Alan R. Sadovnik

Basil Bernstein (1924–2000)

Basil Bernstein, Karl Mannheim Chair Emeritus in the Sociology of Education, at the Institute of Education, University of London, born on 1 November 1924, died on 24 September 2000 after a prolonged battle with throat cancer. Professor Bernstein was one of the leading sociologists in the world, whose pioneering work over the past four decades illuminated our understanding of the relationship among political economy, family, language and schooling. Although committed to equity and social justice, or in his own words, ‘preventing the wastage of working class educational potential’ (1961b, p. 308), his work was often misunderstood and incorrectly labelled a form of ‘cultural deficit’ theory. Nothing could be more inaccurate. Raised in London’s East End, the son of a Jewish immigrant family, Bernstein’s career reflected his concern for understanding and eliminating the barriers to upward social mobility. After serving as an underage bombardier in Africa in the Second World War, he worked in the Stepney settlement boys’ club for underprivileged Jewish children. He put himself through the London School of Economics by working various menial jobs and earned a degree in sociology. He completed teacher education at Kingsway Day College and from 1954 to 1960, he taught a variety of subjects, including mathematics and physical education, at City Day College in Shoreditch. In pure Goffmanesque style, he also taught driver education and motor repair, despite the fact that he did not drive; a fact that he successfully concealed from his students. In 1960, Bernstein began graduate work at University College, London, where he completed his Ph.D. in linguistics. He then moved to the Institute of Education, where he stayed for his entire career, rising from senior lecturer to reader to professor, to the Mannheim Chair. During his tenure at the Institute, he also served as head of the influential Sociological Research Unit in the 1960s and 1970s and as Pro-Director of Research in the 1980s. He continued his prolific writing as an Emeritus Professor until his death. The recipient of many honorary doctorates and awards, he posthumously received the American Sociological Association Sociology of Education Section Willard Waller Award for Lifetime Contributions to the sociology of education in August 2001. He is survived by his wife of over forty years Marion, a psychologist, and their two sons, Saul and Francis.

Toolkits, Translation Devices and Conceptual Accounts. Essays on Basil Bernstein's Sociology of Knowledge

Contents: Parlo Singh/ Alan R. Sadovnik/ Susan F. Semel: Introduction - Ana M. Morais/Isabel P. Neves: Basil Bernstein as an Inspiration for Educational Research: Specific Methodological Approaches - Brian Davies/John Evans/John Fitz: Educational Policy and Social Reproduction - Leesa Wheelahan: The Structure of Pedagogic Discourse as a Relay for Power: The Case of Competency-Based Training - Ursula Hoadley: Social Class and Pedagogy - Gabrielle Ivinson: Pedagogic Discourse and Sex Education: Myths, Science and Subversion - Harry Daniels: Subject Position and Identity in Changing Workplaces - Jeanne Gamble: Exploring the Transmission of Moral Order as Invisible Semiotic Mediator of Tacit Knowledge - William Tyler: Towering TIMSS or Leaning PISA? Vertical and Horizontal Models of International Testing Regimes - Johan Muller/Ursula Hoadley: Pedagogy and Moral Order - Karl Maton: Invisible Tribunals: Progress and Knowledge-Building in the Humanities - Karen Bradley/John G. Richardson: The Moral Career of Intelligence, Pedagogical Practices and Educational Psychology - Rita Riksaasen: School Development and Leadership in Norwegian Demonstration Schools - Sally Power: Bernstein and Empirical Research - Parlo Singh/Jessica Harris: Pedagogic Translations: Dominant Pedagogic Modes and Teacher Professional Identity.

Lessons from the Past: Individualism and Community in Three Progressive Schools.

In the past 15 years, a number of social critics from both sides of the political spectrum have provided critiques of the what they see as the overly individualistic nature of American society. From Christopher Laschs scathing indictment of American culture in The Culture of Narcissism (1979), to Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven Tiptons analysis and recommendations in Habits of the Heart (1985) and The Good Society (1991), to Amitai Etzionis more conservative call for a communitarian society in the Spirit of Community (1993), American society has been viewed as in desparate need of closer connections between groups and individuals. These critics suggest that the tensions between individualism and community, which are so much a part of the history of the

Education and inequality: historical and sociological approaches to schooling and social stratification

The 30th International Standing Conference on the History of Education was held at Rutgers-Newark from 23 July to 26 July 2008. The conference theme, “Education and Inequality: Historical Approaches to Schooling and Social Stratification” reflected our decade-long interest in both historical sociology and sociological history. One of us, a sociologist, has written historical sociology1 and the other, a historian, has written sociologically informed history.2 Our collaborations have attempted to combine history and sociology to understand the history of progressive education and the role of women in progressive reforms.3 Based on these works, the conference theme was an outgrowth of our interest in integrating history and sociology to understand important educational problems. The role of schools in either reducing and ameliorating or reproducing and exacerbating social inequalities has long been the subject of debate in both disciplines. Therefore, the papers presented at ISCHE 30 and those included in this special issue of Paedagogica Historica all examine the theme of education and inequality through a sociological and historical lens. The study of education and inequality has been a central theme in the sociology of education since the 1960s. Sociological studies have focused on a number of questions. First, what does the empirical evidence tell us about the nature and extent of social class, race, ethnic and gender achievement gaps? Second, what are the causes of these educational inequalities—that is, are they caused by factors inside and/or outside schools. Third, what do the answers to these questions tell us about the role of education in ameliorating or reproducing existing inequalities?

Urban School Improvement: A Challenge to Simplistic Solutions to Educational Problems

In his latest book, Ordinary Resurrections, educational reformer Jonathan Kozol again asks why students of color living in urban areas are not provided with the minimum educational opportunities to rise out poverty and, at times, hopelessness. As in his muckraking Savage Inequalities (1991), Kozol paints a bleak picture of urban educational inequalities; urban children receive significantly less than privileged, White suburban children, in large measure because of unequal school financing. Although Kozol’s black and white, good and evil portrayals of urban and suburban schooling have provided a much needed wake-up call to policymakers, political leaders, and citizens, his analyses (Sadovnik, 1992) too often fail to acknowledge the complex interrelationship among schools, family, and other institutions, and the difficulties of reforming urban schools. Two recent problems in the New York City school system, one of the most complex urban systems in the United States, reveal these complexities. First, New York State Commissioner of Education Richard Mills mandated that low-performing Schools under Regents Review (SURR) schools only hire certified teachers to ensure that the most needy New York City schools did not continue to hire uncertified teachers. When New York City Chancellor Harold Levy challenged this mandate by saying there were insufficient certified teachers to staff these schools, Mills filed suit. Under an agreement between the city and state, Levy agreed to phase in the process, but mandated that all certified teachers had to be placed in a SURR school before they could apply to a non-SURR school. As a result, certified teachers had no choice where their first position would be and uncertified teachers were given more choices. Amid the controversy, many certified teachers refused assignments, decided not to teach in New York City, and opted for higher paying suburban positions or lower paying positions in parochial schools. The staffing of urban schools is a complicated problem. Most policymakers would agree that having the least qualified teachers in the most difficult schools, where children need the best and most experienced teachers, makes little sense. However, without a systemic policy to improve city schools, solutions such as the Commissioner’s often deal with symptoms and more often than not exacerbate already difficult situations. The second problem was described in a report in the New York Times (Sunday, September 23, 2000) chronicling the troubled history of John Jay High School in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Park Slope is a historic section of the borough, largely White and affluent, where brownstones sell for over a half a million dollars. It is surrounded by less gentrified communities, including Sunset Park, which is largely Hispanic; Red Hook, which is largely African American, Hispanic, and working class White; and Fort Greene, which is African American. John Jay High School, a SURR school, has one of the lowest graduation and achievement rates in the city. Less than 25% of the first year students are still in attendance by grade 12; only 25% take the SAT and their average combined score is less than 800. Less than 25% of the students come from District 15, the elementary and middle school district where the high school is located. Given New York City’s complex high school admissions system, affluent Park Slope parents have all but opted out of their neighborhood school. Either they send their children to one of New York City’s elite examination schools, such as Stuvysant or Bronx Science; to one of its other high quality schools, such as Midwood High School; or to one of the many private schools in Brooklyn, such as Brooklyn Friends, Packer Collegiate Academy, St. Anne’s, or Poly Prep. Last year, the president of the District 15 School Board proposed a restructuring of John Jay, which he believed would “These children are not going to be lawyers and psychiatrists,” I’m told. “They’ll be lucky to get jobs as medical assistants or as sanitation workers with a union and good health benefits. . . .”

Toolkits, Translation Devices and Conceptual Accounts

Contents: Parlo Singh/ Alan R. Sadovnik/ Susan F. Semel: Introduction - Ana M. Morais/Isabel P. Neves: Basil Bernstein as an Inspiration for Educational Research: Specific Methodological Approaches - Brian Davies/John Evans/John Fitz: Educational Policy and Social Reproduction - Leesa Wheelahan: The Structure of Pedagogic Discourse as a Relay for Power: The Case of Competency-Based Training - Ursula Hoadley: Social Class and Pedagogy - Gabrielle Ivinson: Pedagogic Discourse and Sex Education: Myths, Science and Subversion - Harry Daniels: Subject Position and Identity in Changing Workplaces - Jeanne Gamble: Exploring the Transmission of Moral Order as Invisible Semiotic Mediator of Tacit Knowledge - William Tyler: Towering TIMSS or Leaning PISA? Vertical and Horizontal Models of International Testing Regimes - Johan Muller/Ursula Hoadley: Pedagogy and Moral Order - Karl Maton: Invisible Tribunals: Progress and Knowledge-Building in the Humanities - Karen Bradley/John G. Richardson: The Moral Career of Intelligence, Pedagogical Practices and Educational Psychology - Rita Riksaasen: School Development and Leadership in Norwegian Demonstration Schools - Sally Power: Bernstein and Empirical Research - Parlo Singh/Jessica Harris: Pedagogic Translations: Dominant Pedagogic Modes and Teacher Professional Identity.

Leaders in the Sociology of Education

The Sociology of Education is no different in form than other fields of scholarship in that it depends wholly on the creativity, passion, assiduousness, and luck of the women and men who commit themselves to the advancement of the discipline. Surely world events and the political economy of a given time and place bear tremendous responsibility for shaping research agendas and directing intellectual thought, but it is the humanity and individuality of the scholars who interact with all that surrounds them that defines an academic field. As such, an intimate look into the careers of a selection of leaders in the sociology of education has much to offer those seeking a better understanding of the present state of this field of study.