In this paper we begin to explore how knowledges being generated in bioscience might be brought into productive articulation with the Sociology of Education, considering the potential for emerging transdisciplinary, 'biosocial' approaches to enable new ways of researching and understanding pressing educational issues. In this paper, as in our…

In this essay we develop the concept of 'cosmopolitan nationalism', offering a working definition and suggesting ways sociologists of education might draw on it in their future work. We show how it is a useful analytical lens through which to examine contemporary policies and practices that navigate global processes (ranking systems, mobility of…

This paper considers the sociology of education (SOE) as a modern human science. It suggests that the SOE is mired in a set of unreflexive, redemptive, Enlightment rationalities, and explores the messy relationships of the sociology with education that result from this. It is argues that the sociology of education has consistently failed to…

In 2007, we argued that, when it comes to sociology of education, the lives and education of refugee children were invisible. Sociology of education was 'a wasteland' as far as studies of the social effects of migration were concerned. Here, we revisit this argument exploring whether education and migration has been developed into a viable…

This paper attempts to work on a number of different levels. Firstly, it comprises my personal reflections on a career in sociology of education. These reflections are entwined with a history of the discipline that emphasises themes of power, politics and pragmatism. This subjective, and inevitably partial, account is combined with an examination…

The author reflects on continuities and changes in the subdiscipline, using Mary Douglas and Basil Bernstein. In 2000 the millennial issue of "Sociology," the generic journal of the British Sociological Association, included a paper about the sociology of education called 'The anomalous beasts: Hooligans and the sociology of education'.…

This paper presents an account of the development of the sociology of education in the UK, by means of an analysis of papers published in the field's flagship journal, the British Journal of Sociology of Education and its US equivalent, Sociology of Education. In particular, we examine the representation of two contrasting traditions in addressing…

In this paper, we consider the intensifying pressures on critical research and academic integrity in a research policy context that has come to be increasingly dominated by an instrumentalist mind-set. Using sensitising resources drawn from Geoff Whitty's critique of the 'what works' agenda, we reflect on the current conditions of academic labour…

Reflecting through the prisms of past, present ("the shape of things that are and were") and future ("the shape of things to come"), this paper discusses three challenges for sociology of education: the rise of populism and declining faith in 'experts'; inequities within and re/produced by the sociology of education; and how to…

This article is concerned with the influences that are brought to bear on the design of school buildings and the effects that the design of these buildings have on those who teach and learn in them. The article also focuses on the ways in which design is altered in and through the practices of these occupants. We argue that there is a mutual…

This article examines the constraints of modern temporality which are antithetical to the careful consideration that working with diverse learners requires for the development of inclusive, democratic education. We take up the conceptual construct of time to explore how it mediates systemic practices that impact policy positions of inclusion in…

This article discusses an attempt at a Bourdieusian-inspired form of praxis, developed and implemented in collaboration with nine London teachers, aimed at developing a socially just approach to engaging students with science. Data are discussed from nine months of classroom observations of nine secondary science classes from six inner London…

In his liquid-turn writings, Zygmunt Bauman has come to identify liquid modernity as a period of interregnum. Education has a central role to play within the contemporary interregnum by opening up a new public sphere for dialogue. However, the processes of liquefaction manifest themselves in conditions that severely limit a person's ability to…

This article explores how temporality and temporal regimes might be engaged in qualitative research in the sociology of education, proposing that such questions matter in relation to how research is done, not only to the topics and themes researched. The article shows how temporality enters into research designs, practices and imaginaries, arguing…

Accelerationism is a theoretical movement that seeks to mobilise reason and technological development as a strategy for moving beyond capitalism. The first wave of accelerationism took the effects of capitalism at their most pernicious and suggested that they have not gone far enough. More recent work has complicated this project and explored…