement of the lives of individuals, the liberation of their talents and the realisation of a truly civilised, socially responsible, fair and prosperous society’(University and College Union 2010, §1). But elements of the dominant model usually compromise the alternative positions. For example, university groups propose the importance of producing autonomous learners but in the context of preparation for the employment market: Research-led learning actively engages students in their learning experience, encouraging them to pursue new knowledge and to develop the independence of thought, critical thinking and entrepreneurial skills and ability to handle uncertainty and new problems – personal and professional skills that are integral to the graduate-level jobs that develop our knowledge economy. (Russell Group of Universities, undated, §1)

As the official recontextualizing field is dominated by the government, this configuration of dominant and alternative discourses is to be expected:  those from the field of higher education will use the language of the government to

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establish the legitimacy of their claims (Dodds 2011). This is how ‘policy-asdiscourse’ analysts, such as Stephen Ball, see powerful groups constructing meanings that serve their interests. Ball notes how emergent discourses ‘articulate the positions and thus subtly set limits to the possibilities of education policy’ (1990, p. 23). Words devoid of much meaning are used as incantations (for example, ‘value for money’ is used twenty-seven times in the latest English policy document [Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2015]) and lead to closing professional dialogue and debate. The effect of this jostling can go beyond meaninglessness to masquerade. As an example, student engagement is often identified by proponents of both the dominant and alternative models as a key characteristic of a high-quality university education. As Paul Ashwin and Debbie McVitty (2015) observe while the student-as-customer discourse presents students as partners with the power to make genuine changes, in practice they are merely consulted, usually via surveys, about the status quo over which they have little control. What we see is consultation masquerading as partnership. Ashwin and McVitty conclude: This misrepresentation of student engagement by institutions and governments risks doubly alienating students, firstly to the extent that as consumers of higher education they are encouraged to commodify their own process of intellectual and personal transformation, and secondly to the extent that the possibility of exercising some degree of agency over that process is carefully withheld, even as institutions publicly proclaim their commitment to listening to students. (p. 355)

In sum, there are some policy resources which suggest a genuinely goodquality undergraduate education. But what dominates is a model which militates against quality; in particular, positioning students as customers or consumers is not doing them justice. The students we talked to did not construct themselves as consumers. We will illustrate what four students from our study (one from each department) thought constituted a good-quality university education

Students’ ideas about a good-quality university education Some students used league tables to guide their choice of university. Ann-Marie Bathmaker et al. (2016) draw attention to the detrimental psychosocial effects of feeling one’s university is of low status. However, in our research, while position in rakings was much mentioned by students at Prestige, and occasionally by those at Selective, only Lauren (a middle class, white Brazilian, international

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student at Diversity) was anxious about the effects of the status of Diversity on her employment chances because what she wants most from her degree is a wellpaid and personally rewarding job. Yet, she didn’t believe that the status reflected either the quality of teaching or the quality of the student. The four students introduced here – Mark, Lisha, Esther and Fifi – highlighted acquisition of knowledge and whether teaching and assessment supported their learning, and, as we discuss in Chapter 7, there were high levels of agreement among them about what is good teaching. The accounts also illustrate how students’ ideas about future employment are provisional and shifting, which we return to in Chapter 9.

Mark (working class, white British, young): Community When he arrived, Mark’s idea of a good-quality education was to learn more about a subject that you already knew about: he had studied A-level law and psychology and thought criminology combined the two. As he progressed through his degree he began to value how knowledge about criminology could be used in the real world to make decisions about policing and crime. Mark was highly positive about the teaching at Community; he appreciated:  his efforts to read a lot being rewarded by good marks; academics being available to explain difficult ideas; good relationships with academics; opportunities to discuss ideas in seminars of smallish groups; the varied assessments and the feedback which helped him to improve; and, the opportunity to shadow a probation officer. He liked it when theories that had been introduced in one year were returned to the next; when theory was applied to examples in the real world; and, when readings contained difficult ideas which he had to work at to understand. At the end of his degree he hoped for a job in which he could apply the knowledge he’d gained.

Lisha (working class, British Pakistani, young): Diversity Lisha wanted a degree to get a good job. She’d chosen Diversity because it was close to home and because other students there who she knew recommended it. She’d also enjoyed the open-day talk about sociology and criminology, which made her realize how interesting they were. Lisha appreciated how sociological theory could explain aspects of her own life and experience: she claimed that sociological knowledge had opened up her mind and made her critical of how power relationships organize the lives of people from different social classes. In the first year, her marks were lower than she would have liked, but she did not

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blame the tutors. Lisha was highly positive about her educational experience at Diversity. The main way Lisha talked about good-quality education was in terms of very good relationships with academics; their support and feedback were essential to her both for assignments and for general pastoral care reasons. For example, Lisha’s dissertation tutor would check her plans and direct her towards relevant reading. She appreciated office hours; seminars where everyone was encouraged to participate and engage with difficult ideas; and, clear guidelines for essays. During her degree, she changed her plans away from joining the police to counselling, and volunteered to work with women in prisons in her third year.

Fifi (middle class, international student [Hong Kong Chinese], young): Prestige Fifi picked Prestige because of its reputation; it was campus based; it had an arts venue; and, it had a good students’ union. So Fifi started by conceptualizing high quality as an amalgam of reputation and social environment. Fifi saw the English system as more challenging and rigorous than that she had experienced in Hong Kong. She defined good-quality education in terms of the relevance of sociological knowledge of her own experiences; learning through interesting discussions; good relationships with academics who were available and gave useful feedback; and, assessments relevant to her interests. She wanted to take a master’s degree with a reputation that would make her competitive in a global labour market. She was unsuccessful in an application to the London School of Economics but, at the end of her degree, she had an offer at another prestigious institute. She had developed an interest in human rights and wanted to combine ethics with communication, she thought perhaps of working for an ethical trader, for example, the Body Shop.

Esther (middle class, white British [brought up in an expatriate family in Belgium], young): Selective Esther chose Selective partly because her brother was there, also because when she phoned up to enquire about the course she was immediately put through to a professor in the department. Esther was not entirely positive about the quality of her social experience at Selective. She considered herself a ‘third culture kid’6 and never felt quite at home at Selective, unlike her brother who fit in and enjoyed the social life. Nor was she entirely satisfied with her educational experience: she

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had entered the second year at Selective and saw herself as coming from a better education system in Belgium. But she was positive about the knowledge she gained and the learning she accomplished. She enjoyed sociological theory (since studying it at college in Belgium); the expertise of the academics who taught her and were leading researchers; and, working on assignments and conducting her own research. The core way that Esther judged the value of what she gained from university was to relate how sociological knowledge (for which she claimed she had a ‘passion’) enlightened society’s problems. However, Esther also understood that studying at Selective put her in a position for employment in an international labour market. She applied to study for a master’s degree at the elite and international University of Cambridge. She was ambitious to be influential in changing society for the better, and thought she’d start by working for the European Commission. At the same time, Esther’s sociological perspective made her aware that she was lucky rather than entitled. She felt guilty about mobilizing her cultural capital in pursuit of her own interests. She did not think she would necessarily get a better education at Cambridge, but she did know that its reputation would take her a long way towards fulfilling her ambitions.

Conclusion The picture we have painted in this chapter chimes with Readings’s (1996) observation that universities have become businesses ‘whose internal regulation is entirely self-interested without regard to wider ideological imperatives’ (p. 40). Nevertheless, we want to propose grounds for hope. Carol Bacchi (2000) advances the argument that theories about the power of policy discourse to shape institutional practices and social relations under-theorize the ‘space for challenge [for where people can] intervene and contest representations that uphold power relations’ (p.  55). This argument is salient. There is an alternative discourse, but at present it is more fractured and less coherent than the dominant discourse about diversity, choice and value for money. The alternative lacks a unifying sense of the knowledge and identities that it is seeking to produce. Listening to the students we spoke to, we believe that the neo-liberal project can only be partially achieved in universities because the nature of education ensures that students can only ever be like customers or, put another way, they cannot be shaped purely as economic agents (Jungblat et al., 2015). While

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the student as an active agent in learning a specific discipline or field is absent from policy discourse, it is impossible to complete a degree without considerable effort on the student’s part to know and understand, at least as long as academics remain true to their fields. Constructions of quality cannot be easily imposed: there is always a battle between the official and pedagogical fields. We are arguing that a consideration of the teaching and learning of disciplinary knowledge should be at the heart of describing and judging what is high-quality, socially just undergraduate education. The next step in this argument is to show how sociological knowledge is powerful.

Notes 1

2 3

4 5 6

Bernstein (1990) identified ‘restricted’ and ‘elaborated’ codes in the language of working-class and middle-class children respectively. Working-class children’s restricted code ties them to the immediate, concrete and local context, whereas middle-class children’s elaborated code allows more context-independent thinking, which gives them an advantage when they start school, and which is then maintained. See also, Abbas and McLean, 2007, Abbas and McLean, 2010 and Ashwin 2015a. They are a relatively recent phenomenon.The first international rankings were in 2003 from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, followed by the Times Higher EducationQS World University Rankings in 2004 and now at least ten companies are involved in publishing suites of rankings and 150 other international league tables which have a more regional focus (Hazelkorn, 2014; Marginson, 2014). See Appendix 1 for details. This trajectory can be traced historically through policy documents; in particular, the Robbins Report (1963); and the Dearing Report (1997). ‘Third culture kid’ refers to people growing up in a country which is not their parents’. The first culture is the parents’, the second the culture of the country where the family is living, and the third the combination of the two.

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How a society selects, classifies, distributes, transmits and evaluates the educational knowledge it considers to be public reflects both the distribution of power and the principles of social control . . . Educational knowledge is a major regulator of the structure of experience. Bernstein, 1975, p. 85 Our minds were simply different, and [hers] opened out over its own territory and mine over its own territory, and one was not richer than the other. Davis, 2015, p. 78

Introduction In this book, knowledge is sociology and its related disciplines recontextualized in university curriculum and pedagogy. Decisions about what knowledge to teach and how to teach it are deeply implicated in both inequality and quality. This is because, as Bernstein claims, decisions about pedagogy and curriculum – who is given access to what knowledge and how – are not separate from who has power and who is controlling whom. However, as we have shown in the last two chapters, current configurations of inequalities in and the quality of higher education do not focus on students’ engagement with knowledge. Potentially, all the (inter)disciplines are powerful ways of investigating, understanding and acting in the world. In this chapter, we further our argument by discussing what counts as powerful sociology-related knowledge when it is recontextualized into university curricula. We start the chapter with a general discussion about disciplines and why Bernstein conceptualizes them as powerful. This section sets the scene for showing how sociology is distinctive and how it appears in the field of knowledge production (academic research): first a brief history of the

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discipline portrays contemporary English academic sociology as, on the one hand, riven by fissures, contradiction and tension (including about its related or sub-disciplines), and, on the other hand, united by social or moral ambitions and a particular mode of enquiry. We end by relating the perspective of academics as knowledge producers to academics as knowledge recontextualizers.

The inter(disciplines) and power In discussions about epistemology, the ‘two cultures’ of sciences and humanities, taken from a lecture by C. P. Snow in 1959,1 are often invoked. The concentration of our investigation on one discipline signals an acceptance of the distinctiveness of different cognate disciplines. We do not claim that what we found would apply to undergraduates studying other disciplines, which is what we wanted to convey at the start of the chapter by the quotation from Lydia Davis’s novel. At the same time, knowledge and its configurations are not a priori or fixed: not before the seventeenth century had knowledge assumed the disciplinary forms we recognize today (Thompson Klein, 2005). The point is made by Ellen MesserDavidow et al. (1993) that disciplines are historically situated and provisional: [We] fail to imagine how else we might produce and organise knowledge. Our world now seems so naturally divided into, say, biology, sociology, and musicology that when we try to imagine alternatives to these disciplines, we think merely of combining them: biochemistry, sociolinguistics, ethnomusicology. (p. vii)

In this chapter we attempt a brief history of sociology to reveal the tense boundary work which resulted in its emergence as a more or less unified discipline (depending on point of view). For philosophers of education such as Paul Hirst (1974) disciplines have arisen because humans have structured human experience according to conceptual schemes to pattern and order their lives and make them intelligible. From this view, the disciplines are the: Fundamental achievement of mind [because] to acquire knowledge is to become aware of experience as structured, organised and made meaningful in some quite specific way, and the varieties of human knowledge constitute the highlydeveloped forms in which [people have] found this possible. (pp. 40–41)

Yet, such a definition obscures how people can be ‘disciplined’ (to use Foucault’s term) by disciplines. According to Messer-Davidow et al. (1993) this happens in

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two specific ways. First, disciplines shape the world socially and conceptually, specifying objects of study and the relations between them, criteria for knowledge, and, methods for investigating knowledge. Second, they socialize practitioners (academics, reseeachers or scientists) and students. These two ways of being disciplined form the backdrop of our argument about how powerful knowledge can disrupt inequalities. Discussions about powerful knowledge that build on Bernstein’s work often use the concept of ‘ knowledge of the powerful’ to draw attention to how elites determine what counts as knowledge and have privileged access to ‘high culture’ (Beck, 2013; Young 2008b). More clearly than anyone, Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 1986) shows how possessors of ‘high culture’ are designated as elite, regardless of the intrinsic worth of the cultural objects or activities designated as high. These elites are ‘misrecognised’ as appearing naturally discriminating and tasteful, while others are not, which, in Bourdieuan terms, does ‘symbolic violence’ towards working-class people because they come to see themselves as lacking capacities and gifts, which also leads to their withdrawing from the educational competition. Currently, debates about decolonisation in South Africa focus on how Western knowledges have dominated over those emanating from the global South. So there are dimensions of knowledge which bestow power on the already powerful and manipulate or intimidate others. We put knowledge of the powerful aside for now to discuss how Bernstein’s work has inspired an understanding of powerful knowledge which opens horizons for everyone. Bernstein’s work2 distinguishes two types of knowledge. ‘Mundane’ or ‘profane’ knowledge is gleaned from everyday life and is expressed in ‘horizontal discourse’ which is ‘common-sense [and] context dependent’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. 18). ‘Sacred’, ‘esoteric’ or abstract knowledge is associated with the disciplines and is expressed in ‘vertical discourse’ which is coherent, explicit, systematic, and abstracted from meanings embedded in everyday life. Sacred knowledge is powerful because it is abstracted from local contexts and everyday experiences, allowing people to think beyond what is present in their everyday lives to alternative ways of thinking and acting. The extent of access to sacred knowledge and vertical discourses shapes society’s hierarchies. Although Bernstein’s work was about the distribution of power in society, he himself did not use the term powerful knowledge. The view that knowledge is separate from experience led others building on Bernstein’s work to espouse a social realist position to define powerful knowledge (see, for example, Beck, 2013, Maton, 2014, Muller, 2006

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and 2014, Wheelahan, 2010, Young, 2008a). Young (2012) clarifies the socialist realist position on knowledge, which we also espouse: First, [a social realist position] does not treat any knowledge as given as is the case with the conservative traditionalists but has an explicit social theory of knowledge and its differentiation. Second, it treats knowledge as a distinct social category separate from experience, separate from the political and economic uses of knowledge, and separate from the pedagogic problems faced by teachers with different groups of learners. It aims to link the social differentiation of knowledge (and its acquisition) with answers to questions as to why some types of knowledge are more powerful than others. (p. 20)

For social realists, Bernstein offers criteria for evaluating curriculum and pedagogy in terms of whether students acquire powerful knowledge. Bernstein (2000) associated strongly practical vocational knowledge with government education projects for young people which render the trainees powerless because they ‘reproduce imaginary concepts of work and life which abstract such experiences from the power relations of their lived conditions and negate the possibilities of understanding and criticism’ (p. 53). In contrast, from the social realist perspective, disciplinary knowledge is powerful because it is a reliable basis for thinking beyond everyday experience. Powerful disciplinary knowledge is conceptual, based on evidence and experience, and open to challenge. Moreover, it is learned in specialist educational institutions; organized into non-arbitrary domains; and, produced and reproduced by specialists, who are resourced and who form officially recognised social groups. Disciplines that are embedded within the fabric of universities and other educational establishments have a material basis to their power.

Sociology-related knowledge Sociology is the study of society: it is systematic knowledge about human institutions, interactions, activities, ideas and ideologies, and social systems. Within the vertical discourse of disciplines, Bernstein also distinguished horizontal and vertical knowledge structures. Vertical knowledge structures are those disciplines, such as physics, for which general propositions build on and integrate concepts or theories at lower levels, building up towards higher levels of abstraction (Bernstein, 2000). Sociology, on the other hand, is a horizontal knowledge structure which evolves by taking on new languages, for example, feminism, post-structuralism, post-modernism, critical theory and so on. Learning these two types of knowledge structures is qualitatively different. Learning hierarchical knowledge is ‘mastering

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the procedures of investigation and understanding the theory’ (Bernstein, 1999, p. 165), while learning a discipline like sociology involves learning a selection of languages and being required to acquire what Bernstein calls a ‘gaze’. We will show how sociology has emerged as a discipline with many strands which explains its character as a horizontal knowledge structure with languages often raised against each other. Yet, there is a strong core which can be identified both as moral or political and as a specific mode of enquiry captured in C. Wright Mill’s (2000) well-known concept of the ‘sociological imagination’.

A brief history of sociology Struggles for power are evident in the formation of disciplines. As boundaries are fought over, created and maintained, disciplines construct goals and objects and methods of study. Messer-Davidow et al. (1993) observe: ‘By stressing the historically contingent and adventitious way in which various ideas and practices come to be assembled into disciplines [we can see that] knowledge and power are implicated in each other’ (p. 4). Sociology’s history reveals the origins, boundaries, and trajectory which characterise the discipline, and can be charted by analysing the ideas of scholars and the establishment of institutions where ideas emerge and are passed on. It is generally agreed that the term sociology originated with Auguste Comte (1798–1857), the French philosopher to whom positivism is attributed, but, at the same time, there are many scholars across time and geography whose ideas may be claimed to be sociological. That said, the other founding fathers generally cited are: the German-born Karl Marx (1818–1883); the French Emile Durkheim (1858–1917, Bernstein’s great influence); and, the German Max Weber (1864– 1920). Taken together, their seminal works produced powerful, sociological ideas about the effects on individuals and groups of modern industrialized, bureaucratized societies. British sociology is contrasted to American and European sociology where there were larger, earlier and more accepted schools of sociological thought (Bulmer, 1985; Halsey, 2004; Halsey and Runciman, 2005). Nevertheless, Goldman (2007) argues that, while there was no academic sociology in Britain until the twentieth century, sociological thought permeated the public sphere. In general, the discipline is seen as arising from eighteenth-century Enlightenment ideas and a range of disciplines (political philosophy, philosophy of history, economics and biological sciences); and, as a response to the need to understand modernity, that is the rapidly changing, industrializing Western social world (Goldman, 2007; Halsey, 2004; McLennan, 2011; Savage, 2010).

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In the United Kingdom, the London School of Economics (LSE) established sociology, and those who graduated from there in the 1950s (including Basil Bernstein) became academics in universities across the country as the discipline expanded hugely between the 1950s and 1970s (Platt, 2008). A slump in student numbers between the 1970s and 1990s was accompanied by hostility from Conservative governments and marked by divisions within the discipline, particularly in response to postmodernism. After the 1990s, student numbers rose as did institutions and foundations supporting sociological research (Halsey, 2004; Savage, 2010). While the founding mothers and fathers approach is a useful device for charting ideas, we have heeded Lenoir’s (1993) caveat that disciplines do not have ‘single originary sources but are more appropriately grasped as interactive system effects’ (p. 76). Similarly, Steve Fuller (1993) takes issue with the schools of thought approach because, he argues, the discipline is depicted as having more internal divisions than in fact it has. With that in mind, we proceed by examining the main divisions and how they coexist in contemporary times within the overarching discipline.

Sociology’s crisis? Diversity or fragmentation might be expected. As Ken Roberts (2012) puts it, because sociology studies its own society, it must turn ‘its own disciplinary gaze’ on itself (p. 137). The perennial tension in sociology is between the qualitative interpretation of social phenomena and the quantitative science of empirical fact finding: the tension between empiricism and theory (Halsey, 2004; Halsey and Runciman, 2005; Savage, 2010). In A.  H. Halsey’s terms the tension is a ‘struggle for possession’ (2004, p. 15). In England, the science or empirical tradition stretches back to the seventeenth century when William Petty (1623–1668) originated the idea of political arithmetic, a form of descriptive statistics relevant to government. In the 1950s at the LSE, Launcelot Hogben distilled the tradition into a seminal text (Halsey, 2004). Halsey is the highest profile proponent of political arithmetic (1994):  his Origins and Destinations:  Family, Class and Education in Modern Britain (with A. F. Heath and J. M. Ridge, 1980) explores the political arithmetic of how educational expansion after World War II affected life chances and social mobility. In the 1980s and 1990s sociology took what might be called a theoretical turn encompassing, inter alia, postmodernism, feminism and cultural studies. Broadly, with some exceptions, the trend was towards theory-driven qualitative research. Halsey (2004) reports that an analysis of three influential sociology journals from 1910–2000 reveals ‘a gradual replacement of empiricism by interpretivism’ (p. 194). This historical tension

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can lead to the extremes identified eloquently in the 1950s by C. Wright Mills (2000) as, on the one hand, empiricism in the form of sophisticated quantification dealing with trivial matters, and, on the other, theory used for ideological advocacy (to which we return in the next section). The tension continues today, in the form of a strongly felt debate about big data in which, on the one hand, it is argued that academic sociologists should use and analyse the extensive digital data bases that now exist (Savage and Burrows, 2007), and, on the other, that this approach is ‘cynical’ and sociology should rather re-engage with critical ‘combative’ social theory (Frade, 2016, pp. 866, 875). Sociology’s methods of knowledge generation remain highly diverse (Twine, 2016). Within this overarching tension, then, sociologists argue about which way sociology should lean; about the extent to which sociology can and should be value-free; and, most of all, about the extent to which the discipline is in crisis. A fiftieth anniversary volume of the journal Sociology (2016) is instructive about the state of the discipline from the point of view of practising academic sociologists. The volume deals with contestations within the discipline about what is distinctive about sociology and whether it is in ‘crisis’ or ‘adequate’. The sharpest ‘tension’ is between those committed to a ‘theoretical core’ and are concerned about losing intellectual depth and those who think even trying to define the discipline is wasted time (Meer et al., 2016). Contributors point out that the discipline of sociology will always be in crisis, for instance, ‘Crisis is almost a kind of inherent, vocational reflex; crisis, crisis, crisis and another crisis. It gives us a sense of urgency, but it is often an artificial one’ (Back, 2016, p. 1031).3 Sharp divisions are evident. For Gurminder K. Bhambra (2016) something is very wrong with sociology because it separates social systems from the formation of social identity, implicating it in a Eurocentric ideology blind to ‘the worldhistorical processes of dispossession, appropriation, genocide, and enslavement [which are] central to the emergence of modernity and its institutional forms’ (p. 962). In quite a different take, Les Back is grateful to sociology for providing an intellectual space to think about what matters to him. In his view: ‘Why are we worrying and arguing about what counts as sociology? Usually, that comes down to academic power struggles and vanity projects. I think the bigger, more important question is to ask what are the key sociological problems of our time?’ (ibid., p. 1025). For Back, sociology ‘is a sensibility and an attentive vocation’ (p. 1031). A further disagreement is about the effects of the emergence since the 1970s of sociology-related (inter)disciplines: for example, environmental science, the creative industries, education, gender studies, media studies, socio-legal studies, cultural studies and theory, social policy and human geography, management

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and business, social policy, social psychology, and criminology. In these cases, John Holmwood (2010) has defined sociology as exporting concepts, theories, methods and personnel. The anxiety is about threats to sociology’s critical sensibility and internal integrity. This debate is apposite to our study. Our interest is in sociological knowledge: even if the degree is pure sociology, the curriculum often strays into education, criminology or social policy; and one of the degrees we investigated was criminology (at Community). We will explore this disagreement starting from a Bernsteinian perspective.

Sociology-related regions Bernstein (2000) made a distinction between disciplines as ‘singulars’ and as ‘regions’. In his theory singulars are of higher status than regions: Singulars are knowledge structures whose creators have appropriated a space to give themselves a unique name, a specialised discrete discourse with its own intellectual fields of texts, practices, rules of entry, examinations, licences to practice, distribution of rewards and punishments (physics, chemistry, history, sociology, economics, psychology etc.). Singulars are on the whole narcissistic, oriented to their own development, protected by strong boundaries and hierarchies. (Bernstein, 2000, p. 52)

However, this description could now also be applied to what he would have called ‘regions’. Criminology is a clear example. It is now a field which exceeds sociology in terms of recruitments and attracts its own scholars, grants and publications (Carrabine, 2016) However, Bernstein’s (2000) analysis for the mushrooming of more applied and more specialized interdisciplines is that singulars have been recontextualized in response to student markets. All regions involve ideological decisions about what parts of what single disciplines should be selected and related to each other. In summary:  ‘Singulars are intrinsic to the production of knowledge in the intellectual field. Regions are the interface between the field of production of knowledge and a field of practice’ (ibid.). In the late 1990s Bernstein (2000) predicted that the new ex-polytechnic universities would be sites of regionalization, while elite universities would research and teach singulars. Current reality is more complex: medicine has long been high status and located in high-status universities; engineering and architecture can be found in all types of universities; and even the once-maligned business studies (which replaced economics in some lower-status universities) has been taken up in most higher-status universities, including being celebrated in the imposing, award-winning building of the Said Business School at Oxford

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University. Moreover, as Bernstein himself observed, singular disciplines arose from political need. Additionally, singular disciplines with a horizontal knowledge structure, like sociology, which proliferate languages have weak boundaries whether as a singular or embedded within a region. Nor did Bernstein’s prediction play out in our four universities. Diversity taught singular sociology like the high-status universities Prestige and Selective. Community taught the region of criminology which was both underpinned by sociology and so closely related to other regions that one common core was taught to all first-year social science students (international relations, politics and social policy). While Selective’s sociology was a singular, many students were studying it jointly with other social sciences, and there was a common first-year core module for students taking degrees in the regions of social policy, criminology and urban and cultural studies. So, it was Diversity and Prestige which taught strong, single sociology; while Selective and Community taught interdisciplinary and highly applied sociology. Nevertheless, the trends confirm Bernstein’s prediction that just as singulars characterized the nineteenth century, regions will become the twenty-first century ‘modal form’ (2000, p. 55). The threat to powerful knowledge which Bernstein saw many years ago is recognized by sociologists today. Whether being an exporter is thought productive or threatening depends on the point of view of the sociologist. Nasar Meer et al. (2016) take an optimistic view commenting that each sub-discipline or field: [I]s nonetheless anchored in a sociological ontology, namely a concern with the nature and implication of the ‘social’. Each moreover displays close family resemblances with sociology at the theoretical level (e.g. in conceiving the role of agency, structure, culture, identity and power) as well as in methodological approaches and techniques. (p. 838)

What is powerful from a social realist position is the theoretical level because it allows systematic thinking. In Eamonn Carrabine’s (2016) view criminology’s relationship to sociology has ‘fractured’, and consequently, to the detriment of both disciplines, the influence of social theory has diminished. Similarly, Richard Rosenfeld (2010) calls passionately for criminology to stay close to its sociological base: What does criminology draw from sociology that it cannot acquire elsewhere? Nothing less than many of its most basic concepts and problematics:  order, power, social control, social structure, social institutions, class, community, compliance, conformity and deviancy.’ (p. 669)

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We found less theory in Community’s curriculum than in the curricula of sociology in the other three universities. The question is whether the sociological knowledge base was so weakened that, in Bernstein’s terms, there was no real purchase on thinking beyond ‘what is’.

The unifying core of sociology Some sociologists rail against the diversity and fragmentation of their discipline, while others celebrate its ‘productive conflict’ (Burawoy, 2016, p.  958). Simultaneously, there are strong and consistent claims for sociology’s distinctiveness and unifying core. This core appears to be made up of both an abiding interest in exposing inequalities in society in order to change them and a sociological way of thinking often referred to as the sociological imagination.

Sociology’s moral/political ambition The genesis for sociology’s oppositional character might be its early marginalization from the established order. Halsey (2004) points out that the early sociology professors were from provincial and working-class backgrounds. Martin Bulmer (2005) comments on the significance of this fact by quoting Edward Shils (1910– 1995), professor of sociology from the renowned Chicago School: How could sociology establish itself as a subject worthy of a freeborn Englishman when it was a product of German abstruseness and American indiscriminateness, when its practitioners in England were often awkward foreigners or restive lower-class boys and girls and when its chief representative was the London School of Economics. (quoted in Bulmer, 2005, p. 51)

Despite the contempt, during the 1950s, post-war sociology was implicated in social reconstruction. At the time, the boundary between politics and sociology was permeable, that is, the objects of study aligned with labour policy interests: equal opportunities, social stratification and social mobility. At this time, Halsey (1994) made pleas for sociology because it revealed that: ‘class inequality is stubbornly resistant to social change when properly conceived in terms of relative rather than absolute improvements and equalization of life chances’ (p. 443). The tendency to be politically engaged has continued; Bulmer (2005, p. 43) points out that: ‘British sociology has been engaged in a continuing argument with politics or about issues which are central to the political agenda’. Moreover, sociology academics tend towards left politics, being seen by Conservative

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governments as ‘a polysyllabic plague promoting the subversion of the political order [rather than as] an intellectual organization of thought with powerful potential for the reform of imperfect society’ (Halsey, 1994, p. 431). More recently, sociologists representing the new sociological languages and regions of feminism, critical theory, critical race theory, and cultural studies have revealed how knowledge generated in elitist contexts, usually dominated by white, middle-class men, reflects vested interests and is unlikely to serve the lives of non-male, non-white, non-middle-class people. Often these scholars are interested not only in knowledge that reveals intersecting oppressions in peoples’ lives (arising from social class, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability and living in poverty) but also in legitimizing knowledge that people have from their local, everyday lives; for example, what is known as indigenous knowledge is often handed on orally4. There is wariness from some sociologists about the extent to which the discipline should be moral or political; W. G. Runciman (2005) summarizes: ‘Wasn’t Max Weber right to say that sociology can tell people what they can do, sometimes what they want to do, but never what they ought to do’ (p.  6). And, sociology has not always been moral – the social scientist Hendrik Verwoerd is known as ‘the architect of apartheid’. Nevertheless, there is a strong core in sociological knowledge that focuses on the reasons for abiding social divisions and on what could disrupt them. Currently, much of the profession of sociology has turned its attention to the effects of neo-liberalism. For example, Michael Burawoy (2016) claims a common historic project for sociology (and relateddisciplines) to defend civil society: It would be collective suicide to abandon sociology’s distinctive heritage as critic of market fundamentalism and state authoritarianism. Starting with Marx, Weber and Durkheim moving on to Simmel, Parsons and Habermas, and thence to Wallerstein, Bourdieu, and Bauman to feminism, critical race theory, queer theory, and postmodernism and traversing the world to theories of coloniality and postcolonialism – one thing all these strands of sociology have in common is the critique of restricted visions of social action, utilitarianism, and rational choice theory. (p. 958)

Holmwood agrees: Sociology should be oriented to social reform and that is what gives purpose to sociology . . . transformative, or reconstructive, moments in sociology have often come from their association with social movements . . . sociology takes its force from its drive towards democratic knowledge . . . Knowledge that facilitates public debate (Holmwood, 2016, p. 1003).

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In this view, sociology is highly political. Some sociologists stress the power of sociological knowledge to illuminate everyday lives and practices, while others focus on the potential to influence policy. Together they express moral and civic principles and dispositions.

The ‘sociological imagination’ The second way that sociology appears united is as a broad way of seeing the world or as a mode of intellectual inquiry (distinct from methods of data generation). In 1959 C. Wright Mills wrote: The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external careers of a variety of individuals. The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two in society. That is its task and its promise. (2000, pp. 5, 6)

It is this imagination that sociologists tend to claim makes sociological knowledge unique (Back, 2016). The unique power of sociology is that it reveals connections between personal, institutional, and societal levels: We are a discipline that can work at a micro level and a macro level with different intellectual tools, and working with connecting these levels at the meso level (through institutions, neighbourhoods, organisations, networks, and cultural repertoires) is one of our unique strengths. ( Lamont, 2016, p. 1018)

Sociology has responded to sociopolitical and cultural changes. While ruptured by internal dissent, it is a comfortable home for researchers who use the intellectual hybridity to find critical tools with which to investigate the social world. This discussion has been from the perspective of sociologists in the field of production; we turn now to sociological knowledge recontextualized as undergraduate university curriculum.

Sociological knowledge recontextualized as curriculum The curricular knowledge in our study reflected what unites the discipline, rather than what divides it. The students were not exposed to the constant sense of crisis (Meer et al., 2016) that sociologists identify as part of the field of production, much less ‘self-subversion’ (Holmwood, 2010, p.  639) or ‘self-hatred’ (Lamont, 2016, p. 1017). The academics as recontextualizers of knowledge-ascurriculum emphasized what sociology can do rather than what it is in the field

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of production. Although sociologists disagree about whether theoretical and methodological diversity is a strength, an inevitability or a weakness, the curricula we investigated implied that what makes sociological knowledge powerful for students resides in what unites it as a discipline. This conclusion is compatible with what we can learn from sociology’s benchmark statement5 for university teaching which is a requirement of the UK Quality Assurance Agency (2007). We can suppose it represents a rapprochement because a team of sociologists agreed on it. In the statement, sociology is positioned as a core social science discipline concerned with knowledge and understanding of human life and interactions, including the study of contemporary and past societies and cross-cultural and transnational studies. Sociology’s concerns are identified as:  the relationship between individuals and groups; social action and structure; biography and history; social institutions and culture; the underpinnings of social order; social inequality and conflict; diverse cultural practices; and, the causes and consequences of social change. The statement claims that sociology is a reflexive discipline, in which researchers turn their categories on themselves and change in response to societal changes. Sociology deals with the interrelationship between theory and empirical evidence in which theories are evaluated in the light of evidence. The exploration of what sociological knowledge is and does, outlined in this chapter, indicates what kind of powers students might expect to gain from acquiring sociological knowledge. First, self-knowledge because sociology can reveal how people’s locations in society – in terms of family, social class, gender, ethnic group, geographical location, sexual orientation and so on – shape life chances. Second, knowledge of others unlike oneself, including explanations for the dynamics of social relations, providing knowledge for understanding consensus and conflict in society. Third, ways of thinking about and acting on important contemporary questions and problems in society. Sociology can be expected to provide more reliable explanations than everyday understandings; it offers new ways of thinking about the world, and, a language for engaging in political and moral debates. It reveals possibilities for thinking about what could be different in society and how that might come about. Fourth, students might expect to learn such ‘how to’ knowledge as describing, analysing, interpreting and criticizing. Throughout the four types of knowledge runs the formation of the highly-rated sociological imagination:  a quality of mind that is interested in critical and creative understandings of the interplay between human beings and society. Above all, from a Bernsteinian perspective sociological knowledge might empower students to transcend the limitations of everyday experience,

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to become aware and critical about how their lives are structured, and to decide what actions to choose. In his theory, these possibilities take place in the discursive gap (2000, p. 30).

The discursive gap Throughout this book, we argue that the quality of sociology education resides in the quality of the relationship students can establish between immaterial, esoteric sociological knowledge and knowledge of the material, mundane, everyday social world. One class of knowledge adds value to the other. Clearly, as Bernstein pointed out, if meanings derive solely from the experience of everyday life ‘these meanings are wholly consumed by the context’ (2000, p. 30) with no space to think beyond what appears evident. Yet ‘sacred’ disciplinary knowledge relates to actual and material things and this relationship creates in Bernstein’s terms a ‘potential discursive gap’ (ibid., emphasis in the original). The gap is a space for new insights. This gap or space can become (not always) a site for alternative possibilities, for alternative realisations of the relation between the material and the immaterial. The gap itself can change the relation between the material and the immaterial. This potential gap or space I will suggest is the site for the unthinkable, the site of the impossible, and this site can clearly be both beneficial and dangerous at the same time. This gap is the meeting point of order and disorder, of coherence and incoherence. It is the crucial site of the yet to be thought. (ibid.)

In Bernstein’s view, those in power regulate the gap because it carries the possibility of rebellion: ‘an alternative order, an alternative society, and an alternative power relation’(ibid.). How recontextualized sociological knowledge opens up discursive gaps for students informs the analysis in Chapters 8 and 9 which discuss the outcomes of sociological knowledge for the students in our study. These chapters reveal how a specialized sociological identity is formed (a graduate of a sociology-related degree will form a distinctly different pedagogic identity from, say, an economics graduate), giving access to confidence, a sense of inclusion and the capabilities for social participation and social epistemic contribution (Fricker, 2007).

Conclusion We have made a case for the power of learning sociology’s specialized ways of knowing and acting in the world. We have distinguished powerful knowledge

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from knowledge of the powerful by defining it as knowledge which opens up possibilities of thought and action (in the form of a discursive gap) which is, in theory, accessible to everyone. Sociology in the field of production has been presented as a hybrid discipline, with many sub-disciplines, characterized by an enduring sense of crisis and disputation, which, nevertheless, lays claim to a common unified core. The specific power of sociological knowledge-ascurriculum is located in this core, that is, in its political/moral tendencies and its special relationship with the empirical world. This chapter completes Part II ‘Setting the Scene’. Stripped to its bones, the argument so far is that English undergraduate university education is not equally distributed in terms of who goes to university and who goes to which university (Chapter 3). A hierarchically, stratified system of lower- and higher-status universities, with more disadvantaged students attending the former, exacerbates inequalities; moreover, measures to ensure the quality of education for all students ignores the central place of disciplinary knowledge (Chapter 4). It is access to and engagement with powerful disciplinary knowledge which carries the potential to disrupt inequality. We now move to Part III ‘Exploring Educational Quality’ in which we present a comparative analysis of what was taught to whom (Chapter 6) and how it was taught (Chapter 7).

Notes 1

2 3

Originally given as a lecture in Cambridge given by C. P. Snow (a chemist turned novelist) in 1959 under the title ‘The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution’, the argument was published in a book of the same title (1961). The argument was that ‘literary intellectuals’ and scientists appear as ‘two polar groups’ suffering ‘mutual incomprehension’ and contempt. The gap, he argued, would cause destructive national policies actions (he was speaking when post–World War II reconstruction was underway) and should be closed by way of an integrated arts-science curriculum and culture. The lecture ignited a continuing debate about the relative importance of science and humanities for society. In 2009 Lisa Jardine gave the C. P. Snow Lecture in Cambridge entitled ‘C. P. Snow’s “Two Cultures” Revisited’ in which she argued no progress in closing the gap has been made and urged ‘renewed and intensified efforts to realise [the] as yet unachieved goal’ of an integrated culture. Building on Durkheim. Other sociologists have used ‘malaise’ (Muller, 2011); and ‘demoralised’ (Savage 2010).

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How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality To indicate the range and reach of this work, influential examples are both Pierre Bourdieu (d. 2002) and Michel Foucault in France, who explored the dynamics of power in society and are highly influential (in the United Kingdom where in university they are the most taught theorists after the founding fathers Marx, Durkheim and Weber). From the United States, Erving Goffman (d. 1982) whose work illuminates everyday behaviour, is widely taught in the United Kingdom, as are contemporary critical theorists drawing broadly on work from the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas). In the United Kingdom, the tradition has been located in specific centres, which brought innovative approaches to from Stuart Hall (d. 2014), and colleagues at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (1964–2002); the Glasgow Media Group (established 1974); and, the Manchester School of Social Anthropology (founded 1947). Feminists across the world have produced sociological knowledge that has challenged the gendered character of knowledge production (e.g. Harding, 2008; Hawkesworth, 1989; Minnich, 2005; and Stanley and Wise, 1993) and British feminists Ann Oakley and Beverley Skeggs can be found on A-level syllabi. The definition on the website is: ‘Subject Benchmark Statements set out expectations about standards of degrees in a range of subject areas. They describe what gives a discipline its coherence and identity, and define what can be expected of a graduate in terms of the abilities and skills needed to develop understanding or competence in the subject.’ (http://www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-qualitycode/subject-benchmark-statements.)

Part Three

Exploring Educational Quality

6

Comparing Sociology-Related Curricula: The Pedagogic Device

Through curricula, ideas of higher education are put into action. Through curricula, too, values, beliefs and principles in relation to learning, understanding, knowledge, disciplines, individuality and society are realized. Yet these profoundly important matters are hardly ever raised. It is as if there is tacit agreement that these are not matters for polite company. Barnett and Coate, 2005, p. 25 [Sociology] renders flexible what may have been the oppressive fixity of social relations and in so doing opens a world of possibilities. The art of sociological thinking is to widen the scope and the practical effectiveness of freedom. When more of it has been learnt, the individual may well become just a little less subject to manipulation and more resilient to oppression and control. They are also more likely to be more effective as social actors, for they can see the connections between their actions and social conditions and how those things which, by their fixity, claim to be irresistible to change, are open to transformation. Bauman and May, 2001, p. 11

Introduction Here we begin to explore whether the claims for the power of sociological knowledge made in the last chapter and here by Zygmunt Bauman and Tim May are justified by addressing the question of whether the curriculum in all the departments in our study embodied empowering possibilities. We build our argument by investigating curriculum, which is generally a ‘secret garden’1 as suggested by

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Ronald Barnett and Kelly Coate. In Community, we studied a criminology degree; in Diversity and Prestige sociology degrees; and, in Selective, sociology was included within a sociology or social policy degree, with the option to study it either with criminology or urban or cultural studies.2 For Bernstein (1971): ‘Curriculum defines what counts as valid knowledge, pedagogy defines what counts as valid transmission of knowledge, and evaluation defines what counts as valid realization of the knowledge on the part of the taught’ (p. 47). Although these three aspects are highly interrelated, for analytical purposes this chapter focuses mostly on a comparative analysis of what students were expected to acquire for what purpose from the curriculum, while Chapter 7 explores pedagogy, that is, aspects of how this knowledge was taught. In these two chapters, a Bernsteinian lens serves dual functions: it reveals how the quality of education resides in curriculum and pedagogy, and whether powerful knowledge conveyed by curriculum and pedagogy is unequally distributed. As the chapters unfold, we both make and withhold judgements about the power of the knowledge that students in the four departments were acquiring. We are moving towards a definition of socially just teaching and learning in sociology-related undergraduate degrees. The structure of this chapter is in four main parts: ●

●

●

●

First, we explain the three rules of the pedagogic device and associated concepts, which framed our investigation of epistemic access. Second, we present an overview of how the pedagogic device played out in each of our four cases. Third, we compare the four curricula in terms of the rules of the pedagogic device. We conclude that the curricula converged on strong messages about sociology-related knowledge. Nevertheless, the articulation of the pedagogic device at the different universities positioned students differently in relation to discipline, self and society.

The pedagogic device For Bernstein, formal education is an agent of symbolic control shaping internal code: that is, students’ ‘consciousness, dispositions and desires’ (Bernstein, 2001, p.  23). Based on this theory, our view is that undergraduate curriculum and pedagogy can reproduce or disrupt social hierarchies by communicating messages to students about who they are and what they can become. While most

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of Bernstein’s work indicated the reproduction of hierarchies of power, he also conceded that education’s symbolic control is contradictory: it can be ‘both normalizing or disturbing, reproductive or productive, consensual or conflicting’ (ibid.). The mechanism for communicating the messages which produce code is the pedagogic device made up of distributive, recontextualizing and evaluative rules. This section introduces several Bernsteinian concepts which frame our analysis.

Distributive rules Distributive rules create hierarchically-ordered social groups who have access to different types of knowledge, consciousness and degrees of power. For example, access to knowledge about law and medicine is associated with privileged and powerful professions. For our research, distributive rules governed what sociological knowledge was legitimized to be taught in each university; who was legitimized to teach and to learn there; and, the conditions under which teaching and learning took place. Central to the distributive rules is Bernstein’s identification of the two classes of knowledge in society discussed in Chapter 5: on the one hand, profane/mundane/horizontal knowledge and, on the other, sacred/ esoteric/vertical knowledge. He also distinguished them by referring to ‘the thinkable class and the unthinkable class’: the former allows thinking about ‘how it is’, while the latter allows thinking ‘the possibility of the impossible’ (2000, p. 29, emphasis in the original). In preliterate societies, the unthinkable was controlled by religion and ritual. In contemporary society, although new knowledge is generated in all kinds of sites, universities remain influential sites of much specialized knowledge production. (Ashwin [2009 and 2014] uses the term ‘knowledge-as-research’ to convey this.) As we showed in Chapter 2, the conditions for who transmitted what to whom were similar at Community and Diversity, and markedly different from the conditions at Prestige and Selective, which were similar to each other. To summarize the position at the time of our research (though it has not changed): ●

●

Community and Diversity were lower status than Prestige and Selective and this had much to do with their relative positions in league tables. Students at the two lower-status universities were more likely than those at the two higher-status universities to come from lower educational and socio-economic classes and/or from black and minority ethnic group backgrounds.

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Academics at Prestige and Selective held more PhDs than at Community and Diversity. More, more varied, and higher-status research was carried out at Prestige and Selective than at Community and Diversity, though all the academics we spoke to were active researchers; and, in social science both Community and Diversity employed some well-known scholars who, like those at Prestige and Selective, had won research grants from the ESRC and were members of national research bodies. The material conditions of the four universities were different and unequal largely because Prestige and Selective were much wealthier than Community and Diversity.

The assumption by many is that higher-order knowledge is being distributed in the higher-status universities where more research is done. It is this assumption we problematize and challenge (also see Abbas and McLean, 2007 and 2010). In Bernstein’s theory, the three rules of the pedagogic device are in a hierarchical relation. Accordingly, the Bernsteinian prediction is that as higherstatus, better-resourced universities with international reputations Prestige and Selective would attract high-profile scholars, focus on research and teach single disciplines; while as lower-status, local universities Community and Diversity would focus on recruiting and disciplines-as-regions in order to create new packages of knowledge attractive to new types of non-traditional students and employers. From this perspective, the discursive gap where new sociological knowledge is produced is more likely to be regulated by higher-status, researchoriented universities. Bernstein’s prediction, then, and the assumption by many is that higher-order knowledge is being distributed in the higher-status universities where more research is done. In terms of the recontextualizing rules of the pedagogic device the departments did not fall into a clear hierarchy (also see Abbas and McLean, 2007 and 2010).

Recontextualizing rules The recontextualizing rules govern how research knowledge is selected and sequenced to produce a curriculum in which some theories or methods are legitimized while others are not, which Ashwin calls ‘knowledge-as-curriculum’(2009 and 2014). There are two elements to recontextualizing rules: first they regulate what knowledge is taught, that is curriculum classifications; and they regulate

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how that knowledge is taught, known as pedagogical framings. Classification and framing are the central Bernsteinian concepts, explaining the inner workings of code production. Classification refers to how boundaries are created and maintained between any category whether agency, practice or discourse. Classification conveys power in society by translating it in terms of hierarchical relationships between boundaries: superior/inferior, equal/unequal, legitimate/illegitimate (Bernstein, 2000). UK universities’ classification of old/new, pre-post 1992 elite/local, research/ teaching is illustrative:  each of these binaries is hierarchical, with the former more powerful and prestigious than the latter. When classifications translate power relations in society in this way, they have the force of natural order and are taken for granted. Framing controls relations and practices within classified categories or boundaries. In education, the principle of framing regulates how knowledge, skills, and dispositions are taught and refers to pedagogical practices. In society, taken together, classification and framing are vehicles for power and control, keeping people in their place and/or allow them freedom by conveying code. Further concepts informed our analysis of recontextualized ‘knowledge-ascurriculum’. Pedagogic discourse made up of instructional discourse and regulative discourse sends messages to students about what knowledge is legitimate and valued. Instructional discourse pertains to what specialized knowledge and skills are to be acquired, that is to the ‘discursive order [which is the] selection, sequence, pacing and criteria of the knowledge’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. 13). Regulative discourse is the ‘moral discourse that creates the criteria which give rise to character, manner, conduct’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. 34, emphasis in the original), shaping what Karl Maton (2014) calls ‘the knower’. Regulative discourse can be seen in Bauman and May’s quotation in which the sociological knower is constructed as sensitive, tolerant, insightful, open-minded, and alert to the provisional nature of the cultural and social conditions. Bernstein (2000) was adamant that the teaching of knowledge in instructional discourse and values in regulative discourse are unified within the recontextualizing rules. When knowledge is relocated from its field of production into a teaching and learning context, decisions about what is to be learned and how it is to be learned converge to project specific pedagogic identities. Not only is there no separation between instructional and regulative discourse, but also, ‘the instructional discourse is always embedded in the regulative discourse, and the regulative discourse is the dominant discourse’ (2000, p.13). He could not be more emphatic:  ‘There is no instructional discourse which

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is not regulated by the regulative discourse’ (ibid., p. 34). So, such pedagogic decisions as the selection and sequence of knowledge in curriculum are primarily moral, regulating the internal order of the instructional discourse (the reasons for teaching certain content and not other content and for presenting it in a particular order). The comparative analysis we present in this chapter is of the classification and framing values conveyed in the instructional and regulative discourses used to teach sociological knowledge in the four departments.

Evaluation rules For Ashwin (2009 and 2014) evaluative rules relate to ‘knowledge-as-student understanding’. Bernstein claimed that the evaluation rules ‘condense the meaning of the whole pedagogic device’ (2000, p. 36) and ‘shape any given context of acquisition’ (2000, p. 202). The evaluation rules regulate the pedagogical practices that convey messages to students about the realization and recognition rules:  that is, students must ‘recognize’ both what counts as legitimate knowledge and how it can be ‘realized’ in ‘texts’. In Bernstein’s view, texts are anything that attracts evaluation from the transmitter, for example, ‘how one sits or how one moves’ (2000, p.  18). Students acquire realization rules by making inferences from how pedagogy is framed and from the evaluative criteria that are in operation. Recognition and realization rules are conveyed most strongly in assessment regimes, discussed in this chapter, and in other pedagogical practices, discussed in Chapter 7.

An overview of the pedagogic device at Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective3 University curriculum does not stand still. It is changed as academics-asrecontextualizers respond to perceptions of students’ needs or demands, the interests of academics, shifts in the contours of (inter)disciplines, and resource constraints. For example, after the project, Diversity was subject to a course review which resulted in strengthening the curriculum’s connections to the local area. And, Community now has a single sociology degree, which it did not at the time of the research. In sociology at least, the curriculum is a site of struggle: our own experience is of debate in course teams and examination boards about what theory and social issues should be taught and how and when they

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should be introduced in courses. For example, sociology has been widely criticized by feminist theorists and those from different ethnic groups for reproducing knowledge that is constructed from a white, male, middle-class perspective (Ribbens and Edwards, 1996). We are not, then, presenting these curricula as definitive, rather, as with the institutional and department data we discussed in Chapter 2, they are snapshots, which provide material to demonstrate a way of theorizing good-quality and socially just education. In Tables 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3, we summarize the pedagogic device in each department in terms of knowledge-as-research; knowledge-ascurriculum; and, knowledge-as-student understanding. Inevitably, such a characterization simplifies the reality. Under evaluation rules, we show information about assessment only because it sends the most strident and listened-to messages; there were other, subtler aspects of the evaluative rules. The comparative account of the pedagogic device that comes later is intended to tease out the complexities. Table 6.1 Distributive rules: Knowledge-as-research Tutors’ knowledge production Tutors’ conception of knowledge Community

Diversity

Prestige

Selective

Local higher education research Interdisciplinary: Understanding historical, global, economic, funded by the University and the HEA and some wrote or social and political influences contributed to widely-used text on important national and books. international social and political issues, including human rights, crime, the justice system and policing. Research focusing on ethnic Sociology is for understanding minorities, the lives of local oneself and others. communities and teaching and learning issues. Top international scholars Sociology is the study of people and research almost every aspect societies across the world. of the currently configured discipline. Much of the curriculum designed around research specialisms. Teaching informed by research Sociology-related social and scholarship on key social science: sociology is the key to issues produced by wellunderstanding a wide range of known scholars in highlysocial issues. ranked research centres of international status.

Instructional Discourse

Regulative Discourse

Community Criminology Year 1: citizenship, identity, social justice, criminal Engage critically with complex Emphasis on issues; apply theory to justice, law and order, policing and research methods. Year employability; 2: ideology, politics, diversity, welfare. Year 3: the penal system; contemporary issues; envisage graduates were alternative realities; assess the human rights; psychology of crime or war crimes; regulating positioned as competing merits of different harm; policy and community; the body. professionals able to explanations; challenge challenge the status conventional wisdom; and, quo. learn research and collaborative skills. Diversity Sociology Year 1: explore own biographies via: key concept Understand their own lives and Form a ‘sociological of identity related to key social inequalities (race, gender, societies in national and global imagination’; sexuality, social class, work, age, disability); research skills; contexts by engaging with awareness of self and cultural studies; women’s studies; criminology; globalization; social, cultural, political and structures; critical history; a language. Year 2: research methods; sociological economic processes; and, learn and independent theory; how theory is applied to social issues; gender; ethnicity; research skills. thinking culture; identity, health, education; sexualities; globalization, family, media, the body, work experience. Year 3: Choices from Year 2. Prestige Sociology Year 1: social theory; gender the history of Britain; To be critical and analytical; learn Sociology has moral globalization and international issues, policy and welfare, research skills. responsibilities. media, a language. Year 2: research methods, theory, sociology of law, gender, welfare, visual research methods, health, knowledge, science, crime, the state, work, media, migration, population, Marx’s theory, narrative methods, and European history module. Year 3: same as Year 2 plus race, quantitative methods, youth, education, sexuality, money and, the developing world.

Curriculum Content

Table 6.2 Recontextualizing rules: Knowledge-as-curriculum

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Selective

Sociology/other sociology-related discipline Year 1: sociology Apply sociological theories applied to social issues (health, media, culture and literature, and concepts in arguments; protest movements, modernity, third world development, the reformulate social issues using environment, race and ethnicity, gender, childhood, crime, risk, sociological analysis. immigration, information technology, urban life organizations and globalization); contemporary culture; criminology; the family and the state; the environment; social problems; social anthropology. Year 2: theory, research methods; modernity, protest, (mental) health, developing countries, contemporary culture, the environment, race and ethnicity, gender, crime, childhood, the risk society and the urban society. Year 3: same as Year 2.

Use sociological knowledge to evaluate social and public policy and ethical dimensions of sociological practice. Comparing Sociology-Related Curricula 95

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Table 6.3 Evaluation rules: Knowledge-as-student understanding Assessment Regime Community

Diversity

Prestige

Selective

Assignments highly varied, a good deal of choice, with an emphasis on presentations and group work. One or two examinations. Optional final-year project. Assignments varied, little choice, with a focus on scholarly and research processes. All assignments comprised both coursework and end-of-module assignments, mainly related to each other and often with many parts. Frequent class tests. At least one examination a year. Compulsory final-year dissertation. All assignments were essays, including class essays, except for one report. A good deal of choice of topics and questions usually, but not always, set by tutors. For each module, students chose between being wholly assessed by coursework, wholly examined or mixed. In some optional modules participation in seminars, preparation and group work was assessed. Compulsory final-year dissertation. Core modules assessed by 50% examination and 50% coursework (essays). Assessment of options differed. Compulsory third-year dissertation.

Comparing the articulation of the pedagogic device in the four departments In the three subsections below we discuss similarities and differences in the distributive, recontextualizing and evaluative rules in the four departments. In each, the degree of insulation or classification between categories (for example, type of university or type of knowledge) can be strong or weak; in the same way, the degree of control within categories or framing (for example, messages to students about how to study) can be strong or weak. Put simply, strength of classification refers to how visible and permeable the boundary is and strength of framing refers to the locus of control  – teacher or student. In the following comparisons we have judged the strength of classification and framing. The reader might want to refer to the preceding tables while reading the analytical comparisons, and to the table in Appendix 2 for more details of the curricula.

A comparison of the distributive rules Prestige and Selective had distinctly more active, more prolific, and more prestigious research profiles with longer reaches than did Community and Diversity; that is, the classifications of research- or teaching-oriented departments were

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strong. However, this strength did not translate directly into the former having a singular sociology curriculum and the latter a region of sociology. At Diversity and Prestige sociology was a singular; at Selective sociology was a singular within a strongly classified social sciences context; and, at Community sociology was embedded in the regions of criminology and politics. Arguably, what distinguishes university education from school education is that students are in direct contact with the producers of knowledge, rather than, learning from textbook recontextualizations.4 So, a research question related to the distribution of knowledge was:  What access did the students have to the knowledge produced by researchers in their own departments? In a traditional Bernsteinian view, the nearer to the field of production the more powerful the knowledge, that is, the discursive gap for new knowledge is regulated by who is powerful in the field of specialized knowledge production, in this case, renowned scholars at Prestige and Selective. Further questions arise: How close is the curriculum to new knowledge emanating from the discursive gap in the field of production? And, to what effect? These questions are addressed in more detail in the sections on recontextualizing and evaluation rules. Briefly, as Appendix 2 reveals, Prestige stood out with a curriculum that, after the first year, was almost entirely based on academics’ research interests, with an emphasis on identity sociology, for example, feminist/ queer theory. Selective had third-year options based on research interests, but they did not define the curriculum. At Selective, Community and Diversity, the recontextualized knowledge appeared to represent strands or languages of the discipline as outlined in Chapter 5. Even though there were different inflections these three curricula introduced students to what can be called political and critical sociology which ran through the whole courses. Political sociology is based on UK sociology’s strong focus on the link between social critique and social reform: several modules in all three departments focused on inequalities and social justice. Critical sociology emphasizes diverse, discursive and social practices. So, although the higher-status departments had more optional modules taught by specialist knowledge producers, the content of the curriculum was not configured along clear lines representing higher/lower status. (A strand of research at Community and Diversity was pedagogic research which, while it is low-status in research terms, might have had beneficial effects on the quality of teaching, which we discuss in the next chapter.) The issue of what happens, both across and within universities, when teaching and research are separated remains an important one both for inequality and for quality. As teaching-only posts are becoming more prevalent, the question

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remains about whether academic teachers need to be active researchers. The combination of teaching and research has become a distinguishing feature of UK higher education, and as the Dearing Report (1997) stated a decade ago, and despite government’s best efforts since then, ‘there is a near universal rejection of the idea that some institutions of higher education should be teaching only institutions’ (par. 11.6). Academics are highly motivated by research and the lower-status universities are tenacious about keeping research alive, while the higher-status universities are swift to draw up teaching-only contracts when it serves the interests of maintaining research rankings (Abbas and Mclean, 2010). Whatever the complexities, an unanswered question is how the strength of classification (or the boundary) between research and teaching knowledge differs in universities of different status and what effect this has on quality and inequality. Although we cannot settle the question about the relationship between research and teaching, the issue of the ‘research-teaching nexus’ has been much debated in a literature which space does not allow us to treat. The position we take is predicated on the idea –elaborated in the coming chapters – that quality in a degree relates to students being able to form an identity by practicing a discipline (McLean and Barker, 2004). If this is so, then teachers should be practitioners – in this case, sociology-related social science researchers. At the same time, it is probably not necessary to good-quality teaching that students are taught by cutting edge researchers; nor do we claim that teachers who are not research active cannot teach well, rather, with Barnett (2000), we believe that, while being engaged in research is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition, it is a ‘strong condition’ (p. 163) for good-quality university teaching.

A comparison of the recontextualizing rules Here we compare the curricula in Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective. There are two subsections: the first explores instructional discourse, that is, what is taught and how the objects of study are organized (how much, in what order, with what amount of choice); and, the second explores the regulative discourse, particularly in relation to what type of sociology student was valued.

Instructional discourse Instructional discourse conveys to students what knowledge and skills are to be learned. Here, we look at curricular variations in what was classified as legitimate knowledge and knowing in terms of the type, depth and breadth

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of content, sequencing and choice. Chapter  5 showed sociology consisting of theories, empirical issues, and investigatory methods and Appendix 2 clarifies that all the curricula taught these three aspects. There were differences. A key aspect of recontextualization was on, the one hand, what modules were compulsory, and, on the other, the amount of choice: on a continuum, at the extremes, Community’s students had little choice and Prestige’s a good deal. This is a key aspect because choice and compulsion strongly influence what the discipline becomes for the student (see Appendix 2 for a more detailed expression of the choices and compulsions involved). Moreover, what is compulsory and at what point in the course, revealed what academics as recontextualizing agents valued. The openness of choice also relates to material conditions (number of academics employed); distributive rules (number of research active lectures), and to choices about pedagogical framing (discussed in Chapter 7). In the comparative account that follows, we proceed alphabetically.

Community’s instructional discourse Appendix 2 shows Community’s curriculum standing out with much less choice than that of the other three departments. All first-year modules were compulsory for all social science students in the faculty. Community’s curriculum emphasized societal issues: social justice, citizenship and criminology, and this emphasis remained throughout the course. Many of the students started the criminology course wanting to work with the police, and the modules were generally highly specialised, focusing on law and order, and, crime and policing. Nevertheless, in the second year students were directed to wider issues in two options (politics, or welfare or diversity). Community was the only university not to have specified theory modules, yet we know from tutor interviews, modules and recordings of seminars that students were introduced to sociological theories embedded in modules as the course progressed: for example, Marxist theory, feminist theory, Foucauldian theory and sociological theories of education and the body. Readings, though, were interdisciplinary encompassing politics, social policy, philosophy, law, education and sociology. Research methods at Community were taught explicitly in the first year only and the final-year project was optional, at the same time – as we show under evaluation rules  – many assessment tasks involved student-led investigations and the regulative discourse emphasized the central importance of the ability to carry out interdisciplinary research in the workplace. Overall, theory, empirical issues and research methods were evident in the curriculum’s instructional

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discourse, but theory and research were weakly classified within a region, while the empirical was strongly classified in criminology. Its focus was applied and interdisciplinary, social issues were foregrounded and theorizing implicit.

Diversity’s instructional discourse Diversity used compulsion to create a curriculum which strongly classified sociology: about half the course was compulsory. The three first-year compulsory modules revealed to students what sociology is, what it can do and what they needed to learn. Both the modules ‘Relating society and self ’ and ‘Understanding the nature of society’ highlighted the concept of identity and its relationship to ethnicity, gender and social class and emphasized applying sociology to understand contemporary, local society and popular culture. Theorizing was encouraged from the start by applying concepts to students’ biographies and making the university’s location an object of study. In this way, students who, as we have set out in Chapter 2, were more likely to be working-class and from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, were positioned as the subjects rather than the objects of sociology. Even the images on modules guides – from pop icons to humanitarian disasters – signalled the effort to draw students into seeing the relevance of sociology to everyday concerns. The third first-year compulsory module was research methods, which was carried through as a compulsory module in Year 2, culminating in a compulsory dissertation in Year 3. In Year 2, Diversity had a compulsory module explicitly about classical theory, including the founding fathers Marx, Durkheim and Weber. The sequencing signals a pedagogical decision to defer the introduction of pure theory until students understood the discipline’s nature and work. In Diversity, the third second-year compulsory module focused on how theories shed light on important social issues: for example, feminism and domestic violence. Only Diversity made contemporary social theory compulsory (in Year 3), the module including philosophers of the Enlightenment, feminism, the Frankfurt School, Goffman, structuralism, Althusser and postmodernity. Overall at Diversity, the compulsory core was an instructional discourse that was a strongly framed progression through theoretical traditions right into the third year. The theoretical modules were historically sequenced and so strong messages were sent about the importance of appreciating historical context. Simultaneously, there were strong messages about the connections of sociology to the students’ contemporary everyday lives. Understanding and knowhow about research also featured strongly. In contrast to Community, Diversity’s sociology was a strongly classified single evident in all three elements of theory,

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empirical issues and research methods. The curriculum emphasized specific social divisions and identity issues (ethnicity, race, gender, masculinities) and options were not of the same breadth as at Prestige and Selective. All students at Diversity would have encountered much the same knowledge.

Prestige’s instructional discourse Like Diversity, Prestige offered single sociology. The first-year students had one compulsory, first-year module conveying the discipline by introducing the canon of theory in classical sociology (the founding fathers Durkheim, Weber and Marx). So, a traditional, sacred core of sociological knowledge was strongly classified at first, but this was the only compulsory module in the whole degree. After it, the type of sociology was weakly framed because there was so much choice, in contrast to Diversity’s strong framing. Students had a choice of one research method (of three) only during the second year, but could avoid learning about research methods by taking another theory module. It can be seen from Appendix 2 that Prestige students had substantial choice with no restrictions, though in documentation they were encouraged to discuss choices with their tutors. The curriculum at Prestige reflected the specialities of the academics who combined theory, empirical issues and approaches to investigation in their modules. Thus, students at Prestige had a curriculum close to the field of production (individual academics decided on how to recontextualize the work they were doing and individual students navigated their own ways around the discipline). Yet, students could create an individual curriculum which was idiosyncratic and narrow, for example, by choosing: a gender module in the first year; a theory module in the second year, followed by three on gender; and, in the third year all modules and a dissertation on gender and sexuality. Nevertheless, such choices would also allow in-depth study of identity sociology. Moreover, any student could have carved out of optional modules at Prestige any one of the broad range of strands of sociology discussed in Chapter 5. Unlike the other three departments, the curriculum faced inwards towards the discipline itself, rather than outwards to societal and personal issues.

Selective’s instructional discourse Finally, like Diversity and Prestige, Selective offered single sociology, but in the context of a broad range of social science subjects, so students taking different degrees studied sociology together and the knowledge was strongly classified as applied. As at Diversity, about half Selective’s course was compulsory and the first-year compulsory curriculum revealed to interdisciplinary students what

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the foundational discipline of sociology is, what it can do, what they needed to learn, and, importantly, how it relates to other social science disciplines (social policy, criminology, urban and cultural studies). Compared with both Diversity and Prestige, its compulsory introduction to sociology had more breadth: it was a year-long intensive course dealing with one big social issue a week for twentythree weeks, including ethnicity and gender and going beyond to a wider range with a policy sociology slant. The options in the first year focused only on empirical areas. The focus was on others in contrast to Diversity’s focus on self. Year 2 had one compulsory module on classical theory which covered more theorists than at either Diversity or Prestige, and one on the full range of research methods. As at Prestige, the choice of options was large, reflecting the department’s wealth and research interests and leaning towards policy sociology and empirical matters. Selective’s curriculum, therefore, was deep and broad with strongly classified sociology, which was presented as a way of illuminating social problems.

Summary of comparison of instructional discourse So, under the instructional discourse at each university the balance between the sacred and profane faces of sociology was differently inflected, but it was not according to status, as appeared at first sight. While Prestige signalled a strong interest in the students grasping the nature and role of theory at the beginning of the first year, finally, it was less insistent about students learning theory than were Diversity and Selective, which had two modules which taught theory explicitly. And, while Community appeared to teach no theory, further exploration showed it embedded within modules where key sociological categories of race, gender, social class and identity were also taught. Similarly, we found that the curricula that emphasized application more were Community and Selective (one lower- and one higher-status university). We have also emphasized how the restriction and guidance of choice shapes the curriculum for students. The amount of choice of optional modules ranged from eight at Community to twenty-three at Selective. Nevertheless, Diversity was a close third with seventeen (Prestige was nineteen). Less obvious and more pedagogically important was the extent to which students’ choices are bounded or not to produce either a common or an individualized curriculum. The curricula of Community and Diversity were common; Prestige gave students more or less completely free choice so that each student could have had a highly individualized curriculum; while Selective students’ choices were restricted according

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to whether the field of their degree was sociology, sociology and criminology or social policy. Procedural knowledge, too, appeared differently in the curricula: Diversity, Selective and Prestige taught a wide range of methodological approaches:  for example, quantitative through to traditional, qualitative methods (such as interviews and focus groups) and artistic methods incorporating literature, photography and film. Community had one research methods module only, but as the evaluation rules showed students were constructed as knowledge producers. So, while there were clear differences in the classifications and framings of curricula, we cannot at this point say that one was of a better quality or doing more justice to knowledge and to students. We turn now to the regulative discourse to show what values about the discipline and about students as sociological knowers underpinned recontextualizing decisions.

Regulative discourse Regulative discourse is the moral discourse which controls the relationship between knowledge and identity, and regulates the instructional discourse (Bernstein 2000). Our analysis revealed two kinds of knowers:  a sociological knower and a generic student knower. In this chapter, we discuss what was conveyed in the regulative discourse about the mission of sociology and about being a sociological knower, leaving for Chapter 7 discussion about how the generic student knower was conveyed. As before, we proceed alphabetically.

Community’s regulative discourse Community celebrated interdisciplinarity, drawing students’ attention to ‘the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to academic study’. New social science students were told that social science ‘makes sense of everyday life’ and were promised stimulating discussions about important national and international social and political issues. Many seminar questions focused on the nature of the disciplines and those who practice them: for example, ‘What is the field of social policy?’ ‘What does it mean to be a political scientist?’ ‘Why are the social sciences at [Community] in the same faculty as the health sciences and life sciences?’ And, ‘Where do you think we belong?’ Criminology was broadly conceived within a global context encompassing human rights, and students were told explicitly that to understand historical, economic, social and political influences they would study crime, the justice system and policing within a social science framework. They were also explicitly encouraged to question the

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status quo by challenging ‘the monopoly of criminal justice’ and taking a ‘more imaginative approach to the problem of crime’. The scholarly dispositions and skills which the Community course intended students to acquire were: critical engagement with complex issues; application of theory to contemporary issues; research skills and collaborative skills; and, more specifically, contrasting common-sense images with alternative realities, assessing the competing merits of different explanations and challenging conventional wisdom. Students were called on to be interested in the ‘difficult questions of human existence’, apply interdisciplinary lenses and ask, ‘Why does it have to be like that?’ ‘How did it get to be that way?’ ‘Could it be otherwise?’ Throughout the course, students were invited to focus on future employment: being able to form opinions enlightened by a range of disciplines was presented as preparation for working in the public sector with disadvantaged groups or in policy making. Many of the criminology students started the course wanting to work locally for the police; despite that, students were projected as being employed in positions not tied to the locality. Throughout the modules, empirical matters were the problems of others viewed nationally and internationally (whether policing or criminal justice systems). The regulative discourse strongly framed a form of vocationalism: graduates were projected as intellectually grounded critical and influential public service workers and citizens.

Diversity’s regulative discourse Sociology at Diversity was described to new students as the study of social relations and society which should give them a whole new way of looking at life, helping them understand the world around them and their own place in it and answer such questions as: ‘Are women now really equal to men, or is sexism just a lot subtler these days?’ And, ‘Is there really a conflict between Islam and British culture, and who gets to decide what Britishness is anyway?’ Students were told that by way of theory, methodology and specialist areas (such as gender, race, social policy, globalization, health, media and education) they would study societies in national and global contexts, engaging with the social, cultural, political and economic processes that shape them. The sociology course at Diversity expected students to acquire:  self- and structural awareness through engaging with sociological perspectives; critical and independent thinking; and, the capacity to carry out enquiries with integrity and strong evaluative and analytical skills. The handbook stated that the course intended to displace an ‘instrumental orientation’ by ‘igniting the

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students’ sociological imagination’. Documentation claimed that the critical self and social awareness the course fostered would prepare students for professional work. Compared to Community, employability was played down: one module was on feminist-related work experience and another on broader work experience. Vocationalism, therefore, did not define the curriculum, rather sociological knowledge was presented as powerful because it supported students’ understanding of their immediate environment. Nevertheless, this was not a matter of prioritizing the mundane, because the regulative discourse embedded in a strongly classified sociology was that theoretical understandings were essential.

Prestige’s regulative discourse Prestige’s sociology was expressed almost exclusively as research which pushed the boundaries of knowledge. The department emphasized its global aspirations and reach: websites and documents laid out the careers of academics-as-researchers in detail; long descriptions of the international, ostensibly world-class research of individuals were provided; as well as, attention drawn to specific research prizes and accolades. This information sent the implicit but strong message that for students the value of the degree was being taught about this research by these researchers. The students were positioned, therefore, as apprentice sociologists who read primary texts and classical interpretations from the beginning. High value was placed on theory which was presented as being continuously regenerated, so while beginning with Marx, Durkheim and Weber was to re-prioritize the dead white men and the discipline’s own inherently patriarchal past (see Chapter 4), it was taught by a prominent woman professor whose theoretical life work had been in dialogue with those founding fathers. Similarly, issues at the heart of optional modules:  technologies, globalization, consumption, and the awareness of emotions lead to the re-examination of preceding theorists. The regulative discourse was overtly and insistently moral. Sociological theory and research at Prestige was presented as a discipline with a duty to ‘set social agenda [and] bring issues into prominence’ and ‘make many aspects of life problematic which people have previously taken for granted.’ This role and duty, students were reminded, cannot be ‘ethically neutral, so we can never be morally indifferent’. In congruence with this message, in working life, Prestige graduates were projected either as the next generation of academics or as powerful agents of change in public roles, expected to make a difference to the lives of others by bringing sociologically shaped moral disposition to it. This meant thinking

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sociologically about social and policy problems. (We return to employment and how the projections were realised in students’ life plans in Chapter 9.)

Selective’s regulative discourse At Selective also, the high status of the researchers was highlighted. In contrast to Prestige, documentation elaborated on the purpose of interdisciplinary social science to provide explanations during a period of rapid social change, addressing such questions as:  ‘What is globalization and how is it changing society as we know it?’ ‘Will changes taking place in Britain today lead to a reduction or increase in class, gender and ethnic inequalities?’ And, ‘Has society become less moral?’ At the same time, the regulative discourse emphasized sociology as the foundation; for example, the handbook claimed that ‘Lectures encourage a critical awareness of the social world and an appreciation of the diverse ways of interpreting social phenomena.’ Emphasized too was sociology’s procedural power: students needed to become skilled ‘doers’ or researchers of sociology who would use and apply sociological theories and concepts in an argument; reformulate social issues from the standpoint of sociological analysis; use sociological knowledge to evaluate social and public policy; and, be disposed to evaluate the value and ethical dimensions of sociological practice. The moral discourse of Prestige was missing; Selective’s regulative discourse was more pragmatically oriented towards world problems, and the degree aimed to produce graduates influential in professions, public service and the private sector.

Summary of comparison of regulative discourse We have proposed that regulative discourse (in which instructional discourse is embedded) reveals what it is academics think is the purpose of sociology or social science and, therefore, what sociology or social science graduate identity is projected. Again, we found distinct differences in emphases, but not in accordance with the status of the university. Both Community and Selective strongly projected students who would apply their knowledge in the public arena – actors facing the outside world of practices and policies – while Prestige’s student subject was oriented towards the regeneration of the discipline, the inner world. Diversity’s sociology was differentiated by a stronger focus on the student’s transformed vision of their own lives, rather than on the lives of others, as in the other three programmes. In these ways, the regulative discourse differently positioned students in relation to what they might be and do in the world. These

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were not absolute differences, rather they illustrated a range of conceptions of what sociology is and can do and what is useful and valuable about being a sociology graduate.

A comparison of the evaluative rules This section takes a different approach. Students must recognize what they are expected to understand and work to produce realizations of their understanding. The most obvious way for tutors to convey recognition and realization rules is through the assignments they give students and their marks and feedback. So here we compare aspects of what we call ‘assessment regimes’. Table 6.3 set out the form of assessment in each place, but said little about the content. Nevertheless, we can extrapolate about the evaluation rules from both form and content. The following subsections present ideas about the comparative evaluation rules by focusing on differences in the amount of work required; the range and variety of assignments; and, the amount of choice and freedom to study personal topics. Some aspects appeared associated with the status of the university, while others did not.

The quantity of assigned work Self-evidently how much a student is expected to work and does work is a critical aspect of the quality of education. Calculated by word count,5 this aspect did not differ according to status of university and was similar in each department: the number of words a student was expected to produce rose by the year of study and was between 12,000 and 20,000 words at Community; 15,000 and 22, 000 words at Diversity; 11,000 and 33,000 words at Prestige; and, between 12,000 and 22,000 at Selective. Diversity’s students had by far the greatest number of assignments. How many depended on module choice: for example, the firstyear module ‘Investigating Society’ had four parts: choosing an image reflecting themes in modern society and commenting (10 per cent); an in-class test of key theoretical concepts (20 per cent); a re-evaluation of the original image (20 per cent); and a seen examination (50 per cent). Yet, there is a pedagogical recognition that the sheer amount of assessment does not equate to student understanding: at Diversity, after the research, a course review decided that the number of assessments should be reduced. We return to how the amount of assessed work relates to acquiring powerful knowledge when discussing the issue of student effort in the next chapter.

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The variety and type of assignments Overall, there was a sharp difference in this aspect of assessment regimes, which was strongly associated with university status. Community’s and Diversity’s external examiners described their assessment regimes as innovative and featured fifteen different forms of assignment between them. In both cases, the assignments were designed for specific knowledge or skills. Community emphasized the confidence and ability to give presentations (oral presentations were featured throughout the course) and collaborative skills: for example, choosing a policy issue and generating a group case study; doing an interview; critically assessing a piece of published research; take-home examination; presenting a conference paper to the whole cohort; oral examination; individual case study; and, individual project. Diversity stressed scholarly and research processes, requiring students, for example, to annotate a bibliography; to draw up a bibliography; to choose and comment analytically on an image; to undertake an interview and annotate the transcript; to comment on an exercise using quantitative data to make notes on participant observation; to compile a group portfolio for a research proposal; to submit an individual research report; to write a group log about the research process; and to review a journal article. Community had almost no examinations; Diversity had few, but students took at least one a year. In contrast, at Prestige essays and examinations were the only form of assessment (except one option for a report) which signalled high value for individual reading and writing. On the other hand, although Selective adhered to 50 per cent examination and 50 per cent coursework essay for all core modules, there was variation. These included research methods (Year 2) assessed by an annotated bibliography of three research articles; a literature review; an in-lecture assessment; a group project; and devising a questionnaire. Optional modules also had some different types of assessment. The nature of assignments, including the type of question for essays, revealed pedagogical aims. Interviews with academics at Community and Diversity revealed three reasons for the wide range of assignments:  to engage students’ interest; to allow for other ways of showing knowledge than the traditional essay; and, to provide opportunities to practice valued skills (for example, the high number of oral presentations at Community; research skills at Diversity; and, working in groups in both). In Prestige and, to a lesser extent, in Selective, the students’ possession of scholarly skills was taken for granted. Moreover, at Prestige students chose the mode of assessment (examination, essay or both), implying the self-knowledge necessary to decide how they would do themselves justice.

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When essay questions were set in Community and Diversity, they tended to be framed by the instruction to critically discuss or debate. In Prestige, from the first year, questions explicitly invited theorization and opinion:  for example, ‘Why can’t instrumentalism be used to decide which concepts work best?’ ‘Should we be surprised that the founder of public relations was Freud’s nephew?’ And, ‘Consider “social class”, as used by Marx and Weber. What are the main conceptual differences?’ Such questions steer students away from descriptions of theories towards meta-analysis of theoretical positions; they also send students a strongly framed message that they should learn how to come to a view on sociological matters. Selective similarly asked students for meta-perspectives on sociological theory, but differed by phrasing questions in everyday, horizontal discourse rather than in the vertical discourse of sociology: for example, ‘Try to persuade a Marxist friend that the class war is over.’ ‘Try to persuade a biological determinist that we are made, not born, male and female.’ And, ‘Is there evidence of the decline of racial oppression in modern society?’ In contrast to Prestige, such questions position students in relation to non-specialists and orient them to current social issues.

The final-year dissertation In Diversity, Prestige and Selective the final-year dissertation was compulsory. It had a special status, being highly valued by both students and academics: it is worth exploring why. The dissertation’s position as the acme of the undergraduate education, integrating the learning of the previous three years, has been noted in educational literature (Brew, 2006; Gibbs, 2010; Meeus et  al., 2004). Indeed, for Graham Gibbs (2010) they are ‘amongst the most telling of all indicators of educational outcomes’ (p. 7). Four characteristics defined the dissertation experience of the students we spoke to: it was a piece of research, usually requiring an empirical element; students decided on the topic reflecting their own interests; students worked alone, meeting a tutor from time to time (Diversity ran a dissertation workshop); research and writing was undertaken over several months, sometimes more than a year, beginning in the second year and ending in the third. In our theory, dissertations work as learning because the students are actively engaged in knowledge construction, that is, the dissertation should be a site for bringing sacred and mundane knowledge into relation with each other by engaging in theory and relevant sociology-based empirical studies; formulating research questions; generating empirical data and analysing and interpreting it.

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To understand why dissertations often (though not always) appear rewarding, we undertook an analysis based on fifteen case-study students’ dissertations (Ashwin et al., 2016b). We explored the relationships between their understandings of sociological knowledge, the research they undertook and how sociological knowledge was used in the dissertation. We wanted to see whether they practiced the kind of sociological reflexivity that allows the opening of the discursive gap between theory and the empirical world, which is what we theorize is powerful and rewarding. All the dissertations used sociological theory, though there were variations in the extent to which students either questioned the explanatory limitations of the concepts they used or saw themselves influencing the research. Nevertheless, by comparing with the dissertation texts the students’ conceptions of sociological knowledge in second- and third-year interviews we concluded that in all universities some students’ dissertation experiences had deepened their understanding of sociology as a discipline revealing different ways to explore the relations between people and society. This movement did not appear to be stimulated by mere interest in the topic (which all students showed but by apprehending how sociological theory and concepts shed light on the topic they were asking questions about. However, five of the fifteen students (irrespective of university status) did not grasp how sociology illuminates life. Although there is an extensive literature about the difficulty that students find with research methods,6 of primary importance is that the student comes to appreciate that disciplinary knowledge is a powerful lens on the questions being investigated. A dissertation is a highly exciting experience when a student combines insight about the power of disciplinary sacred knowledge with the capacity to generate rich empirical data to create a discursive gap about a topic of interest. Without using the language of the discursive gap, the three departments conceptualized the dissertation as an opportunity for students to pursue their own interests and to showcase their understanding of how to bring together conceptual understanding and empirical data. Selective had a library-based choice, but, even so, was strict about the need to connect theory with the real world. Although the final-year dissertation or project is widely accepted as a powerful form of learning, we know from personal experience and anecdotally that it is abandoned because students find it difficult and if not done well it attracts lower marks. At Community, the curricular focus on research methods seemed slight: a compulsory module on research methods in the first year not followed by another module specifically research-focused; and no compulsory finalyear dissertation or project (it has since been reinstated). Yet, the university of

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Community promoted a policy of student production of knowledge and this was reflected in students being encouraged in a general way to take a research approach to topics and see themselves as researchers within the bounds of modules. The evaluation rules of all departments, therefore, positioned students as producers of knowledge.

Choice of assignments Aligned with restricted curriculum choices, Diversity had the least choice in its assessment regime, which was designed for specific skills or to direct the students towards specific reflections about theory and its relationship to their own lives (for example, ‘Write 1,500 words on how the module has deepened, supplemented or challenged how you originally viewed the image’). On the other hand, Community’s assignments were highly student-focused with students encouraged to select topics of interest and to research them in the light of their own research questions. In other words, the lack of choice in modules was countered by open choices in assessment. Prestige and Selective had a choice from many essay titles, with Prestige’s being a less constrained choice in relation both to content and mode of assessment (essay, examination or combined). In this way, Prestige again allowed students to choose narrowly (for example, by choosing only coursework in an aspect of gender studies). As discussed, the dissertation was constructed by academics at all universities except Community as the epitome of choice and opportunity to showcase knowledge, understanding and skill. Choice was not therefore associated with status and operated to send different kinds of messages: in Community more open choice was directed towards forming the identity of researcher, though the lack of both formal teaching of research methods and a compulsory dissertation were dissonant; while in Prestige open choice engaged students with the research specialisms of their academics. Diversity constrained choice to promote learning what the academics valued; while Selective exercised some constraints for the same purpose.

Summary of the comparison of evaluation rules University status influenced the variety of assessment with the two lower-status universities offering considerably more variety than the two higher-status universities, with some assessments designed for specific skills and some to give cognitive access to the difficult horizontal discourse of the discipline. Status also related to the amount of choice on a spectrum from Diversity with little

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and Prestige with a good deal. Ironically the large choice at Prestige could lead to a narrow range for the individual student, while at Diversity restricted choices ensured that the students covered what their teachers thought was desirable. Assessment regimes aligned with curricula in sending strongly framed messages about what kind of sociologist or social scientist was valued and there were differences. Community’s assessment projected a public-sector worker with responsibility and influence, capable of selecting and researching topics and with confident presentation skills. By contrast, Diversity focused on forming a sociological identity: the discipline’s historical roots were emphasized, as well as sociological theorizing and methodological expertise. This identity was focused on the understanding of self and others. Prestige, too, was shaping a sociological identity, but, here it was traditional and academic: the students were being put into conversation with the discipline itself. Finally, Selective, like Community, projected a graduate who would be engaging with professionals who were not social scientists and so must learn to translate and present the solutions to social problems. It can be seen again that university status does not predict what kind of education the students are receiving.

Conclusion We have described the curricula of Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective and explored differences and similarities through the lens of the redistributive, recontextualizing and evaluation rules of the pedagogic device, as proposed by Bernstein (2000). As predicted by the distributive rules, the lower-status universities with fewer resources also received less-well-qualified, more diverse students and employed fewer research-active and high-profile academics. The recontextualizing rules showed some status-related differences. At Community module choice was highly limited as was explicit teaching of theory and research methods:  theory was embedded and so unlikely to build a ‘conceptual pile’ (Muller 2014) of sociological knowledge and there was little opportunity to carry out original empirical research or to learn about research methods beyond the first year. However, Community students were encouraged to acquire forms of powerful knowledge (knowing how to be critical about others’ research, how to work with others and how to speak confidently in public). Yet, as a lower-status university Diversity’s curriculum was not the kind predicted by Bernstein:  it was single and strongly classified, encompassing theory, methods and skills.

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Moreover, we have suggested in the high-status Prestige, the weak framing of high choice might have led to less powerful sociological knowledge because it was narrow, though it would have been deep. Although Selective’s curriculum was focused on regions, it designed a curriculum strongly classified and framed by sociology. It should be clear that it was not straightforward to judge whether any one curriculum was incorporating more or less powerful knowledge than another. In all cases, the instructional discourse allowed students to acquire systematically organized knowledge, albeit more systematic in some than in others. In all the departments, students had opportunities to use knowledge to make connections between actions and social conditions, as identified in the quotation at the start of the chapter (Bauman and May, 2001). Importantly, in keeping with the moral/political ambition of sociology, all students were expected to identify a discursive gap between how things are and how they might or should be. We can say that the recontextualizing rules did not play out according to the status of the university. In terms of evaluation rules, differences in emphases in curriculum and assessment led Community and Selective to project graduates as influential professionals; Diversity to project them as well-informed citizens; and Prestige to project them as apprentice sociologists, who were also meant to make a difference to the lives of others. While Prestige’s was expected, not all these emphases were related to the status of the department. We saw the ‘what’ of the curriculum being used to cultivate the ‘who’: the regulative discourse in all departments was aspirational, strongly classifying students as individuals, workers and citizens who had the power and freedom to make transformations. The next chapter builds on this by presenting a close analysis of the pedagogical framings evident in each department, showing how tutors and students worked with the recognition and realization rules of the pedagogic device.

Notes 1 2

A term applied to school curriculum before the mandatory national curriculum in 1988. The students we interviewed were mostly studying for joint degrees: by the end of their degrees four of the seven case-study students studied sociology only, and two studied sociology only throughout their degrees. Similarly, 45 per cent of the wider group of first years studied sociology only.

114 3 4

5 6

How Powerful Knowledge Disrupts Inequality See Appendix 2 for a detailed account of the data analysed to produce this chapter. The academics we spoke to were scathing about the ubiquitous A-level textbook. Haralambous and Holborn (2008) say that it had given students the wrong impression of what sociology is. Sometimes word count was not available and we calculated equivalent word counts for some assignments. For example, de Kleijn et al., 2012; Earley, 2014; Murtonen and Lehtinen, 2005; Sachs, 2002; Todd et al., 2004; Wagner et al., 2011.

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Getting on the inside of disciplinary understanding . . . requires prolonged initiation. Bernstein provides further illumination. He claimed that the scholarly communities that develop specialised disciplinary knowledge tend towards narcissism, i.e. they are inward looking and self-absorbed . . . Therefore, enabling students to make subjectively meaningful connections between these necessarily remote disciplinary worlds and the student’s everyday experience may prove to be one of the most challenging and enduring educational problems. Beck, 2013, p. 187, emphases in the original The task is to produce students who, by virtue of the teaching they have received, are able to go beyond what they have been taught to the formulation of their own identity and individuality. Bruner, 2006, p. 39

Introduction Teaching so that knowledge takes on meaning in students’ lives is complex and arduous, as identified by both John Beck and Jerome Bruner. It needs a theory. For Bruner, a theory of teaching must include an ‘image of what constitutes an educated person’ (2006, p.  37). The last chapter showed how the instructional and regulative discourses of the sociology curricula at Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective constructed sociological knowers in differently inflected ways, although all were expected to see the relevance of sociological knowledge to real- life phenomena and, to investigate social issues with rigorous research methods in the light of established theories. Yet, however worthwhile the curriculum

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knowledge and however insistent the messages about what type of knower is valued, it is what the student does which shapes whether powerful knowledge is acquired. What the student does is mediated by the quality of teaching. Substantial resources exist for thinking about a theory of teaching to underpin good-quality undergraduate learning, teaching, and curriculum.1 This, however, is a Bernsteinian account which views pedagogic practice as ‘cultural relay’ which challenges the idea that learning capacity is dependent on students’ individual attributes (for example, intelligence, motivation and ‘preparedness’). Using Bernstein’s terms, all students entering higher education possess the capability to learn because they have overcome the bounds of ‘restricted’ family and community code and are in possession of an ‘elaborated’ code which carries ‘the potential of creating alternative realities, possibilities and practices’ (1990, p. 62). Yet, social privilege or the lack of it is likely to influence students’ access to powerful academic knowledge. The preoccupation of Bernsteinian scholars is whether students acquire the balance between conceptual knowledge (specialized/ vertical/sacred discourse) and contextual knowledge (horizontal/ mundane/everyday discourse) which allows them to transcend the local and, in Muller’s terms, ‘do things with knowledge’ (2014, p. 10). Good quality, socially just teaching, then, is defined by pedagogical practices which pursue this goal. In this chapter, after an explanation of Bernstein’s pedagogic theory, a comparative overview of pedagogic framing in the four departments is followed by setting out students’ views about the quality of teaching. Most of the chapter then presents a detailed comparative analysis of specific aspects of pedagogic framing. The concepts of recognition and realization rules (introduced in the last chapter) and of visible and invisible pedagogy illuminate four major themes: how the students were constructed as learners; the quality of relationships between students and academics2; the quality of seminar discussion; and, evidence about the amount of effort students themselves were making. We conclude by discussing how the strength of the classifications and framings of the evaluation rules of the pedagogic device allow judgements about the comparative quality of teaching, including whether it is likely to disrupt inequalities.

Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic practices While the last chapter focused mainly on the what of pedagogic practice, this chapter focuses mainly on how. Bernstein’s inelegant, though comprehensive, definition of pedagogy is:

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a sustained process whereby somebody(s) acquires a new form or develops existing forms of conduct, knowledge, practice and criteria from somebody(s) or something deemed to be an appropriate provider and evaluator – appropriate either from the point of view of the acquirer or by some other body(s) or both. (2000, p. 78)

In his view: ‘Pedagogic modalities are crucial realizations of symbolic control, and thus of the process of cultural production and reproduction, [they] shape and distribute forms of consciousness, identity and desire’ (ibid., p.  201). In education, symbolic control is exerted by the ‘regulation and challenge’ presented by curriculum, pedagogy and assessment as ‘message systems’ used by the educator to regulate and legitimate what and how students learn (ibid., p. 23). The principle of framing regulates how knowledge, skills and dispositions are transmitted and acquired. Our analysis, therefore, focused on the strength of framing in terms of the locus of control (whether with academic or with student) and the degree of control over all aspects of pedagogy, including the selection, organization, sequencing, pacing, and assessment criteria of the knowledge to be acquired, as well as academic/student relations. Strong framing places the control with the academic, who ‘marks boundaries and makes them explicit’ (ibid., p.  201); while in weak framing control is ‘apparently’ (ibid.) with the student. In the last chapter, we discussed the selection, organization, sequencing and pacing of knowledge in the four departments revealing both broad similarities converging on what sociology students should know and differences of emphasis, depending on how students were conceptualized as graduate workers. In this chapter, we discuss pedagogic practices further to show the comparative strengths and types of messages sent to students about how to do sociology.

Overview of pedagogical framing By status of university there were unambiguous differences in pedagogic framing relating to amount of face-to-face teaching; group size; and, assessment practices. Students in all the departments attended for two to three hours a week for each module (about eight hours weekly), however, Community and Diversity had longer teaching semesters and extra sessions:  over the first year, contact hours were approximately 201 and 206 respectively; while those for Prestige and Selective were 122 and 184 hours, respectively; and, over the three years of the degree, there was approximately one-third more teaching hours of teaching

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at the two lower-status universities than at the higher-status universities. Yet, although much is made of contact hours as an indicator of good quality in current UK policy, there is neither empirical evidence to ascertain nor theorizing to explain the relationship between the number of hours being taught and the quality of learning. For us, more contact hours imply stronger framing, that is the academics maintain more control. Group size was ascertained from our observations and questions to academics. An effect of wealth, group size was not as different as suggested by the official staff-student ratios presented in Chapter 2: Diversity’s group size stood out at twenty-five (for the workshops), and the others were between eight and twenty for seminars, with Community at the high end, yet it also had five tutorials each semester with only eight students. The meaning of group size is difficult to interpret: it is possible that a workshop of twenty-five students can be a better pedagogic experience than large lectures followed by small seminars in which no one but the lecturer speaks (we shall return to this point in the quality of seminar discussion). In Community, Prestige and Selective, teaching methods were mostly what might be called traditional though, as discussed in the last chapter, Community had innovative assessment assignments. In the main, there were lectures to attend; seminars to prepare for and partake in; and, occasionally one-to-one tutorials. Of these, both academics and students placed the greatest value on seminars. Diversity alone described its sociology course as innovative in content and pedagogical processes, which included workshops, nevertheless, lectures and seminars predominated. Different patterns of regulation pertained: at Community and Diversity all teaching sessions were compulsory; while at Prestige and Selective seminars only were compulsory and Selective gave marks for attendance. Nevertheless, we observed a good deal of absence which was confirmed by the academics. More subtle differences pointed to variations in quality. Students at Prestige told us most about disinterested teachers and dull teaching; while, at Diversity, expectations of behaviour were weakly framed, that is, academics did not control students when not on task in workshops and seminars. Both experiences are obstacles to learning. A higher proportion of upper-second-class and first-class degrees are awarded at higher-status universities. We are exploring whether the discrepancy is an unavoidable effect of the starting point of the students at lowerstatus universities, that is, with lower entry qualifications and from lower social classes (Smith and Naylor, 2001) or whether subtle differences in framing might be operating systematically to result in the underachievement of some students.

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Student perceptions of what constitutes good quality teaching Students’ perceptions of the quality of teaching was indicated by responses to the ‘Good Teaching’ scale on our survey. From their point of view, the quality of education in all departments was good, but not according to the usual rankings. As can be seen in Table 7.1, Diversity and Community ranked significantly higher than Prestige and Selective. An online comment in the educational press about an article on the project was that this result reflected differences in students’ school experiences, in other words, working-class students at lower-status universities are less discerning. However, interviews revealed that students define good quality similarly and not according to their social group or university. Yet, older students were more likely to perceive teaching as better than younger students; to take a ‘deep approach’ to learning3; and, to be more engaged with and interested in academic knowledge, which supports some previous studies (Richardson 1995). Confirming this finding, interview analysis revealed that students with turbulent past lives, who are usually older, were highly engaged. For example, at Diversity, both Lucia and Lamar had disabilities, had suffered physical and psychological abuse in their families and had experienced poverty. Both claimed to have been transformed by sociology giving them a language for understanding their pasts; for why they felt different (both used the concept ‘stigmatisation’); and for articulating different possible futures for themselves and other disadvantaged groups. Overall, there were remarkable similarities across the universities in the students’ perceptions of what is a good-quality undergraduate education. Becoming knowledgeable was a valuable outcome:  students invariably used the word understand rather than learning and there was a strong relationship between understanding and enjoyment. Understanding was achieved by practicing the discipline by reading, writing, discussing, and undertaking research; and, by practising being critical and questioning. Good-quality teaching, therefore, provided opportunities and encouragement to engage in text work and critical

Table 7.1 Ranking of perceptions of good teaching Scale

Ranking of universities

Good Teaching

Diversity, Community, Selective, Prestige

Note: Universities in bold have scores that are significantly higher than the scores of universities in italics.

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thinking. In the next chapter, we show how skill and dispositions are integral to forming a disciplinary identity. What students thought of as good teaching coincided with much that is already known about what constitutes generic principles of good teaching from previous research and practical experience (cf. n.1). In brief, courses should be coherently designed with clearly articulated goals. Academics should: make the subject interesting by relating it to real-life examples; show enthusiasm or passion while teaching; use varied methods; and, ask students to take on authentic/ research-like tasks. Lectures should be interactive and have a clear structure; the lecturing academic should make material accessible to students with stories, examples, and anecdotes; and, should not read out dense PowerPoint slides. Assessment tasks should involve real research and a variety of tasks; what counts as good-quality work should be clarified (not only on documentation but by dialogue); effort should be rewarded (students said it was galling to see other students doing less work and getting the same kind of mark); feedback should explain how improvements can be made and include discussion – either in groups or one-to-one. Good teaching, then, is multidimensional. On these indicators of good teaching, more students from Community and Diversity than from Prestige and Selective spoke positively. Four specific aspects of pedagogical framing emerged as key to judging quality and inequality: the projection of students-as-learners (rather than as sociologists); the quality of studentacademic relationships; the quality of discussion in seminars; and, encouragement to study hard.

A comparative account of specific aspects of pedagogic framing Introduction A Bernsteinian reading of why university education reproduces inequalities is that the capacity to follow the recognition and realization rules is socially determined; that is, the home and school experiences of working-class students convey a code which makes them less likely to possess that capacity. There is little doubt that the transition from school to university education is more difficult for more disadvantaged groups (Stich and Freie, 2016; Wilson-Strydom, 2015). Families and other social networks advantage middle-class children, mitigating schools’ failure to prepare pupils for university pedagogic culture and practices

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(Ballinger 2003; Marland, 2003).4 Students with middle-class cultural capital are more likely to recognize what distinguishes learning at university from learning at school or college; what distinguishes a research-led from a teaching-led university; and, what distinguishes university sociology from A-level sociology. Recognition is not enough, as Bernstein (2000, p. 105) put it, (usefully making sociology the example): ‘One may be able to recognise that one is in a sociology class but not be able to produce the texts and context-specific practices.’ Pedagogic practices convey recognition and realization rules, and Bernstein identified two broad forms of pedagogy: visible and invisible: The basic difference between visible and invisible pedagogies is in the manner in which criteria are transmitted and in the degree of specificity of the criteria. The more implicit the manner of transmission and the more diffuse the criteria, the more invisible the pedagogy; the more specific the manner of their transmission, the more visible the pedagogy. (1975, pp.  116–117, emphasis in the original)

Strong framings characterize explicit, visible pedagogy and weak framings characterize implicit, invisible pedagogy. Bernstein noticed the visible/invisible distinction in pedagogical practices in British infant schools during the 1970s, often called progressive or child-centred, whereby play was encouraged until the teacher judged a child to be ready for reading and writing. Translation from that time and context shows that in/visible pedagogy remains a useful concept for thinking about university pedagogy. In Bernstein, the ‘concept basic to the invisible is that of play’ (1975, p.117): the child ‘exteriorises’ herself to the teacher who watches and evaluates: The theory [of play] gives rise to a total – but invisible – surveillance of the child because it relates his inner dispositions to all his external acts. The ‘spontaneity’ of the child is filtered through this surveillance and then implicitly shaped according to interpretation, evaluation and diagnosis. (1975, p. 118)

The infant school teacher of the 1970s and the university teaching academic in the 2010s are in a completely different relation to the performances of the pupil/student. While the infant teacher extrapolates inner dispositions from observable playing, which is the ‘basic concept’ (Bernstein, 1975), the university teaching academic extrapolates inner dispositions from asked-for visible realizations in written and spoken texts. In this case, the basic concept in university education is private, solitary study which is of its nature invisible and to which we return later in the chapter.

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Below we use the concepts of strength of framing, recognition and realization rules and visible/invisible pedagogies to explore how pedagogic framing exerted control in the pedagogic environment regulating how knowledge, skills and dispositions were taught and learned.

The student learner Decisions about pedagogic framing were underpinned by how academics conceptualized the students-as-learners when they arrived at university, as distinct from the aspirations that they had for them as sociologists at the end of the course. These conceptualizations were by university status. Prestige and Selective academics constructed students as independent and knowing learners in little need of guidance; whereas Community and Diversity academics constructed students as unprepared and lacking knowledge about university. In documentation, there was a continuum from being highly explicit about what undergraduate study is at Diversity to silence about it at Prestige. Nevertheless, in one way or another, all the universities promoted independence’ as the privileged learning virtue. Prestige’s first-year students were assumed to know what sociology is and to come ready-made to contribute to the academic community. The handbook implied that the only unknowable information was departmental and university procedures and regulations, conveying the assumption that students qua students knew how to conduct themselves. In keeping, Prestige offered the least support for the final-year dissertation (four workshops and one supervision with the least written guidance). Like Prestige, the Selective handbook assumed competence, giving the information about procedures that an independent student would need to navigate her/his way through the degree. Only in the dissertation handbook were there strong and explicit messages about students as creators of knowledge: ‘It is not sufficient to trawl through a particular area of theory, write up a comprehensive case study and link them with a few well-chosen words . . . You must establish the relative merits and validity of contrasting theoretical and methodological approaches.’ Community and Diversity conceptualized students quite differently both from Prestige and Selective and from each other. Community positioned students as not recognizing anything about being a university student: what might be gained from studying; what university study means; what the university procedures and structures are; or, what is the role of academics-as-teachers. So, for example, it was explained to Community’s students that they would engage

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in debates during seminars, and that during these debates they could disagree with academics and shouldn’t care about winning. It was made explicit that, while students would be supported, the onus was on them to read. Each module guide repeated encouragement to read, watch the news and keep up with current affairs. These strongly framed messages about how to recognize generic aspects might be helpful, yet academic content was absent and academics were not presented as producers of disciplinary knowledge. Rather, the academic tutor was visibly engaged in helping students ‘settle into university and develop their awareness of the diverse demands of a higher level of study’ and ‘understand the academic context within which they are working, so that they can assess their academic development and match their level of success to their capabilities.’ Unlike Community, Diversity was explicit that unpreparedness for university related to their students being ‘non-traditional’ or ‘diverse’, in particular, ‘young, South Asian women, who enter HE directly from school and may be the first generation in their family to attend university’. The course aimed explicitly to adapt to these students without lowering expected standards: ‘Students do achieve academic literacy and high standards despite their non-traditional backgrounds and studying under sometimes difficult conditions. Students are diverse and this is reflected in modules about diversity and difference.’ In contrast to Community, Diversity put sociology centre stage: ‘Our aim is to establish an exciting and intellectually rigorous Sociology programme which lays the intellectual foundations for thinking sociologically, whilst at the same time engaging student interest, inspiring their “sociological imaginations” ’. Diversity also gave explicit advice about studying, for example, specifying the number of hours of independent study students should undertake; and, students were required to produce a learning-plan in the first year and had options to attend optional ‘skills’ courses. To summarize, the lower-status universities sent strong messages about recognizing and realizing university study by making the rules visible, while the highstatus universities took for granted that students knew the rules, so what was expected was more or less invisible. The difference between the two lower-status universities was that Community projected a generic student learner, whereas Diversity tied learning explicitly and strongly to sociology. These broad conceptions of students’ skills and dispositions as learners differently shaped three specific aspects of pedagogic framing which were important to students: relationships with lecturers; the nature and quality of seminar interactions; and, support to study independently.

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Relationships between students and academics Key to students’ conceptions of quality were academics’ attitudes and behaviour: they should be friendly, take an interest in their academic progress, and be available for questioning and dialogue. The interpersonal fabric of education affects academic and social progress at school age;5 and, in higher education research, the quality of relationships both with academics and other students is associated with retention.’6 Student-academic interactions take different forms:  face-to-face, virtual and paper-based, inside and outside classrooms. Whatever the interaction, academics and students from all the universities recognized the fundamental importance of good relationships. A comfortable personal relationship with one or two tutors was enough to make students feel supported. Markedly more positive relationships were evident at Community and Diversity than at Prestige and Selective. In the former, students repeatedly voiced appreciation of informal, open and supportive relationships with their lecturers: In the first semester I  was close to one of the seminar leaders because of the way she behaved . . . she was really helpful to me, I felt I could go back to her if I wanted to . . . she made me feel comfortable . . . I can go to her if I need to speak about anything. (Leena, Diversity, working class, British Bangladeshi, young. Year 1)

At Community and Diversity, the students felt entitled to tutor time, knocking on office doors without arrangement; and, at Diversity, students and lecturers conversed in foyers and the café: ‘So, we worked all together and then he [the seminar tutor] got us a coffee and milkshakes and we had a group discussion. So, that was really good because we all got to speak our mind, to say our thing and what we think’ (Saheli, Diversity, working class, black British, mature [21]. Year 1). Interactions focused on preparation for and feedback on assignments, for example: ‘We can go up to the lecturer and ask ‘ “What improvements can I make?” . . . They wouldn’t tell us the answers, but they would say “OK don’t talk about this that much, focus on that” ’ (Lamar, Diversity, working class, black British, mature [30s], with disability. Year 1); and, ‘I’d never done critique before, so I didn’t know how to do it. I went to the professor who’s taking care of us and [she] said if I would like more time to write this, she will help me’ (Heidi, Community, working class, Polish, mature [30s]. Year 2). Unlike students at Prestige and Selective, Community and Diversity students often commented on the lack of hierarchy and the respect lecturers showed

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toward them, for example:  ‘Here, you can literally have arguments with your tutors . . . ’cos at the end of the day we’re debating. It doesn’t feel like they’re above us, like they hold authority . . . they treat us informally’ (Maurice, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 1); and, ‘Here you are treated equally. I think that’s important to mention, there’s no form of bias or inequality. Even lecturers, it is just a very healthy environment’ (Lucia, Diversity, working class, British, mixed Pakistani-French, mature parent [40s], Year 2). Yet, at Diversity weakly-framed, egalitarian relationships led to problems7 when students’ behaviour in seminars hindered learning, as we discuss in the next section. By contrast, apparently strong boundaries characterized relationships at Prestige. Even when described as friendly lecturers ‘keep the authority . . . they’re the tutors and you’re the students’ (Josie, Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 1). Faith, brought up in East London with seven siblings, felt the distance in her first year: ‘There is no form of personal communication and you don’t feel like you can talk to them . . . I feel really cut off and I don’t know how to work like that . . . I’m used to teachers encouraging’ (Faith, Prestige, working class, Nigerian British, young. Year 1). Nevertheless, although most first- year Prestige students experienced academics as more aloof than teachers at school or college, they also saw the change as positive progress toward more independent relationships. Moreover, most knew that the boundaries were not as strong as they appeared, feeling they could go and ask for help, even though they were not invited and there were no informal fora. By the third year Faith recognized that: ‘Yes, now I can say that I will knock on my tutor’s door. And I go “Oh My God I don’t know what I am going to do”. So yes, my relation with them is a lot better’ (Faith, Prestige, working class, Nigerian British, young. Year 3). Formal meetings with tutors were not well used; others echoed Felix’s sentiment: ‘I do find it a bit of a waste of his time . . . just to sit there and talk to him about nothing for half an hour’ (Felix, Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 3). But, if the student was confident enough, academics were responsive: ‘I would talk to my personal tutor about it because . . . they’ve been students themselves and they are very sympathetic’ (Frank, Prestige, middle class, white British-Finnish, young. Year 3). Selective academics’ relationships with the students were similar to those at Prestige, though boundaries appeared stronger, which was based on students’ knowledge and appreciation of their academic status as researchers (not evident in the other universities, including Prestige): ‘Most of the lecturers are the ones that I’ve studied in my ‘A’ levels and in my GCSEs and they’ve written a lot of books’ (Denna, Selective, middle class, black African [Ugandan], young. Year 1);

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and, ‘Most of the lecturers are . . . quite esteemed in their field, like [names lecturer] he’s the founding father of [names field of research] it’s amazing that I got taught by someone so great’ (Donna, Selective, middle class, black British, young. Year 1). More confident students felt entitled to email academics, while others felt asking for help was an imposition. The personal tutoring system was even less used than at Prestige: students might know they had a tutor but had not seen them; or not know they had a tutor at all; and, some tutors had no office hours and others had too few. Dee (middle class, white British, young. Year 1) claimed: ‘I have no relationship with lecturers here at all . . . I don’t think I’ve talked to a lecturer once’; Elisabeth (middle class, black Caribbean, young. Year 3) did not get support from her personal tutor when her grandmother died; and, Ed (working class, black Caribbean and white, young) said he didn’t have a personal tutor at all in his second year when he was thinking of leaving the university. Good relationships were for improving work, not for therapy or fun. For example, getting on with an academic was for the confidence to speak in seminars and to ask about how to improve assignments. Some students at the higherstatus universities thought that feedback on assignments was inadequate, yet they did not have the confidence to ask for clarification. Similarly, some students felt unable to approach tutors to clarify matters that arose in seminars: for example, Elma-Louise (Selective, working class, white British, mature-parent [40s]. Year 2) described asking for support as going with ‘my begging bowl’. The open-door policies at Diversity and Community allowed students to ask questions about their progress. In conclusion, the two lower-status universities made systematic efforts to build positive and supportive relationships with students. Relationship formation is labour intensive and in the context of declining resources, academics at the lower-status universities were hard pressed, but they were nevertheless highly responsive, especially if students themselves took the initiative. At the higherstatus universities, the confidence of the students to seek help was taken for granted (students would have to know the rules of the game to avail themselves of support) whereas at the lower-status universities, especially Community, academics focused on enhancing students’ confidence. In Bernstein’s terms, at Community and Diversity the boundaries between academic and student were apparently weaker, more informal and on a more equal basis, closing the power gap. But the academics were mobilizing supportive relationships to convey strong and controlling messages about the quality of work which supported students to grasp the recognition and realization rules.

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The quality of seminar discussion Seminars (or workshops) are sites for learning the relevant recognition and realization rules. Students much preferred seminars to lectures, valuing them highly when everyone had prepared; when they felt confident to speak; when everyone spoke freely; when their ideas were challenged by others and the academic tutor; and when there was a sense of enjoyment. This ideal was sometimes achieved, but was often elusive; that is, students recognized what was needed but realization was trickier. Students recognized that the quality of seminars depended on the quality of their own preparation and their capacity and confidence to make contributions; in their view, academics should act to make this more likely to happen. Seminar-work is particularly valuable in mobilizing the power of knowledge. We observed the struggle to get students to connect the sacred knowledge of the discipline to everyday, mundane knowledge. Academics in all universities encouraged students to see the relevance of theoretical knowledge, though the use of everyday issues and problems was more prevalent in the lower-status universities where tutors asked students to bring the sociological gaze to bear on their own lives and experiences.8 At Community, in a second-year discussion about objectivity and cultural relativism, students were appalled by the example of foot-binding, used to show how the practice linked to ideas of femininity and physical beauty in China, but they were led to question contemporary British practices that might appear to other cultures similarly irrational and damaging. Diversity’s first-year module ‘Relating Self and Society’ prompted students to talk about seeing their own lives in a different light. This module was in sharp contrast to Prestige’s first-year core module of classical sociology which remained far removed from the everyday lives of students. At Selective, most modules focused on a social issue and students were encouraged to question their preconceptions. For the students in all universities, then, seminars or workshops were important fora for the pleasure that emanates from knowing, contributing to discussion, and relating in a productive manner to others: I enjoy the seminars because I  love interaction, asking questions and raising a topic and then someone challenging you  – it’s just interesting and insightful . . . because someone could raise something and you think, ‘I didn’t know that, I didn’t understand that’. (Lucia, Diversity, working class, British-PakistaniFrench, mature parent [40s]. Year 2)

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A lot of the seminar leaders that I’ve had are engaging and they explain things clearly, so you understand and you have interesting topics to talk about and you have debates and I enjoy that. (Deborah, Selective, working class, white British, mature [late 20s]. Year 1)

In seminars, tutors conveyed the recognition rules by modelling the nature of academic discussion: ‘Now if I think about something, I say it, because I realise that one good thing about our teachers is they don’t dismiss what you say. They don’t just say: “Oh no that is wrong”. They say: “You can say that, but . . .” and then they give another point of view.’ (Elmira, Selective, middle class, international student, mixed Asian and White, young. Year 2). From the students’ perspective, highquality discussion arose when academic tutors relaxed boundaries and related to students as if they were academic peers, encouraging and valuing their opinion: One thing that surprised me – one of my lecturers . . . she came up with an argument and you could turn around and say ‘I think you’re talking bollocks’ as long as you could say why and justify your argument she’s not going to take it personally and she won’t care that you’ve said her argument’s rubbish and I think that’s good. (Maurice, Community, working class, white British, young, had epilepsy. Year 2)

In Diversity, the climate created by the tutors encouraged speaking: I enjoyed my seminar last semester because I thought it was amazing and we all took part and there were a lot of discussions and a lot of interesting questions raised and I thought it was interesting and I learnt a lot as well. This semester I liked my core sociology seminar as well . . . it’s a relaxed atmosphere and if you don’t understand anything you can ask without feeling ashamed. And you can learn from your friends as well and make contributions. I think it’s a good way to learn. (Sagara, Diversity, working class. British Bangladeshi, young. Year 1)

While the democratic quality of relationships is important, activities designed to get more students talking were appreciated: I like my seminars because they are laidback . . . the teacher goes through a few things to begin with and then sets us questions to answer and we go into small groups and we talk about those and then everyone feeds back as one big group . . . I find that useful because you get to talk more in-depth with people in your groups . . . but then you come back as one whole big group and you see the contrast in opinions. (Jamie, Community, middle class, white British, young. Year 1)

In Diversity, a further element that students thought enhanced discussion was its diversity: ‘It’s nice to have other people, we’ve got a couple of foreign exchange students, there’s the American guy, there’s a Bulgarian girl. It’s very diverse, it’s

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multicultural’ (Lamar, Diversity, working class, black British, mature [30s], with a disability. Year 2). The perceived quality of seminars at Prestige was patchier, especially in the first year, after which seminars improved: ‘In the modernity module there’s a lot of things she explains that I don’t understand, but for some reason I’m not confident to ask her in the group’ (Fiona, Prestige, working class, white British, young. Year 1). Silence in seminars was one of the most often repeated complaints: You are in one of the best universities in the country and no one says anything. [The academic] asks a question and there’s an atmosphere and in the end I have to say something as no one else says anything . . . it is a little frustrating . . . A lot of people don’t say anything. I dunno if it’s because they’re shy or lazy or they haven’t done the work, but sometimes that’s irritating – when no one else speaks. (Fleur, Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 1)

While Fleur attributed blame to students for the silence and for lack of preparation, Jeremy thought that academics should push: At school, they would pick on you if you didn’t do your homework, but here they don’t – that means there’s so much time where everybody is just waiting for someone else to answer and the person who does answer doesn’t give a good answer and the teacher says ‘ok’ and then just moves on. (Jeremy, Prestige, middle class, Chinese Singaporean, young)

Academics were said to give ‘mini’ lectures in seminars (we did not hear this in Community or Diversity). In Community and Prestige, the quality of seminars was perceived as improving as students progressed through their degree. Tutors worked hard (particularly in Community) to encourage confidence and create a climate in which discussion flowed: The interaction between people has gotten better, I think, because in the first year not a lot of people liked to talk because they were unsure about their argument or if they were right, but this year people are a lot more willing to say an idea and then someone else is willing to say ‘Yeah that’s right or no it should be . . .’ (Martin, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 2)

At Prestige not only did seminars improve by the third year, but also, the experience could be highly educational: One of my teachers is passionate and she’s amazing – she’s so clever. We’re doing a group discussion and we’re having feedback time and then she’ll translate everything that we’re saying into proper terms and explain to us how to make it

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sound more sociological. (Faizah, Prestige, middle class, British Asian, young. Year 3). You’re bouncing ideas off each other, you come to a sort of concise conclusion. You can understand your own ideas better ’cos you put it out there and then it all gets reworded and reworked and then you all work together to build this new understanding of what you’re talking about. (Fiona, Prestige, working class, white British, young. Year 3).

In Selective and Diversity, the trend toward improvement was less clear. In Selective, first-year students were often positive about the seminars, yet by the second and third years, they gave mixed responses to questions about the usefulness of seminars. Students at Selective fully recognized how they should behave in seminars but some found it difficult and related it to the struggle to change as a person: You have to be talkative, you need to contribute some ideas, comments in the seminar. You need to get involved in the discussion, you need to be critical, but I couldn’t talk because I was not used to being talkative in my class, we just listened . . . I tried quite a few times, I tried to change, it feels like I’m changing my personality from a passive person to a talkative person, but it didn’t work . . . it’s just who I am, it’s my personality, so I couldn’t change unless the seminar leader asked me some questions, so I had to answer. (Dee, Selective, middle class, white British, young. Year 1)

Ed eventually left Selective and started again at a ‘new’ university where he was ‘much happier’. The quality of academic discussion in seminars was one of the disappointments at Selective: I come into the class bursting with ideas and now it seems very different. I haven’t got anyone to bounce off. A lot of seminars descend into me talking in a seminar, a seminar leader and everyone else sitting around twiddling their thumb . . . I want everyone to be engaged. (Ed, Selective, working class, black Caribbean and white, young. Year 2)

At Selective, students complained about lack of attendance, unpreparedness and the level of debate being insufficiently high. This was despite the value of seminars being signalled by giving marks for seminar attendance, it was the only department of the four to do so. This measure reveals the concerns academics had about engagement in seminars. Our key informant academic at Selective revealed her own disappointment with the engagement and attendance of students, comparing them negatively with students in the United States she had

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previously taught:  ‘I’ve come from the American system where you require attendance and you set ground rules.’ At the time, the department was discussing ways of tackling low attendance. In Diversity, we witnessed lively debate in seminars and workshops in all years, but they could be uninformed: The seminar is limited in its usefulness ’cos they try and make them student oriented and we just don’t prepare well enough. We would get an awful lot more out of them if we did and I’ll put my own hand up there. I just haven’t read enough and so it’s going to be of limited value. (Lloyd, Diversity, middle class, white, young. Year 3) The problem with the seminars is not actually the lecturers . . . it’s the people that are part of the seminar with you. Because they don’t do their reading, they don’t know what they’re talking about – you can see that because they ask things that [make you think] ‘If you had done your reading you would know what that means’. (Lauren, international student [Brazilian] middle class, mature [23]. Year 3)

We observed Diversity’s noisy seminars. In part, there was debate, but, students arrived late, without apology; talked over each other; did not prepare; and, were on their mobile phones. The academics knew there was a problem and told us that students complained in formal evaluations. Later, they acted to raise the quality of seminar discussion by strengthening the framing of relationships, not by asserting authority, but rather by agreeing to a set of ground-rules focused on respect to reformulate the relationship with other students as well as themselves. It was said to make a significant beneficial difference. In conclusion, the framings of seminar or workshop discussion or activity disclosed differences in the pedagogical preoccupations of academics. In Community, the classification ‘having opinions’ was strong and the framing explicit: We’re trying to give them confidence in . . . their opinions and their views by saying . . . ‘It doesn’t matter if you disagree with everyone in your seminar. If we’re debating and if we’re talking about it, I’m not going to judge you, no-one else will judge you, your opinion matters’ and telling them that their opinion matters and if they can then develop a situation over the three years where they can back up their opinion, then even better. (Key Informant, Community)

By contrast, Diversity academics were also student-centred but explicitly wanted opinion tempered by encouraging students to compare perspectives and use sociological insights, which reflected the strongly classified sociology of the degree. Prestige also prioritized sociology rather than the students’ confident

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opinions. But here academics relied on their own strong passion for sociology to draw in the students, which was successful when later in the course it was accompanied by weakening the relationship boundary with their students. Selective classifies sociology and its applications strongly but its framing of the knowing, independent, motivated student resulted in evidence of some alienation from seminar discussion. From the students’ perspectives, their efforts in seminars were constrained by their own lack of confidence.

Independent study Academics in all the departments wanted students to work hard and independently, but found students were not making such efforts consistently. Morrow observed that ‘entitlement to epistemological access’ has ‘a strange ring to it’ (2009, p.  78). This is because, unlike access to medical attention, ‘my epistemological access to some academic practice is essentially dependent on what I do’ (ibid., emphasis in the original). No one else can learn for someone. We found students wanting to learn, but often finding it difficult. In this section, we look both at what students themselves did and at how their efforts were pedagogically framed. A UK national survey of the student academic experience states: ‘The total amount of work put in is more important for predicting learning gain than the number of contact hours, so it is vital to take into account private study hours and other forms of independent learning’ (Soilemetzidis et al., 2014, p. 8). Moreover, the same survey two years later found: A strong link between greater workload and higher wellbeing. Workload has the greatest impact on feeling worthwhile and satisfied with life, as opposed to anxiety where there is less of a clear picture. Greater workload may cause greater anxiety, but it may also contribute to a greater sense of feeling worthwhile, which may in itself reduce anxiety. (Neves and Hillman, 2016, p. 33)

In our research, the amount of time spent in private study emerged as a major theme for academics and students. Drawing on Bernstein’s visible/invisible pedagogies, we proposed above that the basic concept in university sociology education is independent, solitary study, reading, taking notes, writing, and thinking. Academics extrapolate the invisible performances of independent study from visible performances in seminars and in assessment assignments. The lowerstatus departments sent strong messages about independent study including specifying the number of hours; independent study was taken for granted in the two higher-status departments.

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The survey asked students to estimate how many hours they studied. In all departments, students varied a good deal in how much said they worked. In terms of attendance, there was no pattern by university status: in the survey, fewer Prestige and Diversity students admitted to not attending some of their lectures and seminars than did those at Community and Selective. Non-attendance is a national problem: ‘a high proportion of students (40 per cent overall) admit that they did not attend all the contact hours in their timetable, although as might be expected this is less prevalent (28 per cent) among those with under ten contact hours’ (Neves and Hillman, 2016, p. 18). In our research, the number of hours spent studying privately, including coursework, related to the status of the university: that is, fewer students at Prestige and Selective claimed studying one to ten hours weekly than at Community and Diversity; and more claimed working eleven to twenty-one hours. However, overall by far the largest group worked between one to ten hours (rounded up, Community 72 per cent; Diversity 71 per cent; Prestige 58 per cent; and Selective 53 per cent). The trends in the survey were apparent in the qualitative data: most students found it difficult to quantify what they did, but students at Prestige and Selective consistently reported studying longer hours than did those at Community and Diversity. Above all, the outcomes we discuss in the next part of the book require commitment and effort to achieve, and so good-quality, socially just teaching should support productive, independent study. We explore what enables and constrains students to undertake what Bernstein calls the ‘arduous apprenticeship’ (2000, p.  76) of acquiring sacred disciplinary knowledge and making it their own.

Pattern of independent study over the course of the degree In interviews, the first year at Community and Diversity,the students claimed to be doing between ‘virtually nothing’ and twelve hours of independent study a week, with the norm being between two and six hours. Most did the set reading for seminars, and some additional reading for assignments in a pragmatic manner: ‘We’ve read through the bits that we need, but we’ve not exactly gone into the library and sat down and spent hours reading through a book, it’s just been mainly picking out the bits we’re looking for’ (Hilda, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 1). Getting to grips with independent study featured strongly in the first year: I try to do the ones that we have to for our seminars where you get given pieces as preparation, plus there’s in our module handbook extra ones, so I’ve been

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trying do at least two or three, there’s about a list of eight to ten, so I’m trying to do as many as possible every week [and] for the projects you have to do research anyway so I do take the books out . . . I think I’m doing ok, I could probably do more if I tried, but I do enough to understand all of it. (Hugo, Community, middle class, German/Russian, mature [30s]. Year 1)

Students in both lower-status universities experienced mounting expectations from tutors in the second and third years: ‘Everything you do has to be in much more depth, in some of the modules you could just read an introductory text book in the first year, but now you have to go and look for more specific detail.’ (Lorenzo, Diversity, middle class, international student [Columbian], mature [late 20s]. Year 2) and ‘The second year was such a big jump because it’s much harder and they expect so much more’ (Leena, Diversity, working class, British Bangladeshi, young. Year 3). In Year 2, Community students were required to read original texts for the first time. By the third year the Diversity case-study students claimed to have worked hard throughout their degrees (they said other students had not): I’m always at the library, I’m always reading, I’m always writing. I start my work long before the deadline. I worked so hard that I would be here until eleven at night, I would come in the weekends if I had to. I don’t really have a life besides university, to be honest, but that was my choice. (Lauren, Diversity, middleclass, international student [Brazilian], mature [23]. Year 3). I decided instead of working really hard, I should work smart and pick the most appropriate readings and work to do, so that I don’t go completely crazy by trying to do everything all at once. The way I’ve done it seems to have worked for me and I’m getting to the end . . .it’s an achievement. (Leanne, Diversity working class, white British, young. Year 3)

Diversity students enjoyed their dissertations during their final year; that Community students did not make the same differentiation between second and third years might be because the project was not compulsory. Most first-year Prestige students knew they were not studying as much as the academics wanted:  ‘It was something like twenty hours of reading and I  can’t think of a single person who does that. All tutors try to encourage that, but I don’t think that people will do’ (Josie, Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 1). At Selective, we often heard that the first year ‘didn’t count’. Nevertheless, more students claimed to be studying more hours than at Community and Diversity. In both Prestige and Selective, although a small number (four and five respectively) claimed two to three hours, most said they

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studied for over six hours a week, and a few (eight and three respectively) for more than fifteen hours. Prestige students did not experience a hike in difficulty in the second and third years, perhaps because they started with original texts and continued to find them difficult in subsequent years: ‘Those texts are just guaranteed to put people off, because you are looking at the originals and you’d have to be someone who’s had their head buried in academic books most of their life to get anything out of that’ (Frank, Prestige, middle class, white British-Finnish, young. Year 2). By the third year, the Prestige case-study students were all working hard to complete their assignments and dissertation. At Selective, they began to work hard in the second year. They spent most of their time in the library, reading or writing, especially towards the end of the degree. Ethan, for example, wanted a first-class degree: ‘I usually stay at home and work for like an hour or two at a time, I just find it easier to concentrate that way. But I  guess I  probably do around forty hours a week, maybe a bit more’ (Ethan, Selective middle class, white British, young. Year 3). Community and Diversity students perceived the quality of teaching they were receiving as better than did students at Prestige and Selective, including the quality of relationships and the quality of seminar discussion. Yet, Prestige and Selective students appeared to be studying harder.

Difficulties with independent study Most students we spoke to found concentration taxing:  gaining the rewards of interest in and understanding of university disciplinary knowledge is timeconsuming and onerous for most. Nevertheless, some students had more difficulties studying independently than did others. The students’ time was divided between different activities, and those at the lower-status universities were more likely to have extraneous demands:  working for money; being carers; travelling to university; or meeting family commitments. Prestige students were more likely to spend time in student clubs and societies, whereas Community, Diversity and Selective students were more likely to be in paid employment. In addition, Diversity students were most likely to be carers, have family commitments and travel to university.9 Furthermore, the lower-status universities taught more students with disabilities: at Diversity, reading was difficult for Lamar who was visually impaired and for Linda with dyslexia. Students in all the departments thought they were being asked to read a lot. All the students recognized that working on their own was an expectation, but,

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the realization of being alone for long periods concentrating on understanding text is difficult, and possibly more difficult if it has not been something practised in childhood. Ed was explicit: I do miss sitting in a class room. And we never had books when we were growing up. Not that we are illiterate, but I would never see my mum sit down and read a book . . . You know, those things never happened . . . Yes, I much prefer being taught. (Ed, Selective, working class, black Caribbean and white, young. Year 1)

In all universities, some students told us that anxiety constrained the amount of work they did: I found myself sinking because I was trying to do all my course work and . . . I’d get anxiety, which would then affect what I was doing . . . I’ve not been doing as much reading as I should have done or could have done because my health gets in the way. (Dawn, Selective, working class, white British, mature [40s]).

The constraints on independent study at the two higher-status universities were more likely to be social life and romantic relationships: My first year the beginning it was fine, which is surprising because of freshers and everything, I kept up and then after about three weeks I stopped going to my nine o clock ’cause I was just lazy and I met someone and I started spending more time with him and in the end I was studying in the last two weeks before my exams. (Faizah, Prestige, middle class, British Asian, young. Year 2).

In the main, though, students at Prestige and Selective articulated strategies to manage reading, which we did not hear in Community and Diversity, for example: ‘It’s generally skim reading. You try and take the most important information from it or you read the introductions and the conclusions and can get the middle part of sources, just get an overview’ (Diana, Selective, working class, white British, young. Year 2); and, I pick bits out and I put them into my laptop and store them. So, what maybe should be a 2,500-word essay is something like 6,000 because it’s got all of these bits that I’ve taken from papers or books. . . . I’ve certainly not sat down to read any of the books from cover to cover, it’s only been what I’ve needed to be able to get that essay done. But I do read widely. (Frida, Prestige, working class, white British, mature [50]. Year 2)

Arguably, such strategies do not signal deep engagement with knowledge, rather what might be called a strategic approach to comply with expectations and complete assignments.

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A few students mitigated the solitariness of reading and writing by working with groups of friends. In Community and Diversity such collaboration was built into assignments. In Selective, Deborah told us: With my friends, we organise ourselves so that we’re doing our essays at roughly the same times, so we’ll all finish at about the same time and then we’ll all be able to go out together, so we’ll talk about ‘How are you getting on, have you got much more left to do, we’re planning on going out tomorrow are you going to be done by then?’(Deborah, Selective, working class, white British, mature [20s]. Year 1)

The strong framing in universities of solitary, independent study, rather than collaborative study, is part of the regulative discourse, reflecting what Bernstein called the ‘expressive order’ (1975, p. 38) of the university: that is, the ‘practices and activities, procedures and judgements [by which it conveys to the student] images of conduct, character and manner’ (ibid.). The students in our study were left in no doubt that independent study is a high moral virtue.

Encouragement to work hard Academics, then, sent strong messages in documents and exchanges with students about the level of effort expected for university study. The students knew that they were expected to read as much as possible and that it was their responsibility: ‘We are encouraged to read as many books as possible to get a wider knowledge of concepts that we’ve learnt, basically we’re told about the theories, but it’s up to us to go and look into it further’ (Sagara, Diversity, working class, British Bangladeshi, young. Year 1). At the same time, they knew that they were not doing as much as the academics wanted. We did not expect to find that students wanted their tutors to insist on hard work and seriousness, even if they themselves struggled to respond:  ‘For the seminar I made sure I did my reading, she was very strict, she wanted something from us’ (Sevati, Diversity, working class, British Bangledshi, young. Year1); and, ‘There’s more discipline in the class in terms of getting your work done. It’s really embarrassing if you haven’t done your work . . . he’ll ask you questions . . . he wants us to be interested in our work (Leena, working class, Diversity, British Bangladeshi, young. Year 2). At Community and Diversity, students wanted more coercion: You’re expected to read for seven hours a week [for each module] but if you don’t . . . no-one is going to or check. Whereas in secondary school you had to write down your homework every day and your parents had to sign it to say that you’d

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done it and so you had to do it because your parents would know. But here they’re not going to know as long as you pass the assessment and pass overall. So, you have a lot of freedom and I think it’s too much freedom for me personally. I like authority. (Linda, Diversity, working class, Ghanaian British, young. Year 1) I don’t feel motivated all the time, I know that if I don’t come to classes for three weeks, nothing’s gonna happen . . . I have to push myself, I could get lazy and if you’re not being challenged, you let it go and three weeks down the line ‘Oh, I haven’t done anything, let’s put in a couple of days hard work at the library’ and then you go back again. So, the motivational process kind of goes up and down, but, like once you’re my age and you’re committed to doing a degree, I cannot just drop it. (Lorenzo, Diversity, middle class, international student, mature (late 20s]. Year 2) I don’t really [read] because I don’t find it interesting so I’m trying to find an area of interest . . . it’s really hard to do the suggested reading because they don’t say ‘They are compulsory we’re going to check you’ve read’ . . . They don’t bother with it, so you don’t need to. (Mary, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 2)

Though we did not hear this wish for being pushed at Prestige, at Selective Elliott (middle class, white British, mature [23], Year 2) told us that during the first year, they were given reading packs for some modules, which had the effect of discouraging students from ‘getting off your backside and go to the library’. He thought: ‘I don’t think it’s really pushed enough [independently going to the library], I know the first-year’s a bit of a practice run, but if you don’t make good habits now, you’re gonna suffer.’ In the discussion that follows, we analyse the issue of effort from the perspective of Bernstein’s ideas about control.

Discussion about student effort Pedagogic framing can support the level and direction of student effort when it gives students access to recognition and realization rules. Students’ intentions to make efforts can both be misguided and derailed, if they don’t understand what they are trying to do. Some did understand the rewards of working hard beyond getting good grades, even early in the course: ‘It’s really hard, but . . . I actually engaged with the material, actually engaged in seminars, understand complex situations’ (Dragomir, Selective, middle class, white British Romanian, Year 1). But students usually need pedagogic help to get to this point. Now we make a tentative Bernsteinian explanation of the desire of Community and Diversity students to be controlled by their lecturers. It is an important

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pedagogical issue for academic teachers who value and promote autonomy, responsibility and independent critical thinking. For lecturers at Diversity it was a problem that students behaved as if they were still at further education college or school, inviting the same kind of discipline they had encountered in those institutions. The invitation was resisted by the academics who did not want to relate to their students like school pupils. Yet, in line with what Bernstein found in families in the 1970s, students who come from working-class or some black or minority ethnic families might have experienced less permissive forms of control in their families and schools than middle-class students, and this lack of familiarity could be part of the explanation for the complaints of Diversity and Community students. Certainly, the quotations earlier invoke the authority of home and school. Moreover, as Turner (1973) explained, the less permissive mode of control raises the communal ‘we’ above individualized ‘I’, which might make solitary, individual study disturbing. Again Ed at Selective articulates this position: Working independently has always been my weakest [point]. Knowing people who come from poorer homes, generally their house is louder and you can’t sit there and concentrate. We never had a study or a quiet area in the house, there was always music on, the television was on, so we never had space to sit and do work. And here . . . it’s meant to be something like thirty hours of reading in the library and while I can sit and read – it’s not like I can’t sit down for five hours and read a book – it’s just not what I’m used to and it feels alien and it doesn’t feel like that’s what I want to be doing, and also it’s passive – I can’t sit there in the library and go ‘Oh this is really interesting what do you think of that?’ to a friend, you have to sit in silence. (Ed, Selective, working class, black British and white, young. Year 2)

It is worth seeing the issue through the prism of power and control. Whether from middle-class or working-class backgrounds, most of the students we spoke to came to university compliantly. This puts the students in an entirely different positon from the working-class school children who have been the subjects of research and found to be alienated by the hierarchy and formality of schooling where they have no power or control (for example, McFadden Munns, 2002 and Willis, 2000). Instead of alienation and resistance we found a desire to do the right thing which, even if it was recognized, was difficult to realize. To a much greater extent at university than at school, the distinction between who is teaching and who learning is weak and whatever the department, students had considerably more control over what knowledge they acquired and how (almost total control at Prestige). Accepting and using the power and control being offered involves the struggle of identity formation and change.

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The combination of sending strong messages about private study with lenient messages about its being undertaken, supported the acquisition of recognition rules, but not of realization rules. Bruner (2006) advanced the idea of ‘scaffolding’ whereby a teacher’s challenge is to make visible the invisibilities of independent study:  for example, alternative ways of tackling difficult reading or support for writing essay, which were built into the curricula at Community and Diversity. In theory, scaffolding is gradually removed as students progress towards becoming independent. Students also indicated that the regulative discourse should make visible the moral imperative to make efforts. Students not only thought they were not doing themselves justice by not working hard, but also that it was an injustice to others:  in all universities students complained that the quality of seminar discussion was jeopardized by students not preparing. Students wanted academics to reveal that they care about their progress. (However, the expedient of assessing everything that students do as a solution to get students working is likely to increase the kind of strategic studying that Prestige and Selective students described.) To conclude: independent study is the sine qua non of university education. Even if collaboration is a feature of some curricula, to acquire powerful knowledge students must learn to work productively on their own. Lecturers value it highly, seeing it as the route to finding intellectual interest. Students found studying demanding and difficult, but they wanted to engage with disciplinary knowledge, not only to gain hoped-for grades and degree classifications, but also for the joy of understanding. What seems to matter to students is that all dimensions of pedagogic framing are good enough, which is a concept developed by the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott (1957) to describe how an ordinary mother adapts so that her baby can become increasingly independent. This idea can apply to university teaching:  the best teaching can be conceptualized as that which encourages and supports student independence. To achieve this there are professional judgements to be made which avoid under- or overspecification for different students at different points in their education: these judgements are about the strength of framings of the various elements of curriculum and pedagogy.

Conclusion What counted as good quality teaching held across the universities, that is, we perceived no differences in students’ constructions of good teaching and, these constructions aligned with evidence-based principles about good university

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teaching. What the analysis shows is that pedagogic framing strongly mediates the students’ chances of recognizing and realizing the discipline; of enjoying it because independently they can relate it to their lives and interests. Some aspects of pedagogical framing interacted to enable the students to make the necessary effort to engage with disciplinary knowledge. These aspects relate to the visibility of recognition and realization rules and how they are made visible; to the quality of relationships and the centrality of power and control as it plays out in pedagogic interactions; to the quality of discussion about sociology-related knowledge; and, to the scaffolding of sustained independent study, for which the strength of framing probably needs to shift as the student progresses. Above all, the analysis highlights, for both students and academics, the intensity and hard work of the identity work of learning a discipline at the undergraduate level. In the foregoing account the knowledge of the academics is absent. Clearly, from a Bersteinian perspective the transmitter of powerful knowledge must be knowledgeable. But from a student’s perspective, the academics’ knowledge might well be taken for granted. For them pedagogic knowledge and skill were important, in particular, treating the student with compassion and respect, at the same time as sending strongly framed messages about what was to be learned and how. Our exploration of educational quality is complete. In the last chapter, we proposed that the curricula in the four departments were giving students access to the discursive gap between disciplinary and everyday knowledge in subtly different ways. In this chapter, we explored the question of whether the students in different universities were getting different access to good-quality teaching. As in Chapter 6, the answer, of course, is not straightforward: mediated by pedagogical framings, students in all universities were gaining valued knowledge and understanding that was potentially powerful. The tutors in the lower-status universities were working hard to find framings to support the characteristics of their less-well-prepared, relatively disadvantaged students. Whether strong or weak framing supports learning is a matter of empirical observation in different settings and requires judgement:  the striking example is how Diversity tutors reflected on the detrimental effects of their weakly framed relations with students. The two lower-status universities engaged more in visible pedagogies, which support students’ grasp of recognition and realization rules. This pedagogic effort is aimed at overcoming barriers to access to powerful knowledge. The students at Prestige and Selective expressed more dissatisfaction with various aspects of the teaching, yet they claimed to be working harder than did the students in Community and Diversity, probably as a result of the capital or code

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with which they had arrived at university. So, we cannot say that they were gaining less powerful knowledge because they were less satisfied with the quality of teaching. What must be said is that good teaching (pedagogy) does not trump substantive disciplinary knowledge (curriculum): the interaction is critical. We move now to the fourth part of the book, ‘The Powerful Equalizing Effects of Knowledge’ starting in the next chapter by showing how students formed a specific pedagogic identity which allowed them use knowledge to think and act differently (more powerfully) giving them a place in society, more confidence and the capability for political participation.

Notes 1

2

The field of higher education teaching and learning has many resources which present evidence and advance arguments about generic principles (see, e.g. Ashwin, 2015c; Brennan et al., 2010; Chickering and Gamson, 1987; and, Gibbs, 2010). A particularly prolific and influential branch is the theory commonly known as ‘approaches to learning’ (because it connects students’ conceptions of learning to how they set about learning) has influenced a student-centred turn in Europe and Australia (e.g. Biggs 2003; Entwistle, 2009; Prosser and Trigwell 1999; Ramsden 2003). Since a seminal paper by Sarah Mann (2001), the notion of student engagement in academic activity that results in high-level outcomes has been widely taken up: for example, Baron and Corbin (2012), Kahu (2013) and Wimpenny and Savin-Baden (2013). In the main, the research refers to generic aspects of pedagogy, though there has been influential work done on threshold concepts in different disciplines (Meyer and Land 2006) and ways of thinking and practising in the disciplines (Huber and Morreale 2001; McCune and Entwistle 2011; McCune and Hounsell 2005) and there is work emanating from the United States on ‘signature pedagogies’ in different disciplines (for example, Gurung et al., 2009). Elsewhere, we have used Lee Shulman’s (1986) concept of pedagogical content knowledge to counter current constructions of high-quality teaching by arguing for a conceptualization of high quality which combines the student-centred approaches of generic research with the need for the teacher to transmit bodies of (inter) disciplinary and professional bodies (McLean and Ashwin, 2017). Finally, teachers in higher education have been inspired by varieties of critical, transformative, feminist and radical pedagogies (e.g. Mezirow, 2011, and Scott et al., 2013). As will be seen, the use of ‘lecturers’ and ‘tutors’ was seemingly interchangeable for students. For consistency, in text which is not a student quotation we have decided to use academic as the most acceptable term.

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Students who take a ‘deep approach’ seek to understand subject matter when learning. This approach is contrasted to a ‘surface approach’ by which students intend to complete required tasks only (Prosser and Trigwell, 1999). See also: http://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/Studies/studentsare-not-being-prepared-enough-for-higher-education-say-university-admissionsofficers-a7069171.html. For example, Baker, Grant and Morlock, 2008; Downey, 2008; Ryan and Powelson, 1991. For example, Chickering and Gamson, 1987; Leese, 2010; Pike et al., 2010; Wilcox et al. 2005; Wingate, 2007; Yorke and Thomas, 2003. The lecturers speculated that the students who mainly lived at home were still behaving as they would at school and college, even in the third year of their degree. Elsewhere we have discussed a trend towards autobiographical methods in teaching sociology (McLean and Abbas, 2009). In our survey, 80 per cent of students at Prestige reported spending time in student clubs and societies compared to around 40 per cent of students at Selective and Community and 25 per cent of students at Diversity. More than three-fourths of students at Prestige reported not working in paid employment, whereas a third of students at Community, Diversity and Selective reported working at least six hours a week in paid employment. Around half of the students at Diversity reported being involved in caring activities for at least six hours a week, compared to around a third of students from Selective and a quarter of students at Community and Prestige. Similarly, two-thirds of students from Diversity reported spending at least six hours a week interacting with family members, compared to half of students at Selective and a third of students from Community and Prestige. In terms of travel Diversity students again stood out, with over half spending at least six hours a week travelling compared around a fifth of students from the other three universities.

Part Four

The Powerful Equalizing Effects of Knowledge

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Disciplinary Identity and Pedagogic Rights

The face of the South that I had known was hostile and forbidding, and yet out of the conflicts and the curses, the blows and the anger, the tension and the terror, I had somehow gotten the idea that that life could be different, could be lived in a fuller and richer manner . . . But what was it that made me feel this way? What was it that made me conscious of possibilities? From where in this southern darkness had I caught a sense of freedom? . . . How dare I consider my feelings superior to the gross environment that sought to claim me? Books had evoked in me vague glimpses of life’s possibilities . . . It was out of these . . . that I felt touching my face a tinge of warmth from an unseen light; and in my leaving I was groping toward that invisible light, always trying to keep my face so set and turned that I would not lose the hope of its faint promise, using it as my justification for action. Wright, 1937, pp. 259–261

Introduction The passage above is from Richard Wright’s Black Boy in which he recounts how aged 25 he flees the American South where his childhood was characterized by violent racism and chaos. Written in the 1930s Black Boy is an extraordinary story of escape from a society where the code conveyed by impermeable racial classifications and vicious social control barred black people from living dignified, free lives:  ‘The external world of whites and blacks, which was the only world that I had ever known, surely had not evoked in me any belief in myself. The people I  had met had advised and demanded submission’ (Wright, 2000, pp.  159–160). Wright claims that knowledge gained from books showed him how to ‘feel the pain  – years later and far away  – of what living in the South had meant’ and to hope for ‘some redeeming meaning for having struggled and

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suffered’ (ibid. p. 262). Our students had not experienced such extreme circumstances; nevertheless, some relayed narratives of escape and enlightenment. For example, for Faith, a working-class, black Nigerian British woman, Prestige was an escape from her rough council estate. Lamar was a mature, working-class, black British Jamaican student, who was registered blind and had suffered significant abuse and difficulties in his earlier life. At Diversity sociological concepts helped him come to terms with how others had treated him. The extreme example of Wright overcoming a racialized code illustrates the transforming power of knowledge when it challenges boundaries. Student engagement with sociological knowledge can transform how they think about themselves and the world, and how they act in the world. The interest in this part of the book is in educational outcomes in terms of what Bernstein calls ‘consciousness’ or identity and in what possibilities knowledge opened up for the students. This chapter shows that students from Community, Diversity, Prestige and Selective gained similar valued outcomes from their university education; by contrast, the next chapter shows that there were differences in outcomes which related both to the individual student and to the university attended. In this chapter, we first consider briefly how the outcomes of higher education are usually defined. The rest of the chapter is a Bernsteinian analysis of the outcomes of education using the concepts of disciplinary identity and of pedagogic rights. We argue that pedagogic social justice involves access to three pedagogic rights (confidence, inclusion, participation) by way of the formation of a specialized sociological identity.

Mainstream conceptualizations of the outcomes of a degree The outcomes of higher education are both private and public and many overlap. In our research, for the working-class students in the lower-status universities, a degree was a significant achievement and a position in society that was theirs for a lifetime. The outcomes that government policies most focus on are employment and earnings, discussed in Chapter 3 in relation to inequality and in Chapter 4 in relation to indicators of quality. To recapitulate, graduates are more likely to be in paid employment and earn more than non-graduates (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2016). However, among graduates there are substantial differences in rates of employment and amount of earnings depending on geography, gender, subject studied, educational achievement on entry and

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socio-economic background, including parental earnings (Britton et al., 2016; Department for Education, 2016; Morgan, 2016). Employment outcomes are bound to be affected when ‘those from disadvantaged backgrounds perform significantly less well in their first-year exams, are more likely to drop out, less likely to complete their degree, and less likely to achieve a ‘good’ final degree classification’ (Crawford et al., 2016, p. 562). In particular, privately educated students from high-status universities are more likely to be in high-status professions. Knowing about these inequalities is necessary and useful, yet disconnected from the micro level of students’ lives it is difficult to grasp how for individuals taking specific courses, intersecting disadvantages and/or life experiences and contexts concentrate or disperse the successes and failings of the whole system. Our research aimed for insights into how studying a specific discipline in a specific department effects the rewards and costs for students from different backgrounds: we wanted to know if and how university education can disrupt inequality. Public debate about the returns of a university education is dominated by the concept of the graduate premium (the additional amount that graduates earn compared to non-graduates) and its effects on social mobility. However, it was not foremost in our students’ minds. They wanted to earn decent money, but were aware that a social science degree would not command a high salary. While many wanted to give their future families good lives, they usually had relatively modest expectations: a house, a reasonable car, holidays and sending their children to university. At all levels of aspiration, students prioritized fulfilment, helping others, enjoying their work and gaining experience and knowledge in their chosen careers. We return in Chapter  9 to how these students contemplated their working lives, reformulating the relationship between university education and employment and other life achievements. Moreover, there is evidence about the non-economic outcomes of a university education which benefit individuals and the broader society. Graduates are less likely to commit crimes, are healthier and report a greater sense of wellbeing; they are significantly more likely to vote, to volunteer and to be politically engaged; and, they are more likely to be trusting and tolerant, particularly towards migrants (Ahier et al., 2003; Brennan et al., 2013). However, it is difficult to establish causality when most university students are already from more privileged backgrounds and are less likely than non-graduates to be unemployed or to experience poverty when they leave. Nevertheless, large-scale studies conclude that there is evidence of positive outcomes in relation to academic and cognitive skills; attitudes and values; psychosocial dispositions; and quality of life (Brennan et al., 2010 and Pascarella and Terenzini, 2005).

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Yet, measuring even one aspect of higher education outcomes has proved problematic:  despite much enthusiasm, a long-running Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) initiative, the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) designed to test the feasibility of a cross-national approach to measuring both generic and discipline-specific learning outcomes stalled. Ashwin (2015b) suggests that this is because AHELO overemphasizes generic skills; divorces outcomes from the purposes of a university education; and, is not based on research evidence about good-quality higher education. The meaning of quality is reduced to a ‘seductive vision . . . of a simple and robust measure of the comparative quality of learning outcomes globally [which] is a mirage’ (p. 2).

A Bernsteinian framing of outcomes The argument that unfolds in the rest of this chapter is that what is potentially empowering about gaining sociological knowledge is a specialized pedagogic identity which gives access to pedagogic rights. The identity and rights are in a dialectical relation to each other: each produces the other, or, put another way, the relationship is an example of the ‘causality dilemma’– which comes first, the chicken or the egg? So, on the one hand, the formation of a specialized identity opens up access to pedagogic rights; and, on the other, access to pedagogic rights by way of the pedagogic device projects and forms a specialized identity. In what follows, having defined Bernstein’s terms, we first discuss evidence for the formation of the identity and then for access to pedagogic rights.

A specialized sociological identity In Bernstein’s terms, identity expresses how individual consciousness is regulated by code; that is, how ways of being, becoming, feeling, thinking and relating, and motivations and desires, are influenced by past and present experiences. In education, pedagogic identities are projected through the classifications of disciplinary content and the framings of pedagogy and curriculum. In other words, disciplinary knowledge and how it is taught express ideal identities for students. In code theory, the construction of all pedagogic identities is the result of ‘voice message’ relations (Bernstein, 2000, p.  79). ‘Voice’ refers to who is

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legitimized to say what to whom in any given context and message to the form of what is said. Our analysis of curriculum, pedagogy and student experiences and perceptions resulted in the concept of a specialized sociological identity1 with three interrelated aspects: disciplinary, personal/social, and performative (McLean et al., 2013c and 2015).

The disciplinary aspect of a specialized sociological identity The disciplinary aspect is based on Bernstein’s (2000) ‘retrospective pedagogic identity’ (also called ‘old conservative’). These identities are strongly classified and framed and oriented towards preserving grand narratives of the past. In 2017, these identities are projected in national narratives associated with the United Kingdom leaving the European Union; and, with the United States electing a president to ‘make America great again’: the self-interested nation-state of the past is being invoked to protect against the future. In Bernstein’s theory, singular disciplines project retrospective identities, protecting disciplinary boundaries. In Chapter  5, we discussed how, while sociologists argue about the boundaries of their discipline, there remains a unified core, which appears in university sociology curricula. The discipline’s past provides ‘exemplars, criteria, belonging and coherence [which result in] an amalgam of knowledge, sensitivities [and] manners’ (Bernstein, 2000, pp.  74–75). In all disciplines, retrospective identities are the result of ‘inner dedication [and] a long and arduous apprenticeship’ (ibid., pp. 69, 75), evident in scholars who preserve established disciplinary ways of thinking and being. The projection of this aspect of a specialized sociological identity was shown in Chapter 6 where sociology appeared as a strong, singular core in the curricula in Diversity, Prestige and Selective. In Community, the retrospective was muted with sociological knowledge embedded in criminology modules. Nevertheless, we observed tutors in all four departments expecting students to engage with sociological theory, empirical examples and methodological knowledge, which are powerful high ground from which to understand and engage with real-life problems. To explore the retrospective aspect of a specialized sociological identity, we examined the case-study students’ understanding of sociological knowledge over the three years of their degrees (Ashwin et al., 2014). During their studies, students gained ideas about sociological knowledge, which could become broader and more inclusive in five specific ways: (1) sociological knowledge is about holding opinions (2) sociological knowledge is embedded in curriculum

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modules (3) sociological knowledge is a way of understanding the world (4) sociology knowledge has implications for students’ lives (5) sociological knowledge offers alternative ways of understanding the relationship between lives and social structures. Below we illustrate the five positions by one student quotation for each. 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Sociology is about holding opinions on a broad range of issues. I don’t know whether sociology is a fixed thing ’cos it features in everything and I like various bits within it. I love Radio 4 and there’s lots of stuff that comes up and you kind of think ‘Oh this is related to sociology’ and it obviously is a very wide discipline. I enjoy it, but that’s like saying ‘Do you enjoy culture?’ (Fleur, Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 3) Sociology is the modules that I study. We did this module analysing the social and there was another one on culture, but the one we were doing analysing the social it was quite interesting because everything was about power. First we had a few lectures about power and then you can pick a topic that you wanted to go to further in depth and then you could discuss aspects of power within that. (Leena, Diversity, working class, British Bangladeshi, young. Year 2) Sociology is the study of societies/other people. It’s a study of society. It’s in-depth study of the factors within society what keeps that society functioning. I think it’s all the institutions of family, law, education, class, jobs. (Lucia, Diversity, working class, British Pakistani-French, mature parent [40s]. Year 2) Sociology is the study of the relations between people and societies and includes me. I think sociology seeps everywhere. Everything that I do has some sociological background in it. Sociology studies the relationship between people and the structures and the system. You’ll find that everywhere, even just me and you, the way we’re talking. (Lisha, Diversity, working class, British Pakistani, young. Year 3) Sociology offers several ways to study the relations between people and society each of which offers a different and partial picture of these relations. There is no destination with this discipline. It’s like physics. Once you get to atoms and then you get to the protons. There is always something further and there is no point where you can stop and say ‘I understood, I am a sociologist’. You can’t understand everything. Sociology makes you aware of every decision you make: how that would impact on my life and

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how it could impact on someone else. And it makes the decision harder to make. (Esther, Selective, middle class, white British, young. Year 3) By their third year, most students (twenty-five of thirty-one) gave more inclusive accounts of sociological knowledge, that is they had moved towards category five, though few reached it. We interpreted this move as becoming more engaged with sociological knowledge. However, while the students often told us that they enjoyed their studies, there was little indication of passion for the discipline for its own sake. A  more usual indication of having become more sociologically knowledgeable was for students to relate a concept or theorist to their own interests. For us, the retrospective/disciplinary aspect of a specialized, sociology-based, pedagogic identity related to the extent to which students had arrived at position five, in which they had conceptual tools to think about ‘why everything’, as Esther put it.

The personal/social aspect of a specialized sociological identity This aspect relates to Bernstein’s idea of a ‘prospective pedagogic identity’ that is future oriented. It ‘engages with contemporary change’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. 68, emphasis in the original) by recontextualizing a retrospective narrative. Sociology is retrospective in that it preserves and builds on its past (Diversity, Prestige and Selective taught students about the origins of sociology). But it is also essentially prospective, studying what is yet concerned about what might be, creating new bases ‘for social relations, for solidarities and for oppositions’ (Bernstein, 2000, p.  76). These new bases arise in what Bernstein calls a discursive gap between sacred disciplinary and profane everyday knowledge. So, forming the personal/ social aspect of the specialized sociological identity results when students bring the vertical discourse of sociology into relation with horizontal experiential discourse to produce their own discursive gaps. We conceptualize these discursive gaps as sites where students understand that sociology is about connections between lives and social structures, or, in Bernstein’s terms, between the immaterial inner self and material outer world. This is what reading did for Richard Wright and it is what happens when students understand the nature of sociological knowledge in broader, more inclusive ways. Next, we illustrate the students’ discursive gaps.

Knowledge, the self and others As discussed in Chapter 6, all the students had opportunities to learn how sociology can lead to understanding how different individuals and groups influence

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and are influenced by social structures, in particular, about how social class, gender and ethnicity shape social experience. When students reflected, they sometimes related knowledge to themselves and sometimes to others.

Social class It was noticeable that different students had interest in different kinds of inequalities. Knowledge about social-class inequities gave students insight into why people, including themselves, are as they are and, therefore, helped them to feel solidarity with others. For Maurice at Community, theory related to crime and social class led him to empathy: I’ve been learning about social deprivation. You can link it to causes, to being able to analyse [with different] underlying theories. You can apply utilitarianism theory [which] matches a crime to punishment, taking into account no personal circumstances, like poverty or anything . . . But then being able to put a contrasting theory . . . I enjoy and feel that it is rewarding doing that kind of thing. It helps you to feel more sympathetic towards certain groups, like the homeless for example. The lengths they have to go to, to survive basically. I mean it’s through need more than, more than greed . . . So, it’s opened my eyes to social divisions a lot more. (Maurice, Community, working class, white British, young [had epilepsy]. Year 3)

Elliot, too, illustrates how social science knowledge contributed both to a solidarity and to challenging the status quo: I find that interesting, people’s attitudes towards girls that choose to have a baby from a young age, how we demonise people based on their class. I  find middle-class people interesting, being middle-class myself, the way that they all look down on working-class people and not really realising that they’re doing it. They’ll just think, ‘How can they behave like that?’ (Elliot, Selective, middle class, white British, mature [23]. Year 3)

Here a discursive gap has been opened by knowledge between Elliot’s original class position, which he took for granted, and a new way of thinking about it.

Gender ‘Gender codes’ is a term Madeleine Arnot (2002) adapted from Bernstein’s social-class codes to explore gendered inequalities. We conducted an analysis of the influence of embedding feminism and gender in the curricula and found that students’ gender codes were transformed more when feminist knowledge was overtly and extensively embedded in curriculum (Abbas et al., 2016).

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Diversity and Prestige students’ accounts strongly featured gender and sexuality. Sociological theory helped Lauren to think about a problem that had affected her personally: I’m trying to investigate in terms of gender, using Butler’s Theory and Queer Theory, how they experience [polycystitis] because there’s a lot of women being affected and the symptoms are very non-feminine. You don’t want to be apple shaped, you want to be slim, you don’t want to have hair all over your body or your face ’cos that’s a male thing. My literature review goes back to Butler and the fact that we live in this normative [world], all men look like that, women like that. What happens when because of this disorder you end up not looking as you’re supposed to? How do you feel about it? How do doctors treat you? How do people treat you? What sort of implications do you have in your life in terms of being feminine, in terms of quality of life? . . . The whole gender thing I’ve been struggling through my life . . . I think coming to university, studying sociology made me realise that other people may think differently too, so has it helped me. (Lauren, Diversity, middle class, international student (Brazilian), mature [23]. Year 3).

Here Lisha questioned the impact of gender on our lives, asking why people resist gender roles: [Sociology’s] made me more aware of the things that we do. It’s made me more aware of how we construct ourselves and how we construct other people as well. For example, the construction between being male or being female, you have a certain social structure of how to be feminine and how to be masculine and sometimes my mum might say one thing, like ‘Sit properly’ or ‘Sit straight, don’t open your legs, sit cross-legged’ and it made me see that these little things that are embedded in our social structure actually form the idea of being feminine and these little things actually do make a big impact on our lives. And why some women rebel and don’t want to be feminine and they want to be something else. (Lisha, Diversity, working class, British Pakistani, young. Year 3)

Felix’s work experience in a human resource department persuaded him to do his dissertation on how gender influenced how women were thought of in employment: It’s about sexism, legitimised sexism in the workplace, legitimised socially. The processes involved [seeing] how people seem to feel allowed to say ‘Oh no, she can’t have that job’ or ‘She doesn’t strike me as a manager-type’ or little biases. So, it’s a qualitative study . . . I need to write it up and back it up with some theory. (Felix, Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 3)

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Students interrogated their own lives. Fiona described how learning to think critically about gender roles in the family made her question her own sense of normality: I mean my family is a traditional nuclear family. My mum’s a housewife, my dad works nine ’til five, so I always come back to that. In visual [sociology] we’re going to be set an assignment, it’s going to be an interview with photos and I was thinking of doing the modern housewife. (Fiona, Prestige, white British, working class, young. Year 3)

Ethnicity Addressing ethnicity and gender, Leena questioned the gender norms in her own Asian culture: Girls are seen as more timid and fragile . . . but why? It’s because it’s always been like that and it’s so engraved in society . . . and then males – I’m not saying everyone, but most people they really, really do think that ‘Oh yeah, I need to protect the girls’ and it makes you think about your own life, especially where I come from, an Asian culture [where] there’s more male dominance . . . and it’s not anybody’s fault, it’s just that it’s what they know. It’s just what they’ve been taught. (Leena, Diversity working class, British Bangladeshi, young. Year 3)

Leanne had become interested in ethnicity because of meeting people from other cultures at university. She was already interested in travel and in Middle Eastern culture (for example, learning Arabic and belly dancing) and she pursued this interest in her dissertation, which focused on magazines targeting three different ethnic groupings: I’m doing content analysis to see what adverts were there and then I’m gonna pick some to do a semiotic analysis . . . In the white magazine the most common advert is beauty products, make-up and stuff, but in the black one it’s hair products. And the only advert really in the Muslim one is for fashion. (Leanne, Diversity, working class, white British, young. Year 3)

The two middle-class students below at Selective and Prestige attributed growing concern and interest about race and ethnicity to their curriculum: I have a race and ethnic identity lecture and seminar on Mondays and right after that I go to work at the library café. And I find myself wondering if the people who are from the minority group I am serving . . . whether the racial stereotyping what we have been talking about in seminar applies. If I make a mistake in the change for example, if they feel it is because minority groups aren’t treated in the same way and then I make an extra effort to make sure that it is not that. (Esther, Selective, middle class, white British, young. Year 3)

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Well I just came out of a lecture about how there’s racial inequality in health and that’s something that you would probably just have a massive generalisation about, how ethnic minorities are generally like socio-economically disadvantaged and there’s all those generalisations that everyone knows about, but then you don’t actually know why, and then you learn about all these housing issues and how it’s not necessarily just racial discrimination that happens, there are all those other components. (Fifi, Prestige, middle class, Japanese, young. Year 3)

Disability Disability was one of the least represented differences in the sociology curricula, and we found only Lamar and Lucia, who had disabilities, relating knowledge to issues of disability. Lucia explored the concept of medicalization in her dissertation to think about her son’s condition: I would like to bring it to the attention of others and hope to bring a change because when my son was diagnosed they put him into hospital and I  think they shouldn’t be placed into hospital. I think there should be a separate unit for Asperger’s children or autistic children. I don’t think they should medicalise and I don’t think they should be exposed to other people who have got mental health illnesses, does that make sense? (Lucia, Diversity, working class, British Pakistani-French, mature parent [40s]. Year 3)

Sociological knowledge had personal meaning for students, moreover, they could be frustrated if theory appeared too remote from everyday concerns. For example, Ed told us this about leaving Selective: You know, they were quite content for you just read about it, rather than trying to experience it or even meet people who are represented in different ways by policies or what we are learning about. Say, if we did say something about housing I might be saying to everybody ‘For one week this term you will be doing volunteering work in a homeless shelter. Dealing with real people.’ And I think that would be a fantastic way of bringing it home, that is the best kind of education you can get. (Ed, working class, black British Caribbean, young. After leaving Selective in Year 3)

And Lauren from Diversity wanted to know what theory had to do with making real-life changes for the better: I mean I still like the theory, but when I study sociology, it seems like it’s so subjective. I did post-modernism this year and you’ve got Baudrillard and all these people. Right, but how does that affect my real [life], how can I change where I live, my community . . . I was thinking some of the theories we were studying

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in post-modernism, like colonial theory . . . I come from Brazil and we’ve been colonised and I don’t think they explain any of it. (Lauren, Diversity, middleclass, international student, [white Brazilian] young. Year 2)

Students chose sociology-related degrees because they were already interested. Forming a specialized sociological identity is powerful because personal and social interests have been engaged. And the knowledge they gain gives strength and credence to their applications and understandings.

The performative aspect of a specialized sociological identity Bernstein (2000) proposed an ‘instrumental pedagogic identity’ which arises from ‘generic’ modes of learning in which curricula are produced by a ‘functional analysis of . . . the underlying features necessary to the performance of . . . an area of work . . . giving rise to a jejune concept of trainability’ (p. 53). Yet, we found that making explicit the underlying features of doing sociology clarified what it is to form a fully rounded, specialized sociological identity. The performative aspect denotes what it is students must be and do to inhabit the discipline and to produce legitimate texts that link the disciplinary and personal/social aspects. There are two parts to the performative aspect: possession of a set of dispositions, for example being questioning, critical, analytical and open-minded; and, competence at performing the discipline by way of text work (reading and writing), discussion, and research work (for example, analysing texts/images; interviewing; designing surveys). Pedagogic framings provide opportunities to practice competent performance and critical dispositions, especially when the underlying features are made visible, which as we have shown was more likely in the lower-status universities.

Critical dispositions Students repeatedly told us that their minds and eyes had opened about themselves, others and society; they had become more questioning; they could think outside the box; they did not take anything for granted; they challenged what they saw and heard; and, they argued with people. These dispositions, they told us, had changed them in ways they valued and were committed to, and knowledge permeated their way of seeing the world: The fundamental message is don’t take anything for granted. Work on always questioning stuff and in a way it’s frustrating, every time I  read something

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I can’t just think ‘Oh, that’s ok, I’ll leave that now’. I’ll read the opposite argument to it and then make my mind up to it, which is good, I think that would make people a lot more understanding of the world if they had that, which some people don’t. They just read one side of it and then that’s it. If it’s down in black and white that must be right. But it is how that person has wrote it, it’s what you should make of it. That’s definitely for me the best thing I’ve got out of university; questioning things all the time . . . University has opened my eyes too much. I’ve been too exposed to reading certain things that are happening around me . . . I  can’t just shut my eyes and go back to normality. I  don’t think I  can do that now, I’d feel like I  am betraying myself and what I think and what I believe in. (Martin, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 3) Because of what I’ve learned in terms of . . . knowledge about the way society is, it’s made me question more everything, and I like that because not everything has a definite answer, and I like the diversity of seeing everything differently and seeing new things and it impacts on me as a person, how I behave towards others . . . it’s helped me become a better person purely because of the experience and seeing new things. (Leena, Diversity, working class, British Bangladeshi, young. Year 3)

Int:

Can you be more specific about what it is that makes you enjoy criminology? Mark: I think because crime is everyday, you see it in the newspapers, you see it on the news. One of the first modules was how we react to images of crime which we see in the media. It’s just understanding of the way society works, why budgets are important in prison or in the probation service. It just helps you think. I think that the main thing is that it challenges your intelligence and it also made me look at the world more critically than I would before. So, every little thing like that you notice. (Mark, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 3) It’s like you’ve come out of a cage you’ve been inhabiting, or as if you’ve come out of a fog and things are starting to be clear and you’re starting to get an understanding and you start thinking ‘Oh God now I understand that.’ I often think why didn’t I do this earlier. (Frida, Prestige, working class, white British, mature [40s]. Year 3)

The formation of critical dispositions was a highly valued outcome for the students. From their perspective, it gave them a specialized place in society, as we show below.

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Academic skills Students also valued academic skills. Community students, in particular, reported that they had become confident speakers and good at participating in groups. Most students claimed that their reading and writing skills had improved. A claim typical of those from all the departments was Elizabeth’s: ‘I think I’m better at, very much so, like referencing, like in text book referencing in particular and in the bibliography. I’m better at reading and putting in more academic content, so my work’s flowing a little bit easier, and structured better.’ (Elizabeth, Selective, working class, black Caribbean British. Year 3).

Summary: A specialized sociological identity In sum, a specialized sociological identity was projected in all departments. As we have seen in Chapters  6 and 7 aspects were differently emphasized. Prestige emphasized the retrospective, disciplinary aspect; Community the personal/social prospective aspect, with the emphasis on social; at Diversity and Selective the retrospective, disciplinary and personal/social prospective aspects were equal, though in the latter aspect Selective emphasized the social and Diversity the personal. At Community and Diversity, academic skills were highly visible within the performative aspect and, in all departments, critical dispositions attracted strongly framed messages, clearly understood by students. In no department was any of the three aspects not subject to evaluation rules. Students were expected to recognize the discipline and its applications to social life, and, to realize in legitimate written or spoken texts their recognition of the power of sociological knowledge. The value of the concept of a specialized disciplinary identity lies in its uncovering of what it is to be a university graduate who gains power from disciplinary knowledge. Other disciplines form different identities, but whatever the (inter)discipline or field, goodquality undergraduate education forms specialized pedagogic identities. We turn now to show that the formation of a specialized sociological identity gave access to what Bernstein (2000) called pedagogic rights which, theoretically, if distributed fairly disrupt society’s hierarchies.

Pedagogic rights In Chapter  1 we advanced Fricker’s capability for ‘social epistemic contribution’ as the goal of university education. The capabilities approach conceptualizes human development as the expansion of human capabilities which are the

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Table 8.1 Pedagogic rights Right

Level

Definition

Capability

Enhancement

Individual

Confidence

Inclusion

Social

Participation

Political

The right to ‘the means of critical understanding and to new possibilities’ (Bernstein 2000, xx) The right to ‘be included socially, intellectually, culturally and personally [including] the right [to be] autonomous’ (Bernstein 2000, xx) ‘The right to participate in the construction, maintenance and transformation of social order’ (Bernstein 2000, xxi)

‘Communitas’ or belonging in group(s)

Civic discussion and action

means for people to be free to make reasonable choices about who they want to be and what they want to do (Nussbaum, 2000; Sen, 1999). University education can be conceptualized as capability expansion (McLean et al, 2013b; Walker and Mclean, 2013). For Bernstein, (2000) knowledge gained in education in democratic societies should give access to three pedagogic rights which in our interpretation results in specific capabilities: Pedagogic rights are about freedom and opportunity. They relate to how people are differentially enabled and constrained by symbolic and real boundaries; and, they provide ‘a model against which [to] compare what happens in various education institutions to see whether there is unequal distribution of these rights’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. xx). The focus of evaluation is the extent to which education frees people to imagine and act or, on the contrary, the extent to which it bounds imagination and what it seems possible to do and be. Access to pedagogic rights assures quality and equity; and, the formation of a specialized sociological identity corresponds to access to pedagogic rights. We found students accessing pedagogic rights in all the universities and whatever their ascribed identities (e.g. age and gender) and achieved identities (e.g. class and occupation).

Individual enhancement: Personal confidence For Bernstein (2000), the first pedagogic right, individual enhancement, is ‘the means of critical understanding and to new possibilities’ and access to it expands

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personal horizons, resulting in the capability of ‘confidence’ (p. xx). Access requires boundaries to be ‘experienced [as] tension points’ (Bernstein, 2000). Vitale and Exley (2016) argue that while inclusion and participation are much discussed in the context of action for social justice, the right to enhancement is neglected. Starting university is usually a tense boundary crossing and, as discussed, is likely to be more difficult for black and minority ethnic and working-class students. As expected, the students in our study, especially in the campus universities (Community, Prestige and Selective), experienced increased confidence by crossing the boundary between being at home and away from it, independent of parents. Almost all the students at Diversity remained living at home, yet they too reported meeting, making friends with and learning from a more diverse group of people than before coming to university: I think I’m more confident, better able to communicate, to speak to other people, develop my own ideas which is an important thing because . . . I wanted to go to university . . . to know more about the world (Ed, Selective, working class, black British Caribbean, young. Year 2) I think the getting more outgoing is the whole experience, because I got here, you don’t know anybody so you have to make yourself talk to people . . . And having to do group work encourages you to talk and seminars because you have to say whatever you’re thinking about the topic and so that encourages . . . a bit more confidence and where you have to do presentations, I hate doing presentations. (Leanne, Diversity, working class, white British, young. Year 3). I would not have expected to get so much out of it, the confidence it gives you to talk to people. By having debates or having to do presentations, it makes you a more confident person. It makes you more knowledgeable. It makes you have to manage your time. All these little things it does build up. (Maurice, Community, working class, white British, young with epilepsy. Year 2)

Such confidence-building is made up of many human encounters involving students’ active negotiation. There is an expansive literature on students’ transition to university and how it benefits them, confirming what our students told us (e.g. Harvey et al., 2006). Clearly, learning from going somewhere new, meeting new and different people, being required to speak in front of others and so on are important for personal growth and for feeling settled enough to study. But we want to bracket these general benefits to focus on our main interest, which is how studying a university discipline is an analogous experience of boundary crossing and individual enhancement. Bernstein (2000) states that in educational terms ‘enhancement entails a discipline’ (p. 76). Arguably, it is because the formation of the disciplinary identity is

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the experience of tension points in the boundaries between abstract, disciplinary, sacred knowledge and previously held, mundane knowledge. As we have shown, discursive gaps opened up as students formed a personal/social aspect of a disciplinary identity, allowing them to see life differently, and this excited them. So, access to individual enhancement and achieving the capability of confidence are outcomes of education that supports the formation of a specialized identity. This identity is of a person who sees the relevance of sociology-based knowledge to everyday life. The acquisition of sociological knowledge assisted students to, in John Dewey’s (1916) words, ‘develop their minds’ (p. 16) for thought about their own lives and others. In terms of differential access to the first pedagogic right, there were more expressions of having gained confidence and having horizons broadened from students in the lower-status universities, perhaps because the boundary they crossed to get to university was greater than for most of the students in the higher-status universities. It is possible, too, that the high expectations and competitive nature of more elite institutions results in loss of confidence. For example, in Year 3 Fleur at Prestige had lost confidence in her formal academic skills, complaining that other verbal skills were not valued: I find the exams and the essays difficult, but in seminars I will speak probably the most and I feel I have a great knowledge. Maybe not from a very academic perspective or it is from an academic perspective, but I can’t reference my point necessarily. I can generally hold my own in most situations, I can converse with people of all ages and from different backgrounds and I find people very interesting. That’s why it’s upsetting because you have some people that will do very, very well in the exams, but they haven’t got a lot going on. If you put them in some situations, they just wouldn’t be able to cope. (Fleur, Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 3)

Faith was a black British, working-class student at Prestige who had been highly successful and prized at school. The anonymity, unfamiliar culture and loneliness she experienced shook her confidence during her first year; she regained it by consciously reshaping her identity and by building social networks across campus. Most of the students at lower-status universities who had quickly gained in confidence, felt they had improved their lives and knew that their families were proud of them.

Social inclusion: Communitas/belonging The second pedagogic right is ‘to be included socially, intellectually, culturally and personally [including] the right [to be] autonomous’ (Bernstein, 2000,

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p.  xx). Communitas is the capability gained from access to the second pedagogic right, which is an anthropological term sometimes denoting a group going through a rite of passage together feeling solidarity and togetherness; and, sometimes an unstructured community outside society from which society benefits (Turner, 1995 [1969]). Both these positions apply to university students. Like other researchers, we found that working-class and black and minority ethnic students did not feel they belonged in higher-status universities (Bathmaker et  al., 2016; Crozier et  al., 2008). Frida in Prestige was a mature, part-time student in her late forties who didn’t mix with students outside of the classroom and felt isolated. Elizabeth, a black Caribbean student at Selective became pregnant in her second year; travelling in to study part-time she found she was cut out of the social groups and support systems. Frank who was white, gay and middle class said he was rejected and bullied by other students. More generally, though, students at Prestige felt that they belonged in the university, while at Diversity the students went home after class and did not feel part of a wider university community. The broader experience of university is important for personal growth, and, for some it is the most important aspect of the university experience (Brennan et  al., 2010). Our interest, however, is in the effects of acquiring specialized knowledge in an academic department. We conceptualize communitas as being achieved by finding a place and role in society by being part of a group with a sociological gaze or imagination. Acquiring specialized knowledge and understanding is a positional good. Students are included where previously they were not, and those whose parents are not of the professional classes value it especially: I think it makes you able to take part of the society more. The way you talk to your doctor. The way you talk to your banker . . . You have better relationships with other professionals . . . You feel like your status is more on a level with other professionals. Like, I can have a better conversation with my doctor because – not that I am understanding everything he is saying, but because I feel more in a place to debate with him. (Mark, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 3)

Mark would probably have thought the same had he studied engineering or any other degree. Sociology knowledge, though, does specific work. It illuminates the interaction between individuals and social systems or structure and this knowledge distinguishes these students from students of other (inter)disciplines. When Leanne (Diversity, working class, white-British, young.Year 3) says that ‘Not everybody walks around and thinks “That’s an example of othering or stigmatisation” ’, she gestures towards being differentiated in society by belonging to

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a group of people with a specialiszed sociological identity. A further illustration is Fay distancing herself from the ‘average sort of mother’ in terms of being sensitive to gender stereotyping: The average sort of mother reading to her child probably doesn’t notice the gender stereotyping in the books . . . but . . . if you are presented with a study saying, ‘Actually there are only half as many girl characters in books as there are boys’, I find it interesting there are so many things that you just don’t notice unless you study them. (Fay, Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 3)

In the same way, Lauren’s questioning attitude distinguishes her from her boyfriend: He comes home and he likes watching the news. So I can look at him and think differently from him because I know things . . . about the news, how it dominates [what we think]. Well, he just takes what they tell you, doesn’t criticise anything and things like that. So, it makes me look at people differently and makes me look at him differently. (Lauren, Diversity, middle class, international student [Brazilian], mature [23]. Year 3)

And Mark also sets himself apart from most people: ‘I think, I will have a better understanding of prisons or police and of various inequalities then most people (Mark, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 3) The students expected to use their knowledge to enlighten others:  for example, to argue with their parents about capital punishment (Leanne at Diversity) or with their friends about the need to be sceptical about the news (Mary at Community). In terms of social inclusion, our data suggests that sociological knowledge places students in two specific and related relationships to other people and to society in general:  as those whose sociology knowledge gives them a sense of solidarity with others in society, especially those who are designated different; and, as those who belong in and contribute to society by questioning and challenging what goes on in the world around them. It can be said then that the rite of passage of the sociology-related degree invests graduates with specialized knowledge and understanding which can benefit society by way of their capability for affiliation and solidarity. This capability gives students access to the right to be included in society at large. Defining social inclusion like this, we did not find differences across departments in students’ access to communitas (despite differential access to the experiences of the wider university). Perhaps this finding reflects John Brennan et al.’s (2010) finding that ‘sociology students seemed more likely than others [biosciences and

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business studies] to locate the source of [personal] change in their academic studies’ (p. 155).

Political participation: Making use of social science knowledge The third pedagogic right is: ‘to participate in the construction, maintenance and transformation of social order’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. xxi). The capability of civic discussion and action was considerably less evident than for confidence and communitas. Of the case-study students: Ed at Selective engaged in political activism during his time at university and left in his second year to stand for election as a Labour councillor; Martin at Community lobbied MPs about the unfairness of unpaid internships in his third year; and, Lucia at Diversity worked as a volunteer and advocate for parents and carers of children with disabilities. In the capability approach, individual choice is paramount, which provides an alternative perspective on the students not participating politically while at university. Students might have a capability yet choose not to exercise it. The students we talked to often thought about how society might be differently arranged, for example: ‘One of my mates just won’t watch the news because it is so depressing. But then I kind of look at it and think “why” and “what has happened” and “what can I do to change it”. Yes, it is thought provoking’ (Mary, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 3). Furthermore, when asked about future employment (which we return to in the next chapter), many students envisaged public service work to mobilize their knowledge, understanding and dispositions: There’s also a charity that I work for which is called Hibiscus and they work with foreign national women in prison to try to keep their ties with them and their family members back in their own home country and I want to do something like that. (Lisha, Diversity, working class, British Pakistani, young. Year 3) I would like to be an advocator for people who are less able to look after themselves. Not a social worker because I  just think they are constrained severely. (Lucia Diversity, working class, British Pakistani-French, mature parent [40s]. Year 3) I’d like to become qualified as a teacher and to do teaching in poor inner-city areas, I’d like to get people thinking about current issues, and introducing ideas about equality and diversity, and feminism . . . That’s exciting and something that I would have loved as a young person to come across. (Ed, Selective, working class, black Caribbean and white, young. Year 2)

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I’ve looked at international affairs, international politics. That’s my real interest, that’s my passion. I’ve been looking at internships in Britain to do with working for NGO’s – like human rights, like Amnesty International, but also I’ve been looking at public affairs consultancy. Which is basically, I go to the government and I lobby on behalf of a company or on behalf on an NGO. (Martin, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 3) I think working with . . .troubled individuals, so things like the youth offending service, or a job where you work on developing policies or something which would affect different social groups. (Mark, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 2)

Other students wanted to make a positive contribution and explained how their knowledge would help them analyse how wrongs might be tackled at the levels of policy, organizations or personal intervention. In sum, gaining a specialized sociological identity formed the capability for confidence in understanding how individuals and society interact (individual enhancement); it located students in a loose group of people with the same understanding, forming the capability for belonging in society (social inclusion); and, it formed the capability for political participation, of use – in or out of employment – to improve the social world.

The distribution of pedagogic rights The survey gave insight into how access to pedagogic rights was distributed across the four university departments. Scales used in the questionnaire related to the rights in the following ways: individual enhancement was mapped onto the scales of ‘enhanced academic skills’ and ‘enhanced employability skills’; social inclusion mapped onto the scale of ‘increased social confidence’; and, political participation mapped onto the scale ‘changing self and society’. The results were: These results show that university status did not predict outcome from the students’ perspective. Students from Community and Diversity experienced an enhancement of employability skills because these were highlighted in the curriculum (especially in Community) and because the students were more invested in higher education for employment than in the other higher-status universities. Diversity students were significantly less likely to report positively on the social confidence scale which mapped to belonging, perhaps because most of the items on the scale referred to relationship to the wider university, which was more tenuous for Diversity students who mainly lived at home. Selective’s first place

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Table 8.2 Outcomes of degree 1a. 1b. 2. 3.

Enhanced academic skills Enhanced employability skills Increased social confidence Changing self and society

Selective, Diversity, Community, Prestige Diversity, Community, Selective, Prestige Prestige, Community, Selective, Diversity Selective, Diversity, Prestige, Community

Note: Departments in bold had scores significantly higher than the scores of departments in italics.

on changing self and society might reflect the curriculum’s strong emphasis on social problems. Nevertheless, in interviews, the students in the lower-status universities reported more personal transformation.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have made the case for outcomes being conceptualized as the formation of a specialized disciplinary identity which uses sociological knowledge to understand the self, others and society. Sociological knowledge was powerful when the student took possession of, understood and used it to explore the relationship between personal troubles and public issues – in C. Wright Mills’ (2000) words. The claims we make are not theoretical about what might be possible, but rather grounded in what the students said to us. At least to some degree, in all four universities students had formed a specialized sociological identity and accessed pedagogic rights:  they became more confident about what they were capable of now and in the future; they had a sense of belonging to a group which was useful to society by having specialized knowledge about society; and, they had the critical capabilities commensurate with citizens and workers in democratic societies. This is how we define powerful knowledge which is the result of good-quality university education and it disturbs inequalities because it was not unequally distributed. Formation of identity and access to rights are not absolutes. The firmness of the specialized identity and the extent of the access to the pedagogic rights were not the same for all individuals, however, they did not differ according to the status of the university. The large picture is that these students studying sociology or its related subjects in quite different universities were, in relation to each other ‘similar to’ rather than ‘different from’ (Bernstein, 2000, p. 51) which is unexpected in a highly stratified, hierarchical system. It confounds the predictions of league tables and dire evaluations that higher education is only reproducing society’s inequalities.

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Yet, there were differences resulting from complex interactions between, on the one hand, the identities projected by the different curriculum and pedagogies and, on the other, the intersections produced by students’ biographies and existing identities in terms of gender, race, disability and so on. The next chapter deals with some of these complexities to further explain how educational quality and inequality play out in different universities for different students in relation to life trajectories during which their access to pedagogic rights should continue.

Note 1

In previous publications, we have used the term ‘specialised sociology-related pedagogic identity’ (McLean et al., 2013c, 2015). In the interests of being more concise, we have contracted it to ‘specialized sociological identity’ here.

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The wall in the head is built up slowly, over the course of a lifetime . . . If you attend a school in a council estate [i]t’s not so much that you get told that kids like you can’t ever hope to achieve their full potential; it’s just that the very idea of having potential isn’t presented. . . . Nobody tells you that there are universities, where you can learn about more things than you ever knew existed. Hanley, 2012, pp. 151–152 You have brains in your head You have feet in your shoes You can steer yourself In any direction you choose.

Dr Seuss, 2003

Introduction ‘Education cannot compensate for society’, a truism often attributed to Bernstein, should be kept in mind: no amount of excellent curriculum and pedagogy will of itself lessen society’s structural inequalities. Lynsey Hanley (2012 and 2016), from a working-class family living on a council estate in Birmingham, knocked down a ‘wall in the head’ (Hanley, 2012, p. 151) to go to a high-status university and became a writer, but the cost was loneliness and anxiety as she uprooted herself and became middle class. The working-class students in our study also knocked down walls in the head to get into university. In Bernstein’s theory, the wall in the head is code that conveys what one can be and do; and, our question is whether university sociological knowledge taught in higher and lower status universities is wall building or dismantling.

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The story so far has foregrounded the classifications, framings and projections of curriculum and pedagogy to show that the quality of education should not be read by university status. In the last chapter, we claimed that the big picture is of students forming specialized sociological identities and accessing pedagogic rights in all the departments. In this chapter, we combine the insights from previous chapters to engage with what happens in the convergence between students (with specific backgrounds and interests) and curriculum and pedagogy in departments of different status, particularly in relation to future lives. In other words, we rearrange and unsettle the big picture by exploring the different modulations of the specialized sociological identity and of access to pedagogic rights and how these influenced students’ ideas about what they could be and do. We consider students’ trajectories in terms of their shifting thinking about their futures because the important outcome of a university education is what it enables a graduate to become in the future rather than who she or he is at graduation. Dr. Seuss’s verse is from his children’s book Oh the Places You’ll Go! in which he presents life both as fraught with hardships to be faced and as interesting, exciting and rewarding, to be relished. A  verse near the end reads: ‘You’ll get mixed up, of course, / as you already know. / You’ll get mixed up/with many strange birds as you go. / So be sure when you step. / Step with care and great tact/and remember that Life’s / a Great Balancing Act. / Just never forget to be dextrous and deft.’ Arguably, a good-quality, knowledgebased undergraduate education is for becoming ‘dextrous and deft’ in life and in work. Employment is, of course, an outcome of central interest to students, who want an interesting or worthwhile job that brings in reasonable money. It is of major policy interest too in which higher education is cast as the route to individual social mobility by way of a better job. In turn, an innovative, productive, efficient workforce will keep the knowledge-based economy stable (Social Mobility Commission, 2016). Most universities, in particular, lower-status universities, have for some time striven to ‘embed employability skills’ into their curricula, as did Community and Diversity. The ‘employability agenda’ is criticized for ignoring that being employed varies according economic conditions (the laws of supply and demand) and according to position in society and for not preparing students for what employers want (Frankham, 2016). Nevertheless, some educationalists claim that employability is not for guaranteeing employment. Rather it is skills and dispositions (especially being enterprising) necessary but not sufficient for employment

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Table 9.1 Engagement with academic knowledge Scale

Ranking of Universities

Engagement with academic knowledge

Selective, Diversity, Prestige, Community

Note: Universities in bold have scores that are significantly higher than the scores of universities in italics.

that are of intrinsic value and related to the outcomes of academic learning (Yorke, 2006). Throughout the book, we have argued that the quality of university education resides in students’ engagement with (inter)disciplinary knowledge. So, to frame this chapter, Table 9.1 above presents the survey scale ‘Engagement with academic knowledge’ showing that students at Selective and Diversity had significantly higher levels than Prestige and Community of personal engagement with sociological knowledge, which, in our perspective, is powerful because it supports specific understandings of people and societies. A question running through this chapter is why this ranking might be as it is. The chapter has three main parts: ●

●

●

First, we discuss the range of ideas students held about the purpose of university education and how a grasp of the educational (not only the social) purpose was a prerequisite to experience transformation. This finding emphasizes how students arrive with different orientations toward sociological knowledge and what it can do for them. Most of the chapter locates the thirty-one case-study students in their departments and explores their progression towards graduate life and employment. We use Chapter 6’s curriculum analysis to present an overview of how the departments projected the employed graduate through different inflections of the disciplinary, personal/social and performative aspects of the specialized sociological identity. The different forms of the identity are characterized as: Community’s critical criminal justice professional; Diversity’s enlightened individual; Prestige’s influential sociologist; and, Selective’s influential public-service professional. The conclusion highlights the complexities of judging quality and social justice when specific curricular and pedagogic classifications and framings meet students with different biographies and orientations to university and to sociology. For sociological knowledge to make students powerful in their own lives it needs to enlighten those lives and we show the relative success of the four curricula in achieving this outcome.

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Orientations to sociology-related knowledge Students arrive at university with pre-existing ideas about the worth and use of the inter-discipline or field they are going to study. We conceptualized what students thought about going to university as ‘personal projects’. Relating the study of sociology to personal interests is what Helen Colley et al. (2003) identify as the ‘becoming’ aspect of learning: in this case becoming someone with a sociological gaze or imagination, forming a specialized identity. We analysed the case-study student data for the range of personal projects and for whether and how they changed as degree programmes progressed (Ashwin et al., 2016a). We found five different conceptions of the purpose of being at university which we explain with a student quotation to illustrate. 1.

Being at university is about getting a degree. Of course, all students wanted to get a degree to enhance their future work prospects, and some do not go beyond this orientation. It means getting a foot up in things. It means being able to get to places where I’d like to. If there are things that I want to explore in life, getting a degree just helps so much. The education side is one thing and that’s all well and good and I really do appreciate that, but sadly it doesn’t work like that in the real world. It’s not just a case of by really enjoying something that you get places. You get places by having a CV that says I’ve got a first-class honours degree. (Elliot, Selective, middle class, white British, mature [20s]. Year 3)

2.

Being at university is about learning general things. This category was about gaining knowledge in a general way, even if the knowledge referred broadly to sociology’s interests: I just want to gain a more insightful knowledge of the world . . . I  want to know why people do things, what makes them do it, how they do it and everything like that. I think people are such a broad thing to study because you can just talk about them for days. (Lamar, Diversity, working class, black British, mature [30s], registered blind. Year 1)

3.

Being at university is about learning about myself. ‘Learning about myself ’ in this category refer to being at university independently of what was studied: I’ve been able to find out more about myself and I’ve been able to do more things for myself as well, such as like cooking a lot more and making sure

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that I get my priorities right. Also, financially I’ve had to balance out money. (Elizabeth, Selective, working class, black British, young. Year 2)

4.

Being at university is about changing as a person. Here students related knowledge to personal transformation. I think it’s the whole way of thinking that you change. I  don’t know if you come to university and do something else, like business, maybe you open your eyes a little bit to different things, but in terms of sociology, it has helped me in my life . . . I wanted to learn about sociology, I wanted to learn about theories, I wanted to understand society better. It has done that, I wanted to be a better person and it has done that. I wanted to improve and, yeah, it has done that, I  think. (Lauren, Diversity, middle class, international student [white Brazilian], mature [20s]. Year 3)

5.

Being at university is about changing the world. In this category, knowledge connects to wanting to make a difference in the world. Martin below identified his own transformation from wanting to get a degree to someone who wanted to change the world. I’m passionate about human rights and I’m passionate about the politics behind that sort of thing. I don’t think I could walk out of Uni with all of this awareness of the world and all of the things I know, the horrific things going on in the world and then just go in work in Boots and pretend nothing happened. It’s not an option for me to do it, I just feel like all this time would be wasted by coming out of university . . . I was one of these people who came to Uni and I wanted to get a degree and I didn’t come here expecting to get all of this awareness. (Martin, Community, working class, white, British, young. Year 3)

The five positions are interrelated and nested so that a student who held the highest conception would also hold the other four. So, all students wanted a degree and most knew that holding well-informed opinions was an asset in life. However, it was only those who engaged with sociological knowledge beyond a range of opinions who were in the two highest positions: university is about changing as a person and about changing the world. Students who understood university in these two ways were those who expected and experienced university as transformative, students who did not engage with sociological knowledge did not express these conceptions. Moreover, we found that key to the students experiencing education as transformative was to think of university as somewhere disciplinary knowledge was

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learned. In other words, understanding university as a place where one is educated appeared to shift students’ personal projects to include changing themselves and/or society. Those students who thought of university as a social process only did not see sociological knowledge as offering alternative ways to understand themselves and the world. In sum, the power of disciplinary knowledge to transform is limited by students not conceptualizing university as an educational experience. This analysis also showed that from the beginning of their degrees, sociological knowledge was differently positioned in the students’ personal ambitions or projects: that is, they had different understandings of what it would or could do for them. There were students in all universities, like Martin, who expressed happy surprise at how their studies had changed them. There were also students in all universities who did not move to the higher conceptions of the possibilities of a sociology-related university education. This look at students’ personal projects for university sets the scene for a comparative exploration of their trajectories in terms of how their plans changed over time and how their plans related to curriculum and pedagogy.

Departmental comparison of the specialized pedagogic identity and orientations to future employment As demonstrated in Chapter 6 and 7, in each department the rules of the pedagogic device projected differently inflected specialized sociological identities. These projections intersected with the students’ existing identifications and personal projects. Our effort here is directed towards shedding some light on such questions as: Did the projections convert to realized identities which are empowering for future life? Were the students in the different universities positioned differently in terms of what they might be and do in the world? Did different students within different status universities change differently depending on what they bring to their studies? There are no definitive answers for several reasons. We are considering complex educational environments in relation to complex human beings. It is too early in our students’ lives to come to conclusions about how a specific university education shaped what they will become and do, moreover, there were, are and will be many other influences on their lives. They were rather in a state of ‘waiting to happen’ (Colley et  al., 2003, p.  478). Nevertheless, the variations we saw are suggestive of what was being waited for and what might be expected.

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Table 9.2 summarizes where we have arrived in the book. It takes the discussion further by comparing departments’ identity projections (column 1) in terms of graduate employment (column 2); setting them alongside the three aspects of the specialized sociological identity  – disciplinary, personal/social, performative – as they appeared in curriculum and pedagogy in terms of strength and visibility (columns 3, 4 and 5); and, a broad characterization of the case-study students’ orientation to employment in the third year (column 6). Below, we use this table to show that powerful discursive gaps were opened up in different ways in different departments: in Community, between interdisciplinary concepts and the criminal justice system; in Diversity between sociological theory broadly conceived and the self and any aspect of the social world encountered; in Prestige between aspects of sociological theory and students’ personal interests; and, in Selective between sociological theory and important societal issues and problems. Engagements with these gaps gives students insight into possibilities for what they can think and become in their future lives. We also show that pedagogic framings open up or close entry to the gap.

Community’s criminal justice professional At Community, the pedagogic discourse produced a specific vocationalism:  graduates were projected as intellectually grounded, critical, responsible, confident workers and citizens who would apply their knowledge in the public arena, mainly criminal justice. Community projected more strongly than the other three departments a ‘prospective market’ (Bernstein, 2000) identity by strongly and visibly supporting the employability of students. The disciplinary aspect of the specialized sociological identity was weak and embedded, so not clearly visible; whereas the relationship to the real world of crime and policing was strong and visible; as were skills which the students would use at work, especially, speaking and working with others. Table 9.3 shows Community casestudy students’ trajectories in terms of aspirations for the future as they went through their degrees. Degree classification affects employment prospects, so we record what we know in the final column. When asked about their aspirations in the first-year, most Community students wanted to join the police, and thought in terms of the practical, professional applications of knowledge. Table 9.2 shows that the case-study students at Community were job-focused, even if there were shifts to deal with realities; for example, the barriers of lacking financial support for internships or the highly competitive nature of some desirable jobs. Nevertheless, we saw in Chapter 2, that

Diversity

Individuals who themselves embody society’s inequalities, and who should be able to theorize and address them.

Community Engaged criminal justice professionals addressing inequalities affecting others. Knowledgeable, empathetic, critical and theoretically informed.

Projected employed identity

Weak/invisible: Knowledge of criminal justice system. Topics/ key ideas relevant to criminal justice system drawing on sociological ideas, discussed in relation to social justice. Strong/visible: Knowledge of sociological theory and inequalities. Core texts from key theorists, including feminist, from year 1. Understanding of self explicit.

Disciplinary aspect Strong/visible: speaking, group work, critical thinking, and employment skills and plans. Research skills are weaker.

Strong/visible: Employees in criminal justice or related field.

Strong/visible: Strong/visible: research Employees, whose skills, critical thinking. identities are and employment skills. informed and transformed by sociology, who tackle inequalities and work in many different fields.

Performative aspect

Personal/social aspect

Table 9.2 Comparing university projections and student orientations to graduate employment

A career in public sector or charity sector; needing to earn a barrier.

Realizable career; needing to earn a barrier; or undecided.

Student orientation to employment

Selective

Prestige

Disciplinary aspect

Personal/social aspect

Weak/invisible: Researchers who must Strong/ Educated middle invisible: Classical theorize inequalities, classes orientated sociology is a firstwho should be towards influential, intellectually engaged year core, and gender and academically was a departmental high-status interest. employment. capable. Strong/visible: Critical Strong/visible Professionals who people who draw Sociological theory are theoretically upon sociological informed about in long core modules society’s inequalities, over two years, and in theory in whatever and critical about other modules. they do. solutions.

Projected employed identity

Student orientation to employment Work unrelated to sociology; further study; undecided.

Public sector, criminal justice or research.

Performative aspect Strong/invisible: Taken for granted good academic and theoretical skills; confident researchers.

Weak/ invisible: Except: research skills.

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Table 9.3 Community’s case-study students’ future plans Student

Entry

During

Exit1

Mandy: working class, white British, young. Mark: working class, white British, young.

A better job.

Become a counsellor.

Not sure – might travel. On-track for a 2.2.

To gain knowledge.

Martin: working class, white British, young.

To increase knowledge of politics.

Mary: working class, white British, young.

Prison service.

Maurice: working class, white British, young, had epilepsy.

Degree was plan B after epilepsy thwarted his going into the police. ‘Get a perfect job’ (without definition).

Use knowledge to Probation service (was help people in shadowing) then lecturer once he has prisons or on probation. sufficient experience. High 2.1 in 2nd year wants a 1st. To use knowledge Aims for experience to to work for UN work for a Human or Amnesty. Rights NGO. Thinks opportunities are hindered by lack of money, but is determined. He secured a job as a ‘communications manager’ for a small environmental charity. Achieved a 2.1 though didn’t think he would. Applies to prison Broadens focus to service graduate Crown Prosecution scheme but is Service, Probation not confident Service or Social (50,000 Services, and applications). in a broader geographical area. ‘Solid’ 2.1. Will take a year out and Criminology is think about what to interesting and do next. connected to High 2.1 in 2nd year, the police. wants a 1st.

Mitchell: working class, white British, young.

Switches to management.

In second year of management degree (PR). A management job in a bar gives him a track for employment. Wants to stay local near girlfriend.

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Community students are as likely to be employed as Prestige students, probably because the university is supplying the local labour market with graduate skills. At Community, Mark and Martin stood out as having been most transformed by knowledge acquisition.2 For Mark, criminological theory and knowledge were to understand the world, make decisions and do good. He claimed that Foucauldian theory had helped him understand himself and wider society. He thought that his knowledge gave him a place in the world: he had acquired ‘knowledge in [my] head’ which gave him ‘a better understanding of prisons or police and of various inequalities than most people’ (and differently from his girl-friend who studied law). For him, knowledge was most valuable in the service of practical problems: ‘I think the interesting bit is the theoretical side when applied to the pragmatic side.’ During Year 2, Mark wanted to work in the probation service or in prisons and he wanted his knowledge to underpin decisions made in this working context. By Year 3, Mark came to identify so strongly with criminology that he aspired to be a criminology lecturer. His credibility as a lecturer would not be established by a PhD, but rather by experience working as a probation officer for several years; he planned to apply and was already shadowing a probation officer as part of Community’s mentoring system. At the end of his degree, Mark did not think of himself as an expert: ‘I would not like to label myself too fast, when I don’t understand like someone who has been in the field for ten years or more’. Mark is an example of someone who came into criminology attached to gaining access to one part of the social inclusion aspect of pedagogic rights (being a university graduate) and the prospective aspect of the specialized sociological identity (interested in the applications of knowledge), who then formed a stronger retrospective identity and want to contribute to criminology by becoming an academic. Martin wanted to bring knowledge to his work by lobbying for changes in law: I’ve looked at international affairs, international politics, that’s my real interest, that’s my passion. I’ve been looking at internships in Britain to do with working for NGOs, human rights, like Amnesty International. Also, I’ve been looking at public affairs consultancy, which is I go to the government and lobby on behalf of a company or on behalf on an NGO and say ‘You need to give this a law because it’s important’, that sort of thing. (Martin, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 3)

He had already begun: The Shadow Defence Secretary, Jim Murphy, came to Peterborough, where I’m from and he had this meeting and I went to it and it was brilliant. One of

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the things that I put across was that unpaid internships they should be illegal because they do favour people.

Martin had been transformed by his university education, but his trajectory illustrates how providence and systematic inequalities coincide to set limits on life chances. His family was not affluent and his mother had recently died, leaving the family grieving and poorer. So, he knew he had both to earn money and to remain close to his father for the time being. At the same time, he knew that the two main routes to working for NGOs (particularly high-status NGOs like Amnesty) are unpaid internships and further education, both of which are highly competitive and usually need significant private funding for a considerable period. Breaking into the Human Rights world is for privileged individuals. Martin also illustrates the high value Community put on students’ opinions: I just don’t want to be told one thing and that’s it. I think you become a more knowledgeable person, but not just that  – you become open minded, willing to look at both sides and that can only be good for you because then you know your opinion. I  think you can be more secure of your opinion if you’ve read both sides.

Some students at Community did not relate knowledge to employment aspirations: Maurice changed to management because he was uninterested in criminology and work related to the criminal justice system. Even in the third year, Mandy had not engaged with academic knowledge, and she said she still didn’t understand criminology and thought all opinions about crime as equally valid as each other. Arguably, this lack of engagement had some connection to her inability to foresee a future: her thoughts about work are entirely unrelated to what she studied. Nevertheless, Maurice and Mandy thought university had expanded their horizons and enhanced their self-confidence. That knowledge does not yet inform their employment plans does not mean it never will. Community students were motivated more by professional concerns than theoretical or abstract interests which tended to be conceived of pragmatically, for example, Maurice’s interest in street prostitution and morality: I was speaking with my tutor and I’d seen a report beforehand on prostitution and it interested me, sort of shocked me. So, I said to her, ‘I’d like to do something in that area’ and we had a discussion and she mentioned morality. She didn’t focus on it, but then I thought what if I took that and add in morality. (Maurice, Community, working class, white British, young, had epilepsy. Year 3)

Mary remained unengaged with academic knowledge, but she enjoyed understanding the politics and history underpinning the Crown Prosecution

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Service and had experience working with criminals and victims through the mentoring scheme. Her strong interest was in using knowledge she had gained on the course to secure a job in the criminal justice system for which she was applying for graduate track. Those case-study students at Community who did not have clear plans for work were anxious. Maurice’s epilepsy had prevented him from pursuing a career in the police, and Mandy regretted not having been prepared more specifically for a line of work: There are so many different parts to criminology, but they don’t teach you, well they don’t train you how to be in a profession when you leave uni because they don’t know what you’re gonna be, ’cos everyone’s so different and it’s a load of people on a vast course. For instance, my friend, does illustration and they teach him specifically what people want out of him when he’s finished. We don’t get taught specifically what’s wanted from us as a criminologist. (Mandy, Community, working class, white British, young. Year 3)

Community students tended to think that disciplinary knowledge was for use in a job. The emphasis on vocation and employability in a comparatively narrow area made it difficult for some students to learn a discipline for its own sake. They took on a distinctly prospective identity oriented to a practical future as critically informed and engaged criminal justice professionals capable of holding opinions on relevant issues by examining different perspectives on policy and practice.

Diversity’s enlightened individual Sociology at Diversity projected a specialized sociological identity that brings an understanding of social relations and society to everyday lives. As Table 9.2 shows every aspect of the identity was strong and visible, and, unlike at Community, the curriculum did not relate immediately or obviously to employment. Nevertheless, employment skills did appear visibly in the curriculum, though not in an embedded way (there was one discrete module); and, the personal/social prospective applications of knowledge related to quotidian thinking and acting, whether or not in the context of employment. As Chapter 2 set out, the location of Diversity in a huge city meant work was available, though not necessarily graduate-level work. Table 9.4 shows Diversity’s case-study students’ trajectory though the course in terms of knowledge, aspirations and future plans. More students at Diversity than anywhere told us that sociology had changed them, as confirmed by all our analyses3. Diversity students distinguished

Entry

Had studied a business degree at private university for one year before Diversity. Teaching.

Interested in sociology, no career plans.

Interested in social work.

Social worker.

Student

Lauren: middle class, international student (Brazilian), mature (23).

Leanne: working class, white British, young.

Leena: working class, British Bangladeshi, young.

Lamar: working class, black British, mature (30s), disabled (registered blind).

Table 9.4 Diversity’s case-study students’ future plans Exit

Clinical psychologist or work in a In 2015, had taken a master’s at graduate HR or research post. the IOE which had allowed Concerned that her degree her to convert to educational was low status, makes efforts psychology. throughout (working with Achieved a 2.1. careers, doing volunteering, work experience etc.) to be employable and applied for a lot of graduate positions. Interested in other cultures, does Applies for Thompson’s Travel Arabic and would like to travel. Agents because she wanted to travel. No clear career plan, but wants to move out of her parents’ house within 5 years. Achieved a 2.1. Interested in mental health and Becomes a nurse practitioner. looking forward to module Expects (or wants) a 2.1. where she goes on placement when she will work in a school with children with special needs. Social worker. Cannot afford to do social work degree, but secures free course to train to be a counsellor and do voluntary work at a charity for the blind. Achieved a 2.2.

During

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To join the police,.

Sent by Christian Church with a sense of a mission. Mainly about personal growth.

Interesting and worthwhile job and to gain knowledge.

Lisha: working class, British Pakistani, young.

Lloyd: middle class, white British, young.

Lorenzo: middle class, international student [Columbian], mature (late 20s)

Lucia: working class, British, Work with disadvantaged Pakistani-French, mature parent people – she was already (40’s). volunteering.

Wants a degree to get a good job.

Linda: working class, Ghanaian British, young.

Plans to get qualifications to do degree with a humanitarian focus knows he will carry on his education. Work with disadvantaged people.

Becomes psychologically ill, so starts to work on himself in a more concerted way.

Counselling work and looks for voluntary. She doesn’t want a lot of money. To be a counsellor.

In 2016, she was still working for charities and volunteering and building her knowledge about how to support and advocate for disadvantaged mothers and disabled people. She had the chance to secure an internship with local government. Achieved a 2.2.

2016, doing volunteering for a charity in prisons working with women. Achieved a 2.1. Works on himself so he can be more productive in education and employment. Becomes more critical of Christianity. Was taking more time because of his mental health. Applies for master’s courses in Europe and the States. Expects a 2.1. or 1st.

No final interview. 2nd year marks had been 2.2.

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themselves strongly from others they knew who had not studied sociology because they constantly analysed the world around them and were self-reflective. Leanne (working class, white British, young) told us that her lecturers had encouraged a ‘sociological mind or brain’ and in the third year of her degree ‘I’ve actually started noticing that now’: the examples she gave were of listening to a CD and understanding that it was critical of capitalism, and of noticing when she reverted to thinking about heterosexuality in ways which ‘other’ lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups. Nevertheless, she did not think of a graduate career: rather her family and her connections with them and her boyfriend remain the priority. Diversity students reflected on their own lives and grappled with complexities: We’re studying this module called policing and social order and how the police are there to maintain social order and how we think that police sub-cultures discriminate other people and that’s why they stop and search some people more. It’s made me see that it’s not actually doing that, it’s more complex than that. (Lisha, working class, British Pakistani, young. Year 3)

Sociology provided Lloyd with new perspectives on his Christian beliefs and alternative ways of establishing truths, in this case feminist epistemology: So, understanding postmodernism and how postmodernism was not so much anti-religious [as it challenges] the ideas of modernity and sciences and progress. So it challenges meta-narratives in general, but specifically sciences. But because it rejects all meta-narratives it also happens to reject the religious metanarrative. One of the failings of Christianity, and perhaps religions more generally, is when they come out with truth statements, which don’t relate to our experience in the same way as a social scientist could do. So, I really rate the feminist perspectives and the values which feminist theory places on experience. And so it’s has giving me a language which I can redeploy elsewhere and use in other areas in my life. (Lloyd, Diversity, middle class, white British, young. Year 3)

Unlike Community students, knowledge transformed how Diversity students saw their immediate environment, rather than projecting its use in future action or work. Lucia provides a strong example: The module really opened my eyes on how structures, agencies and structures can constrain you, can constrain the individual and the notion of freewill . . . I went in with an open mind and I think I’ve taken on a lot of knowledge, gained a lot of knowledge, and I’ve used that to help my son and his life. [The module] was about power within society and that helped me understand how social

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workers, how certain people within occupations can use their power against you, so that helped me challenge them in my corresponding letters. (Lucia, Diversity, working class, British Pakistani-French, mature parent [40s]. Year 3)

In terms of employment, Table  9.4 shows no high-end aspirations except, perhaps, Lorenzo with his application for an MA; and, although most of the case-study students had plans commensurate with obtaining a degree, they appeared to be holding fire and shifting plans to accommodate their own realities. Intersecting disadvantages closed employment opportunities: despite much highly appreciated support from tutors and the joy both of gaining knowledge and of achieving his award, Lamar’s disability, lack of money, social class, ethnicity and life experiences combined significantly to constrain his opportunities for work. Lucia, too, who experienced deep transformation from sociological knowledge, was highly constrained from doing the work she wanted to by her poverty and life circumstances. Diversity tutors explicitly steered their students away from opinions, rather they were invited to live their everyday lives with a sociological gaze, and this is what the students showed themselves doing. They enthusiastically took on the identity projected by the classifications and framings of their course. Arguably, Diversity’s speciality was self-knowledge: curriculum and pedagogy positioned students as the oppressed in need of self-liberation, rather than as experts in the wider world. Students’ enlightenment about themselves, others and society related more to being a critical citizen than to being a worker. To argue from our Bernsteinian perspective, the strong focus at Diversity on opening a discursive gap between sociological knowledge and the real world bestowed on students more room than at Community for innovation and change. At Community, there appeared to be less idealism, less thinking beyond what is, and students were more nervous and less flexible about their future working lives.

Prestige’s influential sociologists Prestige graduates were implicitly projected either as the next generation of academics or as powerful agents of change in public roles, expected to make a difference to the lives of others by way of their sociologically shaped, moral dispositions. Either way, the emphasis was inwards towards the regeneration of the discipline. Prestige students had been selected based on their previous academic achievements, and assumptions were made about their capacity to decipher implicit messages. As Table 9.2 shows, the retrospective, disciplinary

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aspect of the specialized sociological identity was strongly framed, but it was invisible. After the first-year core module on founding fathers, it would have been difficult for students to discern the discipline and build a coherent theoretical base because it was embedded in myriad choices based on academics’ research. Applying sociological knowledge was comparatively weakly framed, or it tended to be at a distance from theory; and, reading and essay writing were strongly framed as the key academic performances, but being taken for granted also made them invisible. The table might show that wealthier students are less preoccupied with settling on an occupation straight after a degree and, as we know, Prestige’s graduates will find it comparatively easy to gain employment and a prestigious occupation. Nevertheless, the invisibility of employability (other than as a future academic) in the Prestige curriculum is reflected here. These students did not connect their sociological knowledge to a field of work, as much as students did in Community. Moreover, none of the Prestige case-study students had ambitions to do a PhD and be an academic. Although Fay, Fifi and Frank were applying for master’s degrees, Fifi’s was in media and Frank’s was in music. Faith, Felix and Fleur were thinking of marketing or management; and Frida and Faizah had no plans. Fiona who was passionate about sociology shifted from no ambition to some form of public service to wanting to work in the media. The connection to knowledge was her interest in photography and blogging, which she was focusing on for her dissertation. Fay, who said she was ‘really interested’ in sociology appeared to plan work which related to sociological knowledge in the form of wanting to be a researcher for a charity. The status of Prestige is evident in the strong expectation of the students that they would eventually secure interesting, worthwhile work commensurate with a degree qualification. Most were aware of the broader political power of sociological knowledge. The curriculum and pedagogy orientated the students to thinking about the specific insights that sociology gives on national or global social issues. Fay, for example, reflected on how big business interests can cause human disease: I’ve always assumed and I’m pretty sure most people assume that cancer is a random thing – if you get it, it’s no one’s fault – it just happens and you have to fight it off. There’s not perceived to be any human cause of this problem . . because they [cancer sufferers] don’t know that perhaps it’s because they were living near a field that these pesticides were sprayed on. And it’s not just the pesticides, but there are tons of different environmental causes. (Fay, Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 3)

Interest in commercial law and then a teacher.

Kept doors open by studying sociology alongside law.

No job in mind. Prestige would be good for her prospects in a recession. Picked degree for flexible employment opportunities.

Faith: working class, black British (Nigerian), young.

Faizah: middle class, British Asian, young.

Fay: middle class, white British, young (had one year out).

Fifi: middle class, international Wants to work for UNESCO. student, (Hong Kong Chinese) young. Fiona: working class, white British, Wants to enjoy studying, not young. ambitious. Would like a job in media. Fleur: middle class, white British, Work with people, advertising, young. public relations or event management.

Felix: middle class, white British, young.

Entry

Student

Table 9.5 Prestige’s case-study students’ future plans Exit

Struggles with academic work and becomes ill.

Applies to an airport as a check-in person, wanting to work her way up in the company. Wants to work with people. Getting 2.1 marks, but anxious she’ll get a 2.2.

Works hard to make the Realizes good networking opportunities at Prestige. Interest in most of her opportunities at Prestige. Interest in Real marketing. Estate. Expects a 2.1. Has no plans. Still in year 3 of a 4 year degree with no clear plan. Not finishing this year because she is doing law, she’s better at sociology. Interested in Social Policy, Applies for master’s. Wants to be a NGO or Charity. researcher in a charity. Expects a 1st. Thought he might like Applies for sales and marketing HR. HR placement in a graduate schemes. university puts him off. Hopes for 2.1. Interested in media/ Applies for master’s in two prestigious communication and research institutes. human rights. Confidently expects a 2.1. Interest in social policy, Looks for an internship in media. NGO or a charity. Expects a 1st.

During

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Social work.

Frida: working class, white British, Social work. mature (part-time) (50s).

During Still work in theatre.

Entry

Frank: middle class, white British- Work in musical theatre. Finnish, young. Sociology is for back up security.

Student 3rd Year is a year abroad (Erasmus). Wants to do a master’s (after his 4th year) at SOAS. Still prefers musical theatre, will also apply to these courses. Expects a 2.1. After a placement decides she doesn’t like social work culture. Expects a 1st.

Exit

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In general, Fay thought that sociology had made her ‘less judgemental of people and more angry at the establishment.’ Here Fifi explained how her course has helped her understand what lies behind records and images: We had to look at a picture from the modern records centre and do analysis on it. It was a picture of woman that was a refugee from Hungary to Austria during the Hungarian revolution and it was interesting . . . The whole media and how they have to balance between sending out the right message and then sending out the message that pleases people and then making money as well. And the picture today was stored in a plastic envelope, you had to give all your personal belongings to the receptionist and all this procedure to look at it. But when you look at it, there’s loads of scratches and ink on it and it was interesting to see how the value of the photograph has changed over time and that’s something that I  probably wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. (Fifi, Prestige, middleclass International student [Hong Kong Chinese] young. Year 3)

The sense that students from Prestige had ownership of the knowledge they encountered probably arose from the wide and free curricular choice that they could exercise. Fiona is an example of a student who chose to keep most of her curriculum focused on gender, and enjoyed the freedom greatly: I have gone down a very gendered route, picking my modules, but I’m doing one this year, visual and photography and I never ever thought that I’d get the chance to study that. I guess in a general aspect, [sociology is] just applicable to so many different things. It’s not constrictive at all, I’d never regret choosing it because it opens doors rather than kind of closes them, I think. (Fiona, working class, Prestige, white British, young. Year 3)

This ownership engendered confidence about manipulating knowledge. Fleur, for example, rejected her dissertation supervisor’s advice in favour of doing what she wanted: Initially my dissertation supervisor said that I  should look at it in relation to women and see if there’s any difference. I’d rather just focus on masculinities . . . because I don’t think it’s a black and white case of the binary opposites of men and women. I think it’s a spectrum because, I probably know more about cars than the average male and most of my friends say I’m more of a man than they are, so to me that’s not really something I’m comfortable writing on. So, I’m looking now at the work of Morton, Nixon, Edwards. I  like the way they’ve talked about men, portrayed in magazines and then I will bring out the grooming products side of that and so it’s quite interesting. (Fleur, Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 3)

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The strongly framed, disciplinary retrospective identity at Prestige could keep the students at a distance from the world, rather than immersing them in it, as at Community or Diversity: I suppose the way I interact with what I study is from an outside perspective and I think I’ve learned to do that whilst I’ve been at university because when you’re studying gender inequality and stuff like that, you get down to the dark side, like crime and deviance, domestic violence, you have to study it from an outside perspective ’cos otherwise you get too emotionally involved. So, I suppose actually, no, I don’t think it has really [changed me] ’cos I’ve kind of treated it as theoretical. (Felix, Prestige, middle class, white British, young. Year 3)

Faith’s trajectory at Prestige confirms the findings of other studies of that a sense of not fitting in shapes what is learned (Bathmaker et al., 2016; Crozier et al, 2008). Faith was not a typical Prestige student. She was from Hackney in East London and had seven siblings. Her family were Nigerian and poor, but educated, so Faith always expected to go to university, originally to become a lawyer. She applied to Prestige because she thought it was the best and because she saw it as a route to a lucrative career. There she enrolled to do sociology as well as law (not telling her father who would have disapproved). In the first year, it was difficult to settle and she felt out of place. During the second year, Faith became more comfortable, she lived off-campus and joined and became social secretary for a black students’ society, which provided a sense of community. By the third year, Faith thought she had, as she put it, ‘cracked a code’ whereby she could grow personally and make use of networks and opportunities. Although she did get in touch with law firms in the second year, she had turned to the idea of marketing in the third, and was still focused on making money, but also open to possibilities. Leaving Prestige was the beginning for Faith who had learned to become independent of her family and Hackney and had begun to see the point of sociological knowledge, almost as an epiphany (as did others we spoke to): As much as I found the past three years frustrating and useless, it is amazing how it all actually interlinks with now. So, it gives more depth to the essays and to the exams and when you can relate, like Foucault, to under achievement or something. I never thought in a million years that I would be able to make that kind of relationship. So, yes, being able to connect the past and the present is very intriguing for me. (Faith, Prestige, working class, Black British (Nigerian), young. Year 3)

In her dissertation about black boys’ educational underachievement, Faith thought about her own social class and ethnic background. In that final year,

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Faith told us about how she’d had to change as a person to stay the course at Prestige: she distanced herself from working-class culture. In terms of work, she believed she had access to useful networks that she would not have had without being at Prestige. Yet, as a counter to Faith’s story, working-class Fiona and Frida (who was also mature and part-time) were achieving high marks and expecting first-class degrees. The freedom to pursue her own interests in gender and media had been particularly rewarding for Fiona. It seemed to us that at Prestige there was more disconnection than in the other departments between the projected identity and that which we extrapolated from what students told us about themselves in their final year. Prestige’s third-year students were highly engaged and interested in their dissertation projects, but we did not hear of ambitions to become influential in the world or in the discipline. Moreover, their interest in knowledge was more disassociated from considerations of work than that of Community’s students and from their everyday lives than that of Diversity’s students.

Selective’s influential public service professionals Selective’s graduates were projected as highly influential public-service professionals, facing the outside world of practices and policies. The disciplinary/retrospective aspect of the specialized sociological identity was strong and visible, as was the social aspect: knowledge was classified to solve practical social problems. Compared to that at Community, the sacred knowledge of the disciplinary base was significantly more specialized and the empirical areas far broader. Community’s projections were about intervening in practice, while Selective’s were about knowledge generation about practices. Except for research skills, practical professional skills at Selective were not visible or strong, unlike those at Community. There were more diverse future plans in Selective than in the other departments. They fell into two sets. The strongly projected knowledge base was realized in three of the seven case-study students, all white and middle class, aspiring to PhDs. Of these, Esther and Elliott began their degrees wanting to have socially influential jobs and this did not change. Ethan said he ‘loves complex theory’ and wanted to do a criminology PhD. Of the other four, Elmira’s degree did not move her from wanting a career in media and she adhered to media-related choices as far as possible. Elisabeth had a baby in the second year, so was not yet able to plan. Ed left Selective in the second year and Elma-Louise was asked to leave. We looked at these students’ relationships to knowledge to unpack some of the differences.

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Table 9.6 Selective’s case-study students’ future plans Student

Entry

Ed: working class, To help improve black Caribbean the lives of and white, young. disadvantaged children, perhaps teaching.

Elisabeth: middle Management role class, black in the Home Caribbean, young. Office.

Elliott: middle class, Social worker. white British, mature (23).

Elma-Louise: working class, white British, mature (40s) parent.

Work with the elderly or vulnerable or in a charity organization.

Elmira: middle class, international student (Indian and English), young.

Work in the media as a TV presenter – at first in the UK for experience and then back home in India.

During

Exit

By 2016, has worked in two jobs for charities and a union; has completed a degree at another university; and has secured a job with Amnesty. Achieves a 1st at another university. Same ambition, but Still wanted to work has a baby by the in a management end of the second role (it is her year. Takes a year 2nd year). out. Thinks a 2.1 is achievable. Decided on a PhD. Went back to wanting to use his knowledge in practice. Worked with NEET young people and is planning to pursue a career in social work. Achieved a 1st. A friend was Passes insufficient encouraging her modules and was to apply for some asked to leave. voluntary work with disaffected young people. Not sure it is right and thought too about the Open University. Failed. Follows mediaPlans a media related modules. course or work experience. Confident she could do it in India through contacts. Wants a 2.1, but marks are a 2.2. Works with politically engaged activists. Left in 2nd year to stand as Labour councillor.

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During

Exit

Esther: middle class, Work for UN or white, British, Brussels. (brought up in Belgium), mature (23)

Planning career.

Ethan: middle class, Wants the degree white, British, and to do well. young (2 years out between school and university)

Wants to do a PhD.

Intends go to Cambridge to do a PhD (if she is accepted – she had applied) or back to Belgium. She will try to work for the European Commission. Achieved a 1st. Wants to do a PhD and is applying for master’s. Achieved a 1st.

Elliot, who planned a PhD, grappled with knowledge which shed light on his interest in the stigma of mental illness in society: I was trying to read loads of things about power and about hegemony and about the processes behind valuing things in society, about the effects of labelling. I was reading all these different things and I put some ideas together and there’s been two or three times when I’ve brought these ideas to my seminar leader and she’s said ‘Well, I think you’re trying to over-complicate things and you’ve got the wrong end of these ideas some of the time’ . . . I can see the ideas and I know that they relate to this, but how they relate to it, I couldn’t work out how to link it in and this is what I was finding so frustrating. (Elliot, Selective, middle class, white British, mature [23]. Year 3)

He had started his course wanting to be a social worker, but by the end he wanted to be a researcher, still in the interests of others. Elliot reveals a strong sociology for public-service identity which meshes with that projected in his department: I want to be in a position where I’m doing stuff, not just for the sake of ‘Oh that’s interesting, I wonder why that happens?’ I need to know that whatever I’m doing as a job has some real worth behind it. [Not something] of no use to anyone, I don’t want to be that person. I want what I do and what I research to be useful, to help make things better for people. What I always wanted to do as a career was to help people’s lives and make things a bit easier for people. (Elliot, Selective, white, British, middle class, mature [23]. Year 3).

Esther started the course already passionate about sociology and from the start was clearly directed towards becoming influential. She said she was motivated

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to change the world and thought pragmatically about how to do that, though she was unhappy about taking advantage of her privilege. Work in the European Parliament would follow a PhD at Cambridge, not because she thought it the best place but because of its global market value and recognition: I know that to change the world you have to change yourself. So, I’m conflicted. I know that I have to be able to gain a position wherein I can change the world, I can’t change myself because the world is a class-prejudiced world. And if I were to go against all of that and not take advantage of the privileges that I’ve had, I won’t get as far as I would if I do take advantage of those privileges. But it is hypocritical because where I want to be is in a position of power where I can make decisions that will impact peoples’ lives. (Esther, Selective, middle class, white British, mature [23] (brought up in Belgium). Year 3)

Like Elliott, her personal project does not change from when she arrives at university, and it is a close fit with how sociology is classified at Selective as understanding and solving societal problems. Though he had less interest in practice, Ethan wanted to do good by getting a PhD and becoming an academic. His identity was already as a future sociologist specializing in criminology:  ‘I see myself doing it longer term. In my head, I imagine myself as a [sociologist], that’s the path that I’ve chosen. So even though I haven’t achieved it yet, my sense of self is based on that, the way I see myself in the future is as a sociologist of criminology.’ (Ethan, middle class, white British, young. Year 3). Elliot, Ethan and Esther had strong specialized sociological identities attaining the most inclusive conceptions of sociological knowledge. While Esther’s identity had been formed before she arrived, Elliott’s and Ethan’s progressed during the course. Elmira, too, intended to be influential as a TV presenter. She believed that her cultural studies knowledge and her connections in India would help. She saw herself as bringing a different kind of knowledge to media debates: You wouldn’t think that something as little as violence or as class would be constructed culturally. But it is. We [her and her friends] all have different views. That is the thing about us. Because everyone looks at the world differently. Because of what they have studied. Everyone notices different things. So, yes, I think it is like no matter what you study it does make you notice things that like a person who hasn’t studied probably wouldn’t. (Elmira, Selective, middle class, International student [Indian and English], young. Year 3).

The two working-class students who did not complete the course had different experiences that relate to pedagogical framings. Ed identified as black

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Caribbean (though his mother was white) and was highly political when he arrived at university (when he first left Selective he became a Labour councillor). The emphasis on independent study was difficult for him and he was disappointed by the lacklustre discussion in seminars. Most of all, a discursive gap was not opening between the vertical discourse of discipline and the world full of social problems in which Ed was passionately interested. He gives an example of a rare occasion when he was engaged: My friend had organised a refugees’ and detainees’ week. And we had a big lecture from someone. Campaigners came in and we had people talking about their experiences. We learned so much. It gives me kind of passion because I know exactly what I am writing about, who I am referring to. When I’m thinking about people who are engaging in the system I can think of so and so from Iraq who has fled the country. I can picture them in my mind. I  can say this is why I  am writing this essay because I  want to, you know, educate people. Maybe that is a too grand a word for it. Maybe just explain this situation. I think that is so important and that was so complimentary to the actual course. I would recommend it, but sadly not a lot of people from the course went to it. I think that is a bizarre thing because I jumped at the chance. I think you do benefit so much, instead of just reading a book which seems to me stale. (Ed, Selective, working class, black Caribbean and white, young. Year 3)

Ed went on to complete a first-class degree at a lower-status university and now works in a prestigious job for Amnesty International. Ed’s story illustrates how accounts of social class and race can be over deterministic, particularly in the case of university education where the individual has already dealt with walls in the head and can be given opportunities by dedicated teachers. While intersecting structural and personal barriers of class and ethnicity influenced Ed’s ability to complete his degree at Selective, other elements in his background forged motivation to gain and use knowledge to improve the lot of others. Arguably Selective’s strongly framed disciplinary classification offered the knowledge base, but the pedagogical framings did not give him access to the knowledge he wanted. Nevertheless, he adhered to his personal project and pursued it elsewhere. Selective’s education had not supported Elma-Louise’s future life plans. Social class and disability constrained her freedom and opportunity: she was a mature, working-class student in her late forties who had qualified through an access course. Although she often said she enjoyed her studies, she more often said that they were a ‘struggle’: again the difficulty seemed to be that theory did not connect with real-life problems, as they had done at her further education college:

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They give you too much, too many different things. I mean reflexivity, Margaret Archer, you’ve got your Durkheim and you’ve got your Marx and you’ve got your Bourdieu, and all that, and Weber. And, then you’ve got the genders and the race and all that. Whereas at Access level, you got the family, which I found very interesting and then you got your crime and deviance. But the difference was that here they focus on the ideas of sociologists, like the big sociologists like Weber and Marx. (Elma-Louise, Selective, working class, white British, mature [40s] parent. Year 2).

Moreover, comments on her work seemed to her harsh and knocked her confidence. At home her daughter was at what Elma-Louise called a ‘difficult age’, her mother had dementia and then died; and, money was always a problem. She became depressed and when she failed the course because of non-submission in the second year, it was suggested that she withdraw. She found the academics unhelpful: ‘I tried to make them aware, but I got the impression that they kind of didn’t really understand. It was just deal with it, you know, you’re at university, get on with it’, and she appeared not to have the emotional and practical resources to navigate the mitigating circumstances board. Nevertheless, Elma-Louise reported benefits. Even as she was leaving she said: ‘It’s really educated me and made me see how things are rather than how things ought to be because obviously how it is now and ought to be are two different things.’ She also claimed she had learned to respect others and differences, mainly because she had met international students who had completely different lives and perspectives. In Year 2, when she was re-doing modules, she said she had learned many new concepts and ways of thinking about the world (e.g. Bourdieu’s and Warde’s work on food and the concepts of discourses) which she found useful even though she felt the academic way of speaking was out of step with her culture and background. During the last interview, she still wanted to carry on with sociology, but couldn’t see how to afford it, and she wished she still had options. She had learned, she said, to question the validity of her own perspective and encouraged those around her to question theirs. Our survey showed Selective’s students most engaged in knowledge. This might be because it attracts middle-class, well-prepared students who are already oriented to future studying or high-end, professional, public service work and are looking for a strong sociological knowledge base with which to understand a broad range of social issues. For these students Selective is a perfect fit: they have no difficulty seeing the invisible performance aspect of specialized sociological identity. This is in contrast with Prestige, which attracted the same kind of student, but then offered a curriculum in which the discipline rather than the

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world was foregrounded. Arguably, students at Prestige were disengaged from knowledge because being projected as a future producer of the discipline is far removed from most undergraduate sociology students’ preoccupations. While Selective’s curriculum was broad and deep and opened discursive gaps for the right kind of knower, its pedagogical framings presented barriers to students whose access to sacred knowledge needed visibility and all the indicators of good quality we discussed in Chapter 7, particularly, perhaps, good, caring relationships and high-quality discussion.

Conclusion For some students, a university education is code-disrupting, allowing them to imagine otherwise unimaginable futures, whether as individuals, workers, or citizens. The four differently inflected identities discussed here offered distinct ways of connecting the disciplinary, the personal/social and the performative aspects of the specialized sociological identity. Students were differently positioned and orientated towards sociological knowledge when they arrived at university depending on their conceptions of who they were and what university was for. In our project, for knowledge to be powerful and transformational it needed to relate to lived experience and for many it related to their own backgrounds. Through the prism of sociology, students reflected on ethnicity or social class (for example, seeing their own privilege critically or understanding their own disadvantage). The power of sociological knowledge to open up possibilities for students’ beings and doings when they left university depended on whether discursive gaps arose for them, that is, whether knowledge and life enlightened each other. It is this enlightenment that should inform indicators of engagement, success and employability for a sociology-related degree because personal transformation, identity formation and the social epistemic contribution are powerful outcomes (Fricker, 2007). Moreover, the accounts presented show that simplistic accounts of how universities can support employability are unhelpful: we found little evidence of Bernstein’s instrumental identity, of the discourse of transferable skills and employability infiltrating student consciousness. In fact, we found a strong discrepancy between the identities projected by official pedagogic discourse and the identities students appeared to be forming. The time has come for us to summarize the comparisons that we have been making throughout the book. A caveat in Chapter 1 signalled that the reason for

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delaying judgement about the relative quality of the degrees we investigated is to show that such judgements should not be quickly made. Good-quality education was evident in all four departments:  all curricula provided opportunities for students to find discursive gaps between theory and life for students to think about new possibilities, to access pedagogic rights and to form a sociological identity. The last chapter painted the big and moderately optimistic picture about the power of sociology-based knowledge to disturb societal inequalities. In this chapter, we have drawn attention to the precarious and partial nature of gaining the knowledge and understanding necessary to form empowering identities and access pedagogic rights. Whatever the opportunities and constraints offered by different curricula and pedagogy, some students were more constrained than others in achieving valuable and valued ways of seeing and being, including employment. Personal life projects are not always pursued in contexts of the students’ own choosing or making; we have shown that disadvantage limits the scope for agency and university education can have limited effect. That said, it appears that the strong, coherent knowledge bases offered at Diversity and Selective engaged students in academic knowledge more than did those at Community and Prestige (see Table 9.1). At the same time, we saw that teaching was rated by students as significantly better at Community and Diversity than at Prestige (see Table 7.1). Yet, it was at Selective that qualitative data shows us that the pedagogic framings constrain some students from gaining access to powerful knowledge. Selective’s curriculum served middle-class, prepared students well, but its pedagogy did not do justice to students with disadvantages. The case-study students at Selective were either highly engaged or had left the university. On the other hand, Community’s students engaged least with knowledge (Table 9.1) and its teaching was rated as good: the knowledge base was narrow and hard to discern so students became engaged with comparatively narrow applications. We can extrapolate that good teaching cannot compensate for poor curriculum content and design. Diversity and Prestige were similar in that both offered strong, singular sociology. Yet they illustrate entirely different ways of recontextualizing sociological knowledge. At Diversity, every aspect of the specialized sociological pedagogic identity was strongly framed, visible and connected to students’ lives so that the relatively disadvantaged students were supported to gain recognition and realization rules. At Prestige, the inward focus on discipline and the enormous amount of choice given to the students rendered the recontextualized curriculum weakly framed. Sociology was strongly classified but the main emphasis

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was on the growth of the discipline, rather than the solution of societal problems, which students appeared to find comparatively difficult to engage with. In this view, it is Diversity that was offering the highest-quality university education. We expand on this judgment in the concluding chapter where we draw together the threads of our argument.

Notes 1 We tried to follow-up on the students and could contact nine of the thirty-one; this column reflects any information we have about after the student left university. 2 From interview and phenomenographic analyses. 3 Interviews, phenomenographic and survey analyses.

Part Five

Conclusion

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Socially Just University Curriculum and Pedagogy

Being hopeful, radical and realistic are powerful motivational forces. Moreover, they have special salience in the education context at the moment because many of its aspects are frequently experienced and spoken about negatively. Today, increasing numbers of people are justifiably sceptical of, sometimes even cynical about, official solutions to educational problems. Halpin, 2003, p. 8 To be aware of the various forms constraint can take is not to diminish the possibility of [people], is not to see [them] as passive, is not to underwrite the stability of power relationships, it is to raise to our consciousness its own shaping; that is to experience the sociological paradox, which is the crucible in which the imagination is forged. Bernstein, 1975, p. 13

Life chances, life style and the social influence of individuals depends on their access to the stock of knowledge at hand. Stehr, 1994, p. 93.

Introduction Many are pessimistic about higher education’s social-critical role. We end by restating the problems, but also by rehearsing grounds for cautious optimism. It does look radical to call for reinstating the central place of knowledge in a goodquality university education in the face of persistent, entrenched inequalities and current neo-liberal-inspired policy. But our hope is empirically-grounded, based on realities in university departments.

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To recall our statement about epistemic access in Chapter 1, the overarching problem in terms of justice is what Miranda Fricker (2007) calls ‘hermeneutic justice’, that is, the extent to which people have equal access to the means and opportunities to contribute to the stock of concepts and meanings in society. Our quest was to uncover undergraduate education that can be described as socially just because it results in the human capability for social epistemic contribution (ibid.). Underpinning this quest, is a view of justice drawn from Amartya Sen’s Idea of Justice (2009): justice is not absolute or perfect (as some philosophers would have it) and can be difficult to identify. Sen observes: ‘What moves us, reasonably enough, is not the realization that the world falls short of being completely just – which few of us expect – but that there are clearly remediable injustices around us which we want to eliminate’ (ibid., p.vii). So, progress is to make comparative evaluations of what moves towards or away from justice in any situation, including university education. Fricker (2007) takes the same view when she refers to ‘success states’1 defined as those states where injustice has been ‘staved off ’. These states are hard to achieve ‘because the will to power; conditions of competition; and, the tendency to prejudice make it hard to practice virtue’ (p. 11). Justice, then, is realized in real, non-ideal, messy human situations such as university teaching spaces and can easily be lost. The rest of this chapter concludes the book in three sections by: ●

●

●

Setting out what constitutes socially just pedagogy using Diversity’s sociology degree as an illustration. Returning to the patterning of inequalities in society to argue that injustice is done to students attending lower-status universities by not recognizing their achievements. Arguing for expansive versions of good-quality education that closely relate to curriculum and pedagogy to challenge narrow measurements that both distort its nature and harden inequality.

An illustration of socially just curriculum and pedagogy Justice is done to students when they access powerful knowledge which draws ‘sacred’ and profane’ into relationship with each other, creating discursive gaps in their minds. Our three-year, longitudinal research shed light on how undergraduate epistemic justice encompasses both quality and inequality and confirmed that power resides in gaining specific disciplinary knowledge.

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Bauman and May (2001) summarize the specific potential power of sociological knowledge: To think sociologically can render us more sensitive and tolerant of diversity. It can sharpen our senses and open our eyes to new horizons beyond our immediate experiences [to] explore human conditions which, hitherto, have remained relatively invisible. Once we understand better how the apparently natural, inevitable, immutable, eternal aspects of our lives have been brought into being through the exercise of human power and resources, we shall find it much harder to accept that they are immune and impenetrable to subsequent actions, including our own. Sociological thinking, as an antifixating power, is therefore a power in its own right. (Bauman and May, 2001, p. 11)

We found a complex, subtle patterning of epistemic in/equalities and no clear relationship between status of university, acquisition of knowledge and the types of capabilities for life being (imperfectly) formed. In keeping with imperfect justice, it was often difficult to judge the comparative quality of education. An example might be that a compulsory, final-year dissertation (as in Diversity, Prestige and Selective) veers towards justice because it gives students the opportunity to relate knowledge to their personal preoccupations, concerns or life projects. Community did not engage in this form of justice, but it explicitly encouraged students to be confident and challenge public speakers about issues of public concern. It is important to emphasize that students in all departments were recipients of good-quality education. Students were given opportunities to gain knowledge which was powerful because it formed a specialized sociological identity, opening up discursive gaps between disciplinary knowledge and life and giving access to pedagogic rights:  that is, they gained in confidence, felt more part of society as a whole and had capabilities for participating in civic life. Students in all departments formed a sociological gaze and a questioning stance, which they brought to bear either on themselves, or on others in the world around them, or both. Regardless of intersecting social disadvantages and of university status, many students valued how a sociology-related university education had transformed them into open-minded people whose role it is to question matters taken for granted in society, and who are positioned to contribute to society So, we did not find that educational quality was distributed according to university hierarchy:  students who were studying sociology or sociologyrelated subjects were more similar to each other than different from each other. Nevertheless, as discussed in the last chapter, it is possible to say something about

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relative pedagogic quality in the four departments. On our reading, the curriculum and pedagogy at Diversity were doing the most justice because relatively disadvantaged students were more engaged in sociologically related knowledge than at Prestige, which was a high-status department with selected and usually advantaged students. Most important, our investigation of Diversity’s curriculum and pedagogy through a Bernsteinian lens explains why we have come to this judgement. First, the curriculum was strongly and visibly sociological, so the students were given opportunities to understand what sociology is and is not. Second, the sacred knowledge of the discipline was strongly and visibly connected to the students’ lives. The course team worked hard to understand and relate knowledge to their students’ pre-existing passions, ambitions, and identities. Third, what was expected in sociological texts (i.e. talk, essays, research) was visible and supported. In sum, all three aspects of a specialized sociological identity were strongly classified and visible in the curriculum. At the same time, independence was supported, mostly through the final-year dissertation. In the main, at Diversity all pedagogical framings were strong and visible to overcome the barriers of structural unpreparedness for university study. Explicit guidance was given about what was expected from assignments and the dissertation was particularly well supported. Academics worked hard on relationships with students: the emotional labour was evident, and they were unfailingly available, friendly and encouraging. But all was not perfect. While the evaluation rules conveyed high expectations of academic achievement, the case-study students complained about the quality of discussion in seminars, which we also observed. Weakly framed, democratic relationships with academics appeared to result in ill-disciplined behaviour, which deteriorated as the degree progressed. Such behaviour compromised the students’ efforts to study sociology. The solution to mitigating the problem involved stronger more visible framing, though negotiated with the students themselves: a respect contract which made explicit the expectations for seminar performances. The willingness and effort collectively to solve problems was, for us, a further sign of good quality at Diversity. It is not coincidental that Diversity’s course leader and other academics in the department had special research interest in pedagogy. They were not only research-active sociologists,2 modelling the passion, argument, evidence, and criticality of being and practising sociology, but also had educational knowledge. Diversity exemplifies Lee Shulman’s concept of (1986) ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ which is a particularly generative way of thinking about good-quality education (McLean and Ashwin, 2017). Shulman proposed that

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good-quality teaching lies in the expertise to make subject knowledge accessible to specific groups of students. Teachers, therefore, need to know their discipline and also know about pedagogy so that they can make judgements about how to design and teach curriculum. To achieve knowledge of pedagogical content, teachers first must understand the deep structures of their disciplines and fields, so that they are not only capable of defining for students the accepted truths in a domain. They [are] also able to explain why a particular proposition is deemed warranted, why it is worth knowing, and how it relates to other propositions, both within the discipline and without, both in theory and in practice. (Shulman, 1986, p. 9)

Second, combined with understanding of content per se is knowledge about ‘ways of representing and formulating the subject that makes it comprehensive to others’ (ibid.). This includes, for example, knowing about: powerful analogies, illustrations, demonstrations; what makes specific topics difficult; common preconceptions and misconceptions and how to reorganize material address them. It also involves designing coherent and demanding curriculum because it seems that without strongly framed disciplinary knowledge with clear goals there are limits on what pedagogy can do. In pedagogical content knowledge, the deeper the understanding of the discipline and of how students learn, the better the understanding of optimum curricular classifications and pedagogical framings. Nevertheless, decisions about the classification of curriculum (what is taught) and framing of pedagogy (how it is taught) need to align to bring students into a productive relationship with disciplinary subject matter. Pedagogical content knowledge was evident at Diversity and it is a way of thinking that could improve quality by informing programmes for education and training university teachers. Diversity demonstrates the powerful and life-changing nature of sociological knowledge, when tutors know what they are doing and when students understand that they are engaged in an educative process (Diversity students did not see university as a social process). The students valued what they learned from sociology at Diversity and it will shape the rest of their lives. More can be learned about Diversity’s curriculum and pedagogy by reading an account written by the course leaders (Jenkins et al., 2017). In this account they tell us: In the dedications of their dissertations, the students talk about the personal journey they have undergone through studying sociology with a sense of disbelief in their transformation. One student commented that during her degree, ‘I grew more than I could ever have expected’. (Jenkins et al., 2017, p. 62)

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What we found at Diversity might be extraordinary or unique, that is an empirical question that we cannot answer. Notwithstanding, Diversity’s sociology course shows us both what a good-quality sociology undergraduate education looks like and that good quality is not the preserve of higher-status universities.

Doing justice to students by not buying into myths of hierarchy The inequities in higher education which we discussed in Chapter  3 prevail. Injustices occur in three phases: coming into higher education (access); being at university (participation); and, going out of university into the rest of life (outcomes). As discussed, there are systematic inequalities of access: barriers to entering university connected to social class, age and ethnic background; poverty and other deprivations; type of school; and geographical location. The students we researched were already at university, a good many against the odds. There are also systematic inequities when students leave universities to go into employment: the graduate premium appears to be lessening for poorer students and, at the same time, those from a few high-status universities monopolize highstatus, well-paid jobs in the global labour market. It seems then that a degree has become a positional good of diminishing value to historically excluded groups. It is evident that the higher education system reflects power and privilege in society. Yet, we argue, our research has shown that when relatively disadvantaged students experience good-quality university education, even at a lowerstatus university, they gain valuable outcomes for their futures lives. In Chapter 3 we discussed evidence about how social class shapes differentiated student experiences in different universities according the hierarchies in society. These stories cannot be denied, indeed, as we showed in the last chapter we had similar findings, so the life chances of some students are restricted in some university departments (for example, Elma-Louise might have blossomed at Diversity). However, the subtext to which we object is that it is not worthwhile for relatively disadvantaged students to go to university, given high fees,3 the diminishing economic value to them and the difficulties of the experience of participation, including the psycho-social reputational effects when they go, as they usually do, to lower-status universities (Bathmaker et al., 2016). Going to university is still worthwhile. A  university education might systematically, economically benefit some students more than others, but in terms

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of the graduate premium, a strong classification remains between who goes to university and who does not;4 even if the gap is getting smaller, it is still large. Similarly, it is the case that university is more often a difficult and uncomfortable experience for relatively disadvantaged students than for their middle-class peers (Bathmaker et al., 2016), but, as we have argued, university education is for boundary crossing and transformations which are often uncomfortable. We found the most disadvantaged students for whom university was at a cultural distance from their natal context showing determination, personal gain and enjoyment. These students should not be denied what they themselves valued. For us, much commentary feeds the unjustified prejudice we discussed in Chapter 4 about the ‘new unis’. This kind of prejudice jeopardizes the ‘testimonial rights’ of graduates of lower-status universities (Fricker, 2007): Whether agentially or structurally, power works to create or preserve a given social order, to enable or silence, to confer upon certain speakers or groups, qua persons of that kind, ‘a credibility excess’ or ‘a credibility deficit’, thereby enhancing or restricting their epistemic access to recognition as viable participants in epistemic exchanges on which their social self-conceptions depend. (Fricker, 2007, p. 21)

This means that ‘identity prejudices’ or stereotyping are at work resulting in a ‘credibility deficit’ for graduates from lower-status universities:  it is widely accepted that when they write CVs or go to job interviews they are systematically less epistemically credible or trusted than are students from higher-status universities. Given that Oxbridge graduates and those from a few of the higherranking universities pull away from other universities in the labour market, it could be argued that, on the contrary, these graduates enjoy a credibility excess. Moreover, as we have shown, there are moving stories of growth and transformation in the lower-status universities, that is, to say socio-economic class and its intersecting disadvantages do not tell the whole story, nor do they tell an entirely negative one (also see Ahier et al., 2003 and Stuart, 2012 for positive accounts). It is injustice to gainsay Diversity’s students’ enlightenment because employment is neither imminent nor likely to be high-status. We will not forget Lamar’s joy the day he heard he had achieved a degree, nor that of the academics at Diversity when we gave them feedback from the research; it was a counter to their feeling undervalued by always being ranked low. Justice is recognizing the achievements of students and academics at lower-status universities, especially in a higher education system of hierarchies that construct barriers to self-confidence and awareness, knowledge and social mobility. Not to do so is denigrating.

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‘Excellence’ is the enemy of good-quality university education Chapter 4 argued that constructions of good-quality higher education in official policy discourse and practices both hardens inequalities because it promotes an unfair competition; and misrepresents a genuinely good-quality education because the proxies used to measure quality are far from the site of teaching and don’t focus on what really matters, which is courses teaching (inter)disciplinary and/or professional knowledge. Putting universities into competition with each other to attain excellence and create a highly stratified system is deleterious to justice. In a twist on the phrase everywhere attributed to Bernstein, Stephen Gorard (2010) makes the point, ‘Education can compensate for society – a bit’. His focus is on schools, but his argument can be extrapolated to universities which is that the bit of compensation for equalities is discernible in systems which are not highly stratified by choice and which do not over emphasize attainment. We have adapted the quotation below to apply to universities, rather than schools: [Universities] can compensate for society – a bit. As mini-societies in themselves [higher education] can be shaped as the kind of wider society we would like, rather than left to represent only the society we have. There are serious inequalities and some difficult social problems in the population at large. But [universities] can be designed to minimise the experience and impact of both of these, affording [students three years] of a mixed peer group and mutually respectful relationships with adults. To some extent this is what [universities] already do. But if they were engineered for that purpose more explicitly, once policy-makers and other commentators had realised that the differential [employment] issue was largely a red herring, at least as currently conceived, then this benign influence of [universities] could be even greater . . . Quality and equality are very far from being in conflict here. This is because of the diminishing returns on any ‘investment’ in the already advantaged learners, and the inefficiency produced by enhancing rather than counteracting privileged student bias. (Gorard, 2010, p. 60)

It should be clear that quality and a reduction in inequality are not being served when higher education rankings position the sociology education at Diversity as inferior to that at Prestige. Moreover, under the mantra of excellence what matters is being better than others in obvious ways. A brief examination of the three metrics to be used by the imminent teaching excellence framework (TEF) in England to rank institutions gold, silver or bronze illustrates the problem. The first TEF metric is graduate

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employment six months after graduation. Such a metric does not fit with students’ shifting ideas about what to do with life that we heard about. It is important what graduates can make of themselves for many years into the future, about which employment after six months will give no indication, it is too early to judge. Moreover, thinking about employability in terms of the graduate premium limits thinking about the social contribution of enlightened citizen graduates (Ahier et al., 2003). The second TEF metric is retention. This metric does not allow for how students’ lives, especially those who have not expected or felt entitled to a university education, might not have straightforward trajectories. Research investigating what happens to dropouts across Europe concluded that it is better to have enrolled university and not completed than not to have enrolled, especially considering that a third come back into the system and complete (Schnepf, 2017). Not only are these dropouts more likely to be in employment and in top-level positions than those who have never gone to university; but, they are also likely to benefit in more intangible ways from what they learn. Penalizing universities interprets noncompletion as personal failure and time wasted, when reality is more complex and often more positive. The third metric is student satisfaction as measured by the national student survey (NSS) which students complete at the end of their degrees. This metric could be disastrous if departments elide good-quality education with what satisfies students, rather than understanding from the students’ perspectives what is difficult for them and then adapting pedagogical framing. ‘Excellence’ also distorts the nature of good-quality teaching by implying it is either excellent or not and once excellent is always excellent. Yet, we have shown the complexities of designing good courses and teaching for different students at different times (the academics at Diversity talked about how getting older had put them out of touch with their students so they had to think again about how to make the curriculum speak to them); and, like justice itself, good-quality courses and teaching require constant vigilance as conditions, students, teachers and the world changes. Excellence, as officially constructed, then, is ruinous to good-quality undergraduate education.

Conclusion Our research showed how students encountered knowledge that transformed their understanding of who they are, what the world is and how they can change both themselves and the world. Different forms of knowledge act in different ways: (inter)disciplinary and professional fields have unique histories and

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trajectories; and, each will be characterized by ‘signature pedagogies’5 which produce different, specialized identities; though all, at their best, will have a collective aspect and endow pedagogic rights. Additionally, specific contexts (for example, the profile of students and resources available) will present different challenges when deciding on what counts as good quality. We know a good deal about the generic aspects of university education, but far less is known about it at the level of disciplinary curriculum and pedagogy.6 In this respect, we found Bernstein’s theory highly fruitful, as Davies (2011) puts it for us: ‘I know of none that are so full of promise for understanding, penetrating and providing insight upon the possible ground for modifying pedagogy in pursuit of more equitable outcomes’ (p. 36). The theory is a resource for understanding the transformation of knowledge as it moves through society and into peoples’ lives, shaping different types of transformation and consciousness. Good-quality university education, then, is situated at the level of department and courses, not at the level of individual teachers or at the level of the university. This is because it is at course level that students gain access to powerful disciplinary knowledge, skills and dispositions, such as thinking critically. University departments everywhere should guard against impoverished, skillbased and employment-focused versions of university education. Vocational or professional courses can, of course, be powerful for students when designed with a sound, coherent knowledge base which opens up ways of seeing and being, rather than being reduced to a set of discrete skills that are meaningless without engagement with knowledge (Wheelahan, 2010). Whether vocational courses play out as empowering or restricting depends on whether the knowledge acquired in the interplay between the specialist languages and concepts and everyday local knowledge expands students’ horizons. Finally, we return where we started in Chapter 1 with universities’ critical and social functions (Habermas, 1989). A large proportion of the global and national population attends university where it studies different bodies of (inter)disciplinary and professional knowledge with the potential to contribute beneficially to individuals and to society. Currently, though, the functions of universities for social value and public good are ignored, undermining the role they could play in building inclusive, just societies oriented to human flourishing (Walker and McLean, 2013). In emphasizing their special educative function, perhaps universities can refocus on their continuing importance as critical and autonomous institutions, albeit threatened by the march of marketization. Fricker’s concept of institutional virtue can be applied: university education should have something to do with the means and opportunities for people to become credible

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knowers. So, we can conceptualize socially just, good-quality undergraduate curriculum and pedagogy not as perfectible, but rather as an imperfect process of iterative discussion and coming to agreements at national, institutional and departmental levels. Whether hermeneutical justice is being done will always be an empirical question. Such discussions could bring together a broad grouping of higher education actors who are interested in challenging and disrupting dominant, marketized discourse of quality. As Bernstein implies in the quotation that starts the chapter, these discussions need to be both about how inequalities in education become entrenched and immutable and about how they might be disrupted, even a bit. Universities are places where it should be possible to prise open spaces for hope:  university education does not have the power to solve society’s inequities, but it can put a brake on or disrupt them.

Notes 1 2

3

4 5 6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8zoN6GghXk. It should be noted that one aspect of inequality in the system is how research has been put under pressure in the lower-status universities as the government aims to concentrate it in the higher-status universities. It is to hoped that barriers will be lifted with the recommendations of the Stern Report (2016) which acknowledges that the REF has functioned to the disadvantage of women, black and minority ethnic academics, and academics with disabilities; that it devalues interdisciplinary research; and that it has a narrow conception of ‘impact’. Our research was conducted just before a hike in fees to circa £9,000 a year in England, but that has not slaked the thirst for higher education, and researchers for the paired peers project (see Chapter 2) were surprised to find that fees were not a large issue for students (Bathmaker et al., 2016). https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/aug/18/gap-between-graduate-andnon-graduate-wages-shows-signs-of-waning (Accessed 30 July 2017). Signature pedagogies have been identified by research unpinned by the concept of pedagogic content knowledge (Gurung et al., 2009). An exception is work on ‘threshold concepts’ and ‘thinking and practicing’ disciplines (Meyer and Land, 2006).

App endix 1

Research Methodology ‘Quality and Inequality in Undergraduate Degrees’ was a three-year, longitudinal, mixed-method study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [Grant Number:  RES-062-23-1438]. Data was mostly generated between November 2008–January 2012 and has been interrogated, analysed and theorized over time. Preceding this book, papers and book chapters charted the evolution of our thinking.1 We aimed to find ways of judging the quality of university pedagogy and curriculum in university undergraduate courses from the perspective of social inclusion and justice. There were three objectives: 1) to evaluate the quality of pedagogy and curriculum in undergraduate sociology and related subjects in different status universities and for diverse students in England; 2) to use concepts of the educational sociologist Basil Bernstein to investigate how structural characteristics (class, age, disability, ethnicity and gender) play out in curriculum and pedagogic processes in different university settings for diverse students; and 3) to draw on the findings to contribute to debates with scholars, policy makers and key stakeholders about the quality of teaching in the United Kingdom and Europe (Lingard and Martin, 2007). In particular, we engaged critically with prevailing views that the education at higher-status universities is inevitably better than that at lower-status universities. The research took place in two different types of university (described in detail in Chapter  2). Pseudonyms were given to reflect their characteristics. Community and Diversity, which we categorized as lower status, were post-1992 universities appearing regularly in the bottom quartile of league tables. Prestige and Selective, which we categorized as higher status, were pre-1992 universities appearing regularly in the top quartile. The analysed datasets presented below in Table A1.1 are the basis of rich, textured descriptions of the interrelationships between the broader policy context, students’ backgrounds and the education at the four universities and departments.

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Table A1.1 List of analysed data sets

Relevant international and national policy documents Curriculum, departmental and university documents Statistics produced at a national level and by the university and department 98 biographical interviews using first-year students’ life-grids (including the 31 who became case study students) followed by a one-hour recorded and transcribed interview2 31 semi-structured interviews with case-study students about their second-year experience 31 semi-structured interviews with case-study students about their third-year experience Survey of 759 students Assessed work from 30 first-year students (from across the wider sample) and a focus group with 4 key informants and 2 researchers discussing 8 selected pieces of work Course work from 17 second-year case-study students and 15 dissertations from third-year case-study students 12 video recordings of seminar teaching – one in each of three years in the four universities Semi-structured interviews with 12 seminar teachers about the videoed seminars 4 transcribed 2-hour interviews, with key informants Field notes relating to visits to departments and contacts with key informants

Four departmental case-studies built from the analysed data sets allowed us to ask comparative questions about whether the qualities were distinctive to that university, typical of each category, or cut across categories. This process facilitated complex analysis of individual universities and nuanced interpretations (Flyvberg, 2006; Merrian, 1988; Yin, 2013). As suggested by the Bernsteinian theoretical framework, macro (national and international), meso (university and departmental) and micro (individuals and their interactions) level processes and the relationships between them were analysed and explored (explained throughout the book and see McLean et al., 2013c). We investigated synergies and dissonances in terms of good-quality, socially just education within and between these levels: for example, whether and how universities and students’ conceptions of good quality were shaped by policy at the macro level (Li, 2012). Table A1.2 lists the main level related to the different data sets.

Data generation and analysis In this section, we discuss each data set in turn including access, sampling and analysis. In general, analysis was ongoing and assisted by using by using the

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Table A1.2 The methods mapped onto the macro, meso and micro levels Macro: national and international context

Meso: university and departmental provision

Micro: student and academic perspectives and interactions

Policy documents (national and international)

University and departmental websites and documentation relating to university, departments and programmes Interviews with seminar tutors and key informants Videos of teaching Field notes Survey

Life-grids

Statistical data

Interviews with first-year students Case-study interviews Students’ assessed work Survey Videos of teaching

NVivo qualitative data analysis software and the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) . Each data set was treated as a discrete entity before cross data-set analyses. To avoid their overdetermining our findings, Bernstein’s (2000) concepts were treated as subject to change and modification in light of empirical data analysis. We strove to maintain the distinction between the internal language of description (L1, the language of Bernstein’s conceptual models) and the external language of description (L2, empirical descriptions arising from the data generated). Initial identification of themes and codes were informed by adopting an inductive approach, which opened up gap’ between findings in the empirical data and what Bernstein’s framework predicted we would find (Thomas, 2006). Alternative frameworks were illuminating, for example, phenomenographic analyses (Ashwin et al., 2014, 2016a, 2016b).

Accessing and working with departments One academic in each department acted as a key informant and co-researcher. The key informants helped us to gain access to students; space to conduct interviews; classes to video record; and, university and departmental documents; and, they facilitated other useful relationships. They participated in a focus group about first-year work, attended project events and conferences, and explored findings and hunches with us.

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Analysis of national and international policy documents Relevant national and international policy documents were collected throughout the project. Two NVivo analyses focused on policy documents. The first thematically analysed nine pivotal English policy documents published between 2003 and 2011. Three core themes indicated what constituted a good-quality education system; good-quality undergraduate provision; and, a good-quality contribution to wider society (Abbas et al. (2012).3 The second analysis was of 133 documents published between 2009 and 2011. These were organized into four fields: a) the official recontextualizing field (government, committees and agencies undertaking independent reviews of higher education commissioned by the government, the UK parliament, and quasi-governmental regulatory agencies); b) the field of higher education (university groups, higher education developer groups, academic groups and student groups); c) economically interested actors (e.g. the Confederation of British Industry); and, d) international higher education organizations (Ashwin et al., 2015).4 Public discourses about the quality of higher education were identified and four themes emerged:  characteristics of a high-quality undergraduate education system; what a high-quality undergraduate system offers to students; the outcomes of a high-quality undergraduate education system; and how high quality can be improved.5 In both policy analyses themes were bought into relationship with Bernsteinian concepts (see Chapter 4).

Analysis of national, university and departmental statistical data The purposes of collecting this data were:  a) to identify the significance of statistical differences and similarities between the four departments, the four universities and the national context; b) to place our samples in departmental, university and national contexts for descriptive and analytical purposes; and, c) to interpret our data contextually, for example, by understanding the comparative diversity of students that universities were supporting. University and departmental data were gleaned from university websites, through the key informants or from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and Higher Education Information Database for Institutions (HEIDI). Key informants commented on validity. League table data were from key British ranking tables found in the Guardian and the Times newspapers. These statistical sources do not employ the same ways of categorizing and classifying students, practices and universities. For example, HESA asked

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students under age twenty-one to classify the highest-earning parent on a seven-point employment classification (HESA, 2017). Categories four through seven are designated lower socio-economic groups and were combined with the higher education participation rate of local areas to assess whether universities were widening access to economically disadvantaged groups (HEFCE, 2017). Classifications of students in our study were based on more nuanced judgements, as will be seen.

Analysis of university and course documentation and websites Descriptive statistics (for example, regarding the staff with PhDs) and qualitative descriptions of departments (e.g. of the content of curricula) were gleaned from:  departmental handbooks; course handbooks; student handbooks; module documents; information about research activity; descriptions of departmental research centres; the departmental research strategy; and, online profiles of staff. University data were gleaned from the website and included: the university structure; its history; the learning and teaching strategy; the management structure; the university plan and mission statement; information for students (careers, campus facilities, the local area and wider support); and, the Quality Assurance Agency’s institutional report for 2008. Documents were thematically analysed. For example, for curricula there were eight thematic codes: disciplinary texts; assessment – departmental and university; disciplinary know-how; disciplinary knowledge; framing departmental; framing university; generic skills; and, pedagogical activity. These analyses allowed comparative explorations (see Chapters 2 and 6, also, Abbas and McLean, 2007).

Individual, semi-structured, fully transcribed interviews and lifegrids of first-year students (ninety-eight) Students from each department were interviewed towards the end of their first year at university. There were difficulties in generating a sample even with the help of the key informants and this led us to introduce a token of gratitude (a £20 shopping voucher). A convenience sample was generated. The samples of students and their relative representativeness can be seen in Tables 2.8 and 2.9 in Chapter 2. The life-grid interview method drew on literature and experience (Parry et al., 1999; Webster et al., 2004; Wilson et al., 2007) and is described in detail

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in Abbas et  al. (2014). The purpose was insight into how students’ past lives and identities influenced their experience of university. We also recorded background data such as student age, ethnicity, disability status, and parents’ and siblings’ educations. Background data informed the twenty-two classificatory categories in NVivo. Given the complexities of understanding intersecting differences, we drew upon students’ own classifications of their gender, age, ethnicities and disabilities, which might not have been the same as their declarations to universities. For example, in answer to a question asking them to define their own ethnicity, some students portrayed their ethnicities as multiple (e.g. Pakistani, French, British). Largely, we have used intersecting differences in nuanced ways to understand individual experiences rather than to make generalizations. Given the prevalence of socio-economic differences in structuring the student population into different universities and careers, the primary focus of our study was social class. In this book, for clarity, we have divided students into working class and middle class, however, classification is difficult because students inevitably attached diverse meanings to it; indicators such as parents’ employment, housing and education are not reliable on their own, and experiences of class have become more complicated and disputable. The data in the classification sheet and the narratives were used to make more careful judgements about social class than do the HESA data (described earlier under statistical data). For example, some students had a single mother who was in the lower professional category (who through HESA data, would be classed as middle class in terms of employment), but they lived in social housing (probably low participation areas) and their family incomes were low in the context of the financial outgoings and family size. Downward mobility often occurred for families who had migrated. Our qualitative judgements represent as faithfully as possible ‘the material, the discursive, psychological . . . and sociological’ aspects of students’ lives which together make up the processes through which their classed identities are generated (Reay, 1998, p. 272). The semi-structured, hour-long, recorded interview that followed the lifegrid explored students’ first-year university experience of pedagogy, curricula, social life, living circumstances, and relationships with staff, students and the wider university. Interviews followed up issues and experiences raised by students in the life-grids. Six broad themes were: previous education and employment, current education, future identities, me now, family and wider university. These and thirty-two sub-themes were drawn upon in different ways for comparative analysis throughout the project.

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In-depth student case-studies (thirty-one) Longitudinal tracking of students’ academic careers over the three years allowed evaluation of the outcomes of their university education and how they were achieved (or not). The case-study data comprised interviews focusing on the students’ first-, second- and third-year experiences, the life-grids, the analysis of work they produced for their assessment (seventeen second-year essays and fifteen dissertations) and for some (nine) a brief follow up interview, by phone or email, three years after the end of their degree. Different analyses of this data have been carried out including those that crossed diverse data sets (e.g. interviews, students work and videos); focused on varying units of analysis (e.g. seminars in each university and individual students); provided holistic synopses of the case-study students. As indicated above, it was not easy to find students to volunteer for our study. So, it might be expected those who did were unusual in some way. However, their levels of dedication to study, achievements and experiences varied between highly positive and negative and the key informants assured us that they were reasonably representative of many aspects of the variation in the students they taught. (Also see Tables 2.8 and 2.9 in Chapter 2.)

Survey of students To test whether the qualitatively derived conclusions of the research were more broadly applicable, we distributed a survey to all students in the four departments in all three or four degree years. The survey scales were designed using SPSS and based upon the ongoing data analysis of all other forms of data. It was piloted to ensure validity and reliability. The survey was organized into six sections. Part A explored students’ families’ demographic and experiential data and their reasons for coming to university. Part B focused on what they wanted to get out of university; Part C on their experiences of studying sociology; Part D on how they spent their time; Part E on the skills acquired; and, Part F on how studying for their degree had changed them. The main forms of questions were Likert scale and multiple-choice (from pre-categorized answers). Some scales were adapted from other authors as our analysis of the qualitative data suggested they would be valuable. These scales are listed with their authors in Table A1.3 with the scale items measuring engagement with academic knowledge which was generated from our own data. Both electronic and face-to-face distribution were used. Spearman’s rho generated correlations and established the relationships between variables.

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Table A1.3 Scales used with details of authors they have been adapted from Scale

Items

Processes Good Teaching (adapted from Ramsden (2003[1992])

Engagement with academic knowledge

Outcomes 1a. Enhanced academic skills (items, but not scale, from Lawless and Richardson, 2004)

• My sociology tutors motivate me to do my best work • My sociology tutors put a lot of time into commenting (orally and/or in writing) on my work • My sociology tutors work hard to make their subjects interesting • My sociology tutors are extremely good at explaining things • My sociology tutors make a real effort to understand difficulties I may be having with my work • My sociology tutors normally give me helpful feedback on my progress • I benefit from being in contact with active sociology researchers • Studying sociology helps me to understand myself • I am becoming a sociologist • Studying sociology helps me to understand other people • Sociology is very different from other disciplines • Sociology is relevant to today’s world • Studying sociology has changed my view of the world • The point of studying sociology is to make the world a better place • Through studying my degree I am beginning to see the world in sociological terms • Studying sociology is about developing my opinions

• • • • • • • • 1b. Enhanced • employability skills (items, but not scale, from • Lawless and Richardson • 2004) • •

Ability to apply knowledge Critical analysis Self-discipline Independence Time management Writing skills Expertise in sociology Ability to analyse and use numerical data Ability to work in teams Computer literacy Interpersonal skills Leadership skills Oral presentation skills

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Items

2. Increased social • I am a much more self-confident person than the confidence person I was when I came here (items, but not scale, from • I can’t imagine losing touch with some of the friends Brennan et al. 2010) I’ve made here • I would like to remain associated with the university in some way • I think that I am now able to get on with a much wider range of people • I don’t really fit in here. I’ll be quite glad to leave • The qualification is the main thing. University has not changed me that much 3. Changing self and • My time at university has really changed the way I see society the world (items, but not scale, from • I now have a much clearer view of what I want to do in Brennan et al. 2010) the future • I am very committed to sociology and would like somehow to continue to read/study it in the future • I want to use what I have learned in my degree to change the world for the better • Studying sociology has inspired me to become involved in political activity Source: Ashwin et al., 2012

Significant differences were identified. Data and descriptive statistics from the survey are discussed throughout this book.

Comparison of students’ work We compared assessed work to explore specific realizations of the curriculum. We collected first-year essays from core modules (thirty) of which eight were selected for discussion in a focus group that included researchers and key informants. A  three-hour focus group with key informants and the research team explored the similarities and differences between criteria that academics in different universities used to evaluate first-year work. The seventeen pieces of second-year work were analysed using the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy (Brabrand and Dahl, 2009). Final year dissertations (fifteen) were analysed in terms of the highest level of sociological knowledge included and compared with the descriptions derived from by the phenomenographic analysis of sociological knowledge in student interviews (Ashwin et al., 2014, 2016a).

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Video-recorded seminars and interviews with seminar teachers (twelve) One seminar in each year for each university was recorded and the data increased our understanding of the experience of studying sociology in our four universities. We aimed to video a core introductory theory module in Year 1, a methodology module in Year 2 and an optional module in Year 3 but there was some adaptation due to varying curricula. The video methodology is described in detail in Abbas et al. (2016). Seminar tutors reflected on how the video had affected the seminar in the interviews in all cases. In our NVivo file we coded the seminars, describing key aspects under five agreed codes (and their twenty-four sub-codes): type of knowledge; pedagogic approach; tone; physical setting; and, participation. After coding we returned to the video and identified and watched the relevant pieces as we did further interpretation and analysis. Interviews with the twelve seminar tutors, whose experience ranged from being an established and well-known professor to being a PhD student, focused on the aims of seminars and reflections on whether they had been met. The transcripts from these interviews were also coded in NVivo using the following codes: teachers’ background, seminar context, aim of seminar, students’ participation, tutor’s freedom and evaluation of seminar.

Interviews with key informants (four) At the end of the project we concluded our ongoing conversations with the four key informants with a two-hour recorded interview exploring their understandings of their departments, the curricula, the form and history of sociology in the university, and, the approaches to learning, teaching and assessment. We also asked them to comment on our observations of their university, for example, why particular decisions had been made, such as, the idea not to have a compulsory dissertation at Community. These interviews gave background information that was drawn upon in our interpretation of the other data.

Field notes Throughout the project the research team visited the campus for data collection and occasionally, for other activities. For example, based on project material we taught at Community and Diversity. During these visits, we took field notes

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about the departments and universities, for example, about the buildings, the atmosphere in departments, how the space was organized and the relationships we observed. Descriptions of the materiality of the universities and the departments informed Chapter 2 and the ongoing analysis.

Ethical conduct of the research Ethical protocols drawn from guidelines of the British Sociological Association (BSA) and British Educational Research Association (BERA) were approved at university level. There were many aspects of the project where ethical issues arose and it is not possible or necessary to discuss them all here. One example will serve to give a sense of our approach. Studying sociology departments with a view to making judgements about the quality of undergraduate education inevitably raises sensitive issues. The biggest issue at the university level was to protect those participating from potential reputational damage: a risk if we found poor-quality pedagogy or curricula. Therefore, we followed an ethical strategy that was highly cautious about the maintenance of anonymity: for example, rigorously using the pseudonyms of individuals and universities, even among the research team with no one else present. Given our aim to challenge the poor reputation of lower-status universities, we faced a dilemma when we found Diversity offering a high-quality education. The key informant and colleagues wanted to advertise the positive findings, to counteract their low rankings. On the one hand, revealing the name of Diversity would have been doing justice to their sociology degree; on the other hand, we had made promises of university anonymity to students and other participants and were worried that the other universities would become known. We did not agree to reveal Diversity’s name.

A final word The value of case-study data is the rich range of perspectives, but we have also aimed to produce findings that could be used to draw conclusions that have a wider applicability (Flyvberg, 2006). By interrogating, re-combining and re-analysing multiple data sets we came to the argument set out in this book, which we hope is testimony that the data was adequate to address the question of whether students from diverse backgrounds in different status universities can and are gaining access to pedagogic rights and the powerful knowledge that underpins it.

228

Appendix 1

Notes 1 Abbas et al., 2012, 2013, 2016; Ashwin et al., 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016a, 2016b; McLean et al., 2013a, 2013b, 2013c, 2015). 2 The specific numbers of students from each department are described in Chapter 2. 3 The policy documents and the methodology are available in this publication. It also draws on findings from students’ interviews. 4 This article includes a full list of the actors. 5 In our earlier publications, we used the term high-quality education, but as our ideas evolved we felt that the term good quality was more appropriate. The argument for this terminology is presented in Chapter 4.

App endix 2

Curricula: Compulsions and Choices

University

Year 1

Community (criminology)

4 compulsory 2 of 4: the study of modules: ‘Introduction crime, criminal to Criminology’, justice, law and ‘Citizenship and order, policing. Identity’, ‘Issues 1 of 2: ideology or a of Social Justice’, a simulated political research methods conference. module. 1 of 2: diversity in society or politics and welfare. 3 compulsory modules: 3 compulsory modules: ‘Investigating Society’, ‘Sociological Research ‘Understanding the Methods’, ‘Classical Nature of Society’, Sociological Theory’, and ‘Relating Society and, ‘Analysing and Self ’. (research Social Matters’. methods, identity, 3 of 17: gender, social inequality, race, ethnicity, culture, gender, sexuality, identity, health, social class, work, age, education, sexualities, disability). globablization, family, 3 of 12: cultural media, the body, studies, women’s research methods, studies, criminology, work experience and globalization; history; a an employability language, module from module. the faculty’s list.

Diversity (sociology)

Year 2

Year 3 2 of 5: the penal system, a project, human rights, the psychology of crime. war crimes. 2 of 6: regulating harm, understanding policy, community conflict, politics of the body, analysing policy, community conflict. 1 compulsory core: ‘Contemporary Sociological Theory’; 2 of 17 (as in Y2): Compulsory 10,000 word dissertation.

230

University Prestige (sociology)

Appendix 2

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

1 compulsory module: 1 of 4: three 4 of 23: 14 common ‘Sociological classical methodological, with Y3, in theory and methods’. (surveys, secondary addition: contemporary 2 of 10: gender (3); data and field studies), theory; race; history of Britain, one on sociological quantitative methods; globalization, policy, theory. youth; education; welfare, media; any 3 of 19: law, gender sexuality (3), money; module from the (4), welfare, visual gender (3), the faculty. research methods (1), developing world. health (2), knowledge, Compulsory 10,000-word science, crime (2), the dissertation. state, work, media (3), welfare, migration, population, Marx’s theory, narrative methods, European history. Selective 1 compulsory 2 compulsory 2 of 25 (same as Y3): (sociology or module: ‘An modules: Classical Compulsory 10,000social policy Introduction to sociological theory and word dissertation. with option Sociology’– health; research methods. to take them media, culture 2 of 25: covering (some jointly with and literature; in combined) aspects criminology protest movements; of: modernity, protest, or urban or modernity; third (mental) health, cultural studies) world development, developing countries, the environment, race contemporary culture and ethnicity, gender, (4), the environment, childhood, crime; race and ethnicity (3), risk; immigration; gender (3), crime (6), information childhood, the risk technology; urban society and the urban life organisations and society. globalization. 3 of 6: culture; criminology; the family and the state; the environment; social problems; social anthropology.

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Index abstract knowledge 71 academic skills 160 access to higher education, in England 35–8 American University, The 5 approaches to learning 142 n.1 Archer, A. 38 Ashwin, Paul 64 Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) 150 assignments choice 111 final-year dissertation 109–11 quality of 107 type and variety 108–9 audit explosion 55 Australian Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) 55 Bacchi, Carol 67 Back, Les 75 Ball, Stephen 64 Bauman, Zygmunt 87, 91, 207 Beck, John 115 Bernstein, Basil 4, 7, 44, 57, 61–2, 68 n.1, 71, 76–7, 82, 88, 91, 116–17, 120–1, 171, 214, 215 on education 7 framing of outcomes 150 pedagogic rights 160–7 pedagogic rights, distribution of 167–8 specialized sociological identity 150–60 on knowledge 7–8 Bhambra, Gurminder K. 75 Black Boy 147 Bourdieu, Pierre 40, 71, 79, 84 n.4 Brennan, John 41, 165–6 Bruner, Jerome 115 Bulmer, Martin 78 Burawoy, Michael 79

Carrabine, Eamonn 77 civil society 79 classification, of curriculum 90–1 code, concept of 44–50 Collini, Stefan 60 communitas 163–6 Community university/department 13, 14, 199–200 concept of code in 45–6 criminal justice professional of 177, 180–3 discipline regions and singulars 77 distributive rules 89–90, 93, 96–8 evaluation rules 107–12 high-quality education 65 independent study 133–40 instructional discourse 99–100 motivations for students for studying at 27–8 pedagogic device at 92–6 pedagogic rights 167–8 pedagogical framing 117–18 position of 14–16 quantitative data 24–7 recontextualizing rules 94–5 regulative discourse 103–4 retrospective identity 151 seminars/workshops 129–30 socially just curriculum and pedagogy 207–8 specialized pedagogical identity at 177, 180–3 staff profiles 16–18 student learner 124–6 student outcomes 20–3 student profiles 18–20 teaching departments 26–7 wealth of 16 Comte, Auguste 73 criminology, and sociology 76–8 critical dispositions 158–9

254

Index

Crozier, G. 41 culture, and quality of education 61 curriculum 87–8 compulsions and choices 229–30 customer identities 61–4 Dearing Report 98 de-centred market model 61–2 disability, students with 9, 18, 20, 24, 37, 44, 45, 157–8, 197 disciplines 70–1 discriminatory epistemic injustice 8 distributive epistemic injustice 8 distributive rules 89–90, 93 comparison in four departments 96–8 Diversity university/department 13, 14, 199–200 concept of code in 46–7 discipline regions and singulars 77 distributive rules 89–90, 93, 96–8 enlightened individuals of 183–7 evaluation rules 107–12 high-quality education 65–6 independent study 133–40 instructional discourse 100–1 motivations for students for studying at 28 pedagogic device at 92–6 pedagogic rights 167–8 pedagogical framing 117–18 position of 14–16 quantitative data 24–7 recontextualizing rules 94–5 regulative discourse 104–5 retrospective identity 151 seminars/workshops 128–9, 130, 131 socially just curriculum and pedagogy 208–10 specialized pedagogical identity at 183–7 staff profiles 16–18 student learner 124–6 student outcomes 20–3 student profiles 18–20 teaching departments 26–7 wealth of 16 dominant models, of good-quality education 63–4 Durkheim, Emile 73

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) 4 Ed (Selective student) 29, 48–9, 126, 130, 136, 139, 157, 162, 166, 193, 194, 197 education, quality of 3–12 higher education potentials 5–6 higher-status universities, and 3–4 knowledge, access to 6–7 educational ‘choice’ 38 elaborated code 68 n.1 Elizabeth (Selective student) 49–50, 160, 164, 174–5 Elliott (Selective student) 138, 193, 194, 196 Elma-Louise (Selective student) 126, 193, 194, 198, 210 Elmira (Selective student) 128, 194, 196 employment 172–3, 178–9 England, higher education in 35 accessibility 35–8 outcomes 42–3 participation in 38–42 undergraduate sociology-based social science in 43–4 epistemic injustice 8 epistemological access in education systems 6–9 esoteric knowledge 71 Esther (Selective student) 66–7, 152–3, 156, 193, 195–6 Ethan (Selective student) 135, 193, 195, 196 ethnicity/ethnic minorities 4, 9, 30, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39–40, 42, 59, 62, 93, 139, 156–7, 162, 164, 199 in outcomes of higher education 42 sociology-related courses 43 Europe, high-quality university education in 55–6 European Higher Education Area (EHEA) 6 evaluation rules 92, 96, 107–12 assigned work quality of 107 assignment choice 111 assignment type and variety 108–9 final-year dissertation 109–11 excellence, and good-quality education 212–13 experiences, at universities 38–9, 40–1

Index Faith (Prestige student) 47–8, 125, 148, 163, 188, 189, 192–3 Fay (Prestige student) 165, 188, 189, 191 Faziah (Prestige student) 48 Felix (Prestige student) 125, 155, 188, 189, 192 Fifi (Prestige student) 66, 157, 188, 189, 191 final-year dissertation 109–11, 207 Fiona (Prestige student) 129, 130, 156, 188, 189, 191, 193 Fleur (Prestige student) 129, 152, 163, 188, 189, 191 Foucault, Michel 84 n.4 framings, of curriculum 91, 117–18 Frank (Prestige student) 125, 135, 164, 188, 190 Frankham, J. 61 Fricker, Miranda 5, 8, 43, 206, 211 Frida (Prestige student) 136, 159, 164, 188, 190, 193 Fuller, Steve 74 gender, and higher education 37, 39, 51 nn.11, 12, 154–6 sociology-related courses 43–4 geography, impact on higher education 37 global higher education context 34–5 Goffman, Erving 84 n.4 Goldman, L. 73 good/high-quality university education 53–4, 212–13, 214 across the world 55–7 in England 57–64 students’ ideas about 64–7 good quality teaching student perceptions 119–20 Gorard, Stephen 211, 212 graduate premium 149 Habermas, Jurgen 5, 6 Halsey, A. H. 74, 78 Hamlyn, Paul 52 n.18 Hanley, Lynsey 54, 171 Hannah (Community student) 27 Hattie (Community student) 27–8 Hazelkorn, E. 56 hermeneutic justice 206

255

Higher Education Statistics Agency 14 Hirst, Paul 70 Hogben, Launcelot 74 Holmwood, John 76, 79 identity prejudices 211 independent study 132–3 difficulties with 135–7 encouragement to work hard 137–8 pattern, over the degree course 133–5 student effort 138–40 individual enhancement 161–3 institutional virtue 214–15 instructional discourse 91–2, 98–9 of Community 99–100 of Diversity 100–1 of Prestige 101 of Selective 101–2 instrumental pedagogic identity 158–60 (inter)disciplines and power 70–2 sociology-related 75–6 invisible pedagogy 121 Jardine, Lisa 83 n.1 Jenkins, C. 209 Jennifer (Prestige student) 28 Jeremy (Prestige student) 129 Jim (Prestige student) 29 Kerr, Clark 11 n.4 knowledge access to 6–9 as curriculum 80–2, 90, 91, 93 related to self and others 153–8 as research 93 as student understanding 92, 93 types of 71 labour market 42–3 Lamar (Diversity student) 46–7, 49, 119, 124, 129, 135, 148, 157, 174, 184 Lamont, M. 80 Lauren (Diversity student) 64, 131, 134, 155, 157–8, 165, 175, 184 Leanne (Diversity student) 134, 156, 162, 164, 165, 184, 186 Lenoir, T. 74 Linda (Diversity student) 135, 137–8, 185

256 Lisha (Diversity student) 65–6, 152, 155, 166, 185, 186 Lloyd (Diversity student) 131, 185, 186 London School of Economics (LSE) 73–4 Lorenzo (Diversity student) 134, 138, 185, 187 Lucia (Diversity student) 19, 46, 119, 125, 127, 152, 157, 166, 185, 186–7 Mandela, Nelson 3 Mandy (Community student) 180, 182, 183 Marginson, Simon 6, 11 n.4 Mark (Community student) 65, 159, 164–5, 167, 180, 181 Martin (Community student) 129, 159, 166–7, 175, 180, 181, 182 Marx, Karl 73 Mary (Community student) 45–6, 137–8, 165, 166, 180, 182–83 Maurice (Community student) 45, 125, 128, 154, 162, 180, 182 May, Tim 87, 91, 207 McVitty, Debbie 64 Meer, Nasar 77 Messer-Davidow, Ellen 70–1 middle-class students 40, 41, 68 n.1, 79, 120–1, 139, 198, 200 access to higher education 37–8 Mills, C. Wright 73, 74, 80 Mitchell (Community student) 180 Morley, Louise 61 Morrow, Wally 5, 8 multi-functionality, of universities 5 mundane knowledge 71 National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) 18, 51 n.7 National Student Survey (NSS) 61 neo-liberalism 5, 67 non-attendance 133 Office for Fair Access (OFFA) 51 n.16 O’Neil, Onora 60–1 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 42, 150 outcomes of higher education 20–3, 148–50 Bernsteinian framing 150

Index Parson, Talcott 5 pedagogic device 88–9 among university categories 92–6 distributive rules 89–90, 93 evaluation rules 92, 96 recontextualizing rules 90–2, 94–5 pedagogic discourse. See instructional discourse; regulative discourse pedagogic rights 160–1 distribution of 167–8 individual enhancement 161–3 political participation 166–7 social inclusion 163–6 pedagogical content knowledge 208–9 pedagogical framing 117–18, 120–1 independent study 132–40 seminar discussion 127–32 student learner 122–3 students and academics, relationship between 124–6 Petty, William 74 political participation 166–7 potentials, of universities 5–6, 8 Power, Michael 55 powerful knowledge 115–16 Prestige university/department 13, 14, 199–200 concept of code in 47–8 discipline regions and singulars 77 distributive rules 89–90, 93, 96–8 evaluation rules 107–12 high-quality education 66 independent study 133–40 influential sociologists of 187–93 instructional discourse 101 motivations for students for studying at 28–9 pedagogic device at 92–6 pedagogic rights 167–8 pedagogical framing 117–18 position of 14–16 quantitative data 24–7 recontextualizing rules 94–5 regulative discourse 105–6 research departments 24–6 retrospective identity 151 seminars/workshops 129–30 specialized pedagogical identity at 187–93 staff profiles 16–18

Index student learner 124 student outcomes 20–3 student profiles 18–20 wealth of 16 private good, higher education as 5 profane knowledge 71 prospective pedagogic identity 153–8 disability 157–8 ethnicity 156–7 gender 154–6 knowledge, related to self and others 153–8 social class 154 racial differences 39 in outcomes of higher education 42 sociology-related courses 43 rankings, of universities 56–7, 68 n.3 Readings, Bill 54, 62, 67 Reay, Diane 38, 40, 41 recontextualization 57–8, 63–4 recontextualizing rules 90–2, 94–5 comparison in four departments  98–107 regions, disciplines as 76 regulative discourse 91–2, 103, 106–7 of Community 103–4 of Diversity 104–5 evaluation rules 107–12 of Prestige 105–6 of Selective 106 Research Assessment Exercise 14, 15 Research Excellence Framework 14 research methodology 217–18 data generation and analysis 218–27 ethical conduct of the research 227 restricted code 68 n.1 retention, in universities 39 retrospective pedagogic identity 151–3 Robbins report 35 Roberts, Ken 74 Rosenfeld, Richard 77–8 Runciman, W. G. 79 sacred knowledge 71 Sade (Diversity student) 28 Sagara (Diversity student) 28 Said Business School, Oxford University 76 scaffolding 140 schooling, and higher education 36

257

Selective university/department 13, 14, 199–200 concept of code in 48–50 discipline regions and singulars 77 distributive rules 89–90, 93, 96–8 evaluation rules 107–12 high-quality education 66–7 independent study 133–40 influential public service professionals 193–9 instructional discourse 101–2 motivations for students for studying at 29 pedagogic device at 92–6 pedagogic rights 167–8 pedagogical framing 117–18 position of 14–16 quantitative data 24–7 recontextualizing rules 94–5 regulative discourse 106 research departments 24–6 retrospective identity 151 seminars/workshops 130–1, 132 specialized pedagogic identity at 193–9 staff profiles 16–18 student learner 124 student outcomes 20–3 student profiles 18–20 wealth of 16 Sen, Amartya 206 Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities 56 Shils, Edward 78 Shulman, Lee 208, 209 singulars, disciplines as 76 Snow, C. P. 70, 83 n.1 social classes 40–1, 43, 44 and academic achievement 36 middle-class students 37–88, 40, 41, 68 n.1, 79, 120–1, 139, 198, 200 prospective pedagogic identity 154 working-class students 8–9, 41, 54, 68 n.1, 71, 78, 119, 120, 139, 148 social inclusion 163–6 social inequalities, in higher education 5 social knowledge 4, 6–7 social mobility 40–1 social realism 71–2 socially just education 4, 206–10

258 excellence and good-quality education 212–13 and inequalities 210–11 socio-economic differences 4, 36–7 sociological imaginations 73, 123 sociological knowledge, potential power of 207 sociology 43–4, 69–70, 72–3 crisis of 74–6 discursive gap 82 history of 73–4 moral/ political ambition of 78–80 recontextualization of 80–2 -related knowledge, orientations to 174–6 -related regions 76–8 sociological imagination 80 specialized pedagogic identity 150–60, 174, 176–7 at Community 177, 180–3 disciplinary aspect 151–3 at Diversity 183–7 performative aspect 158–60 personal/ social aspect 153–8 at Prestige 187–93 at Selective 193–9 Stuart, M. 41 success, in universities 39 teaching excellence framework (TEF)  59–60, 212

Index teaching excellence framework (TEF), metrics graduate employment  212–13 retention 213 student satisfaction 213 third culture kid 66, 68 n.6 Thomas, Liz 52 n.18 Times Higher Education World University Rankings 56 UK Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) 55, 81 undergraduate sociological knowledge, study of 6–7 Unistats 14 visible pedagogy 121 voice message relations 150–1 Walker, I. 42 Weber, Max 73 Winnicott, Donald 140 working-class students 8–9, 41, 54, 68 n.1, 71, 78, 119, 120, 139, 148 Wright, Richard 147–8 Yerevan communiqué 6 Young, M. F. D. 71–2 Zhu, Y. 42