Andrea Abbas

The embodiment of class, gender and age through leisure:A realist analysis of long distance running

Leisure activities claiming to promote health and fitness have been an increasing feature of contemporary society. The impact of such activities on social inequality is an important area of study for both theoretical and policy reasons. This paper adopts an embodied approach to explore the development of long‐distance running and the gendered, aged and classed nature of it. It is based upon part of a study which involved analysing a running magazine which was first entitled Jogging Magazine, quickly became Running and is now known as Runners World, and ten interviews with runners. The paper illustrates connections between the knowledges, practices, organization and values promoted through running (from 1979–1998) and the growing popularity of a particular bodily type and style. The popularity of the slender muscular body has developed with the growth of leisure‐sports like running. It has become the ideal for men and women of all ages, but has been particularly related to the middle‐classes. Participation is thought to bring both health and aesthetic benefits for individuals. From the realist perspective adopted, the necessary mechanisms of running culture and the forms of embodiment promoted can be viewed as important in constituting class, gender and age processes. I suggest that viewing the emergent powers of sports like running utilising embodied approaches is important because they raise issues around the promotion of leisure activities that are viewed as unproblematically ‘healthy’. In the case of running it is found that it promotes an embodiment of middle‐classness that naturalizes gender and age inequalities whilst also individualising responsibility for them.

Becoming Sociologists: Professional identity for part-time teachers of university sociology

This article is based on research undertaken as part of a project designed to promote support for part-time teachers in sociology. Contemporary changes in higher education are the backdrop for suggesting that a reflexive sociology should scrutinise itself, including the conditions and experiences of part-time teachers in their own department. Empirical data raises issues about the implications of the working conditions of part-time teachers for the formation of sociology as a discipline in the current higher education system, and for the formation of an individuals professional identity.

The 'biographical turn' in university sociology teaching: a Bernsteinian analysis

Little is known about what happens to disciplinary knowledge when it is taught in contemporary UK universities of different status. Here, Basil Bernsteins theories are applied to what sociology lecturers say about teaching, demonstrating that in conditions in which students are less likely to engage with sociological theory, lecturers, particularly in universities of lower status, employ ‘biographical methods’ to ensure that a ‘core’ of sociology remains intact and sociology is reproduced in students. Students’ lives are used as subject matter to teach the relevance and value of sociology. Attention is drawn to how, while this pedagogic strategy might result in a powerless form of ‘pop sociology’, in this case, lecturers bring theory, student research and application into a dynamic relationship which unexpectedly suggests that, at present, sociology might be more easily preserved in the less prestigious universities.

Qualitative research as a method for making just comparisons of pedagogic quality in higher education: a pilot study

Systems designed to ensure that teaching and student learning are of a suitable quality are a feature of universities globally. Quality assurance systems are central to attempts to internationalise higher education, motivated in part by a concern for greater global equality. Yet, if such systems incorporate comparisons, the tendency is to reflect and reproduce inequalities in higher education. Highlighting the European context, we argue that, if higher education is to play a part in tackling social inequalities, we must seek alternative methods to explore pedagogic quality in institutional settings. The sociologist Basil Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing provide an illustration of the potential of sociologically informed, qualitative approaches for exploring and improving higher education pedagogy and also for addressing social justice issues: these two concepts are used to analyse documentation about undergraduate sociology in two universities that have quite different reputations within the English and Northern Irish higher education system.

Not everybody walks around and thinks “That’s an example of othering or stigmatisation" : identity, pedagogic rights and the acquisition of undergraduate sociology-based social science knowledge.

This article places itself in conversation with literature about how the experience and outcomes of university education are structured by intersections between social class, ethnicity, gender, age and type of university attended. It addresses undergraduate students’ acquisition of sociological knowledge in four diverse university settings. Basil Bernstein’s concepts of pedagogic identity, pedagogic rights, classification and framing are employed to analyse curriculum and interviews with 31 students over the period of their undergraduate degree. The nature of a sociology-based disciplinary identity is described and illustrated, and it is shown how the formation of this identity gives access to pedagogic rights and the acquisition of valuable capabilities. Addressing the question of whether pedagogic rights are distributed unequally in a stratified university system, it was found that they were not distributed, as might be expected, according to institutional hierarchy. It is argued that the acquisition of university sociological knowledge can disrupt social inequality.

Communicative competence and the improvement of university teaching:Insights from the field

The arguments in this article have been generated from involvement in a government-funded project designed to improve teaching. The authors reflect on their experience and use Jurgen Habermass theory of communicative competence to argue that initiatives designed to improve university teaching often work against their own intentions by closing down opportunities for open dialogue. They argue that improvement of teaching requires undistorted communication and demonstrate that this is made difficult: by the pressure to be seen to succeed; by over-specifying what constitutes good teaching; and, by divorcing research from development. At the same time, they suggest that academics could seize opportunities to open up dialogue about teaching.

A Bernsteinian View of Learning and Teaching Undergraduate Sociology-based Social Science

Abstract Taking a perspective drawn from Basil Bernstein, the paper locates itself at the boundary between teaching as transmitting disciplinary knowledge and teaching as a set of generic ‘good practice’ principles. It first discusses the value of undergraduate sociology-based social science knowledge to individuals and society. This discussion leads to highlighting the importance of pedagogical framing for realising the value of sociological knowledge. A longitudinal three-year study in four different status universities suggested that studying undergraduate sociology-based degrees can give students access to what Bernstein called ‘pedagogic rights’ of personal enhancement; social inclusion; and political participation. Access to the rights is through the formation of a ‘specialised disciplinary identity’ whereby the student becomes a person who knows and understands specific content, which is applied to lives and society, and who has developed the skills and dispositions of a social scientist. In pedagogical terms more evidence of equality than inequality was found: despite some subtle differences, whatever the status of the university attended, the same disciplinary identity was projected and students’ perceptions of the quality of their teaching strongly mediated the formation of a disciplinary identity and access to pedagogic rights.

How does completing a dissertation transform undergraduate students’ understandings of disciplinary knowledge?

Dissertations are positioned as the capstone of an undergraduate degree, bringing together what students have previously learned from their programmes through a piece of independent research. However, there is limited research into the ways in which engaging in a dissertation has an impact on students’ understandings of disciplinary knowledge. In this article, we explore the relations between students’ accounts of sociological knowledge in their second and third years and how they engage with sociological knowledge in their dissertations. We argue that for the work of the dissertation to have an impact on students’ understanding of sociological knowledge, students need to see their discipline as providing a way of answering their research questions. We explore the implications of this argument for both our understanding of the role of dissertations and research-based learning in universities more generally.

The Influence of Curricula Content on English Sociology Students' Transformations: The Case of Feminist Knowledge.

ABSTRACT Previous research identifies the importance of feminist knowledge for improving gender equity, economic prosperity and social justice for all. However, there are difficulties in embedding feminist knowledge in higher education curricula. Across England, undergraduate sociology is a key site for acquiring feminist knowledge. In a study of four English sociology departments, Basil Bernsteins theoretical concepts and Madeleine Arnots notion of gender codes frame an analysis indicating that sociology curricula in which feminist knowledge is strongly classified in separate modules is associated with more women being personally transformed. Mens engagement with feminist knowledge is low and it does not become more transformative when knowledge is strongly classified. Curriculum, pedagogy and gender codes are all possible contributors to these different relationships with feminist knowledge across the sample of 98 students.

Editorial Introduction to a Collection from the 2003 BSA Conference 'Social Futures: Desire, Excess and Waste' the Consumption and Waste Stream

Review of: Williams, Karel, Colin Haslam, Sukhdev Johal and John Williams (1994) Cars. New York: Bergbahn Books.