REVIEWING ReviewReviewing SociologySOCIOLOGY

REVIEWING Review Reviewing SociologySOCIOLOGY

Volume 11, 1999

REVIEWS

THEORY and METHOD

Sociology Explained , Andy Barnard and Terry Burgess, Cambridge University Press, 1996, 488 pages, £16.95 paperback.

Introductory Sociology (3rd edn), Tony Bilton, Kevin Bonnett, Pip Jones, David Skinner, Michelle Stanworth, and Andrew Webster, Macmillan, 1996, 681 pages, £14.99 paperback.

A-Level Sociology: Patterns and Trends, Paul Selfe, Macmillan, 1993, 342 pages, £9.99 paperback.

These texts follow closely the formal and hidden curricula of A-level Sociology, but vary considerably in the extent to which they aim at fostering understanding of the subject. Selfe’s book is designed to help students pass the various tests they will encounter, while the other two attempt to contextualise some of the more syllabus-specific aspects of the debates. In general, all three of them expose a familiar dilemma for the teacher: how to help students survive and pass, while resisting a fully reductionist and instrumental approach. Rather than offering a quick overview of whole books (and these books must be familiar anyway) in this short review, it seems acceptable to focus upon this dilemma in several areas: discussions of standard topics like ‘theory and methods’ and ‘social stratification’, and more generally of the newer issues for the A-level (variously indexed as ‘culture and identity’, ‘globalisation’ or even ‘postmodernism’).

Barnard and Burgess can be taken as a kind of ‘normal text’, with many common features. They signal the arrival of the newer issues in their chapter on culture and identity (and globalisation appears in the chapter on developmental sociology). There is a substantial section on postmodernism in the chapter on organisations, and a good review of the more theoretical aspects of the debates about sociology (well, Marxism at least) and postmodernism in the excellent Postscript. However, these topics are still dealt with in a rather traditional framework (or added on rather at the end of the book), and the rest of the text offers the more traditional discussions, no doubt focused rather tightly on the syllabi. Chapter 2 (on culture and identity), for example, treads the familiar ground of accounts of socialisation in different traditions, sticking to the old ‘structure/action’ split, and contrasting functionalist and Marxist accounts (the latter represented by a Birmingham CCCS effortlessly triumphing over an elitist Frankfurt School, represented as ever by one concept from Marcuse). There are some distinctive glosses: an attempt to work in Freud as a theorist worthy of attention by sociologists, for example. Students have to wait until the Postscript to encounter the more challenging ‘post’ work on culture and identity. This is a problem with the conservatism of the syllabus, of course, not the writers: Barnard and Burgess, and indeed Bilton et al, seem to write with a new vigour when they are allowed to discuss recent trends.

Students are introduced to the debates in Sociology via a rather conventional chapter on theories and methods (we must not assume real students would actually read this first chapter first, of course). After a warning that it is no longer acceptable (to Examination Boards) to divide up sociological work too easily into ‘perspectives’, the authors proceed to do just that, by and large. The main split turns on the curious terms ‘positivist’ versus ‘phenomenological’ perspectives, and in the debates that follow, Marxist and ‘action’ approaches seem to do quite well. Agendas are set and students pointed in the right direction with references to Parsons’ work as ‘bland and fruitless’ (p.6), as opposed to the ‘richly creative’ work of Marx (p.7), for example. The methods section is also familiar: there is a general rejection of claims that data can be ‘objective’, for example, because of such inevitabilities as ‘interviewer bias’ (rather than offering any detailed examination of the ways in which ‘interviewer bias’ might have been controlled in any sense in actual studies). ‘Positivism’ is discussed in the familiar terms of the ‘battles of the schools’ of the seventies: in ‘positivism’ individuals become ‘slavish automatons’ (p.36), or ‘people cannot be treated like microbes in a test-tube (p.37). After this sort of ritualistic discussion, the authors seem to turn with relief to more recent issues, ending with stronger sections on the connections with social policy, the current political unpopularity of Sociology and the effects this has had on research.

It is always interesting to see how such gestural anti-positivism fares with discussion of the more substantive topics. Barnard’s and Burgess’s chapter on social stratification cheerfully cites empirical data to defend their view that social divisions are still powerful in our society, with little hint of the scathing condemnations of Chapter I (except, maybe for a joking reference to ‘number-crunching positivists’ in connection with the Oxford Mobility Survey (p.78). Instead, there is a much more pragmatic discussion of matters like the various schemes used to classify occupations. There is such an old-fashioned air to the debates on social class, however (Bilton et al are better). Marx simply had a two-class model which is naively determinist, for example, and no neo-Weberians seem to have contributed to the debates. Each subsection seems to have a separate agenda too - feminist critiques seem to be given their own section, so to speak, and tried out as critique only when debating social mobility (a similar tacit division of labour affects Selfe too).

‘Race’, age and disability are dealt with in an open and lively way, but the same pluralism dominates. These seem to be merely additional axes or new areas. To be fair, at least they make an appearance in a chapter on stratification, and there are hints of a critical relation with the other main axes of stratification. Yet students are largely invited to collect and list these ‘dimensions’ of stratification, rather than doing anything more ambitious like evaluating or comparing them systematically and critically: no doubt there is no time on the A-level, but it must look like a rather arbitrary business to the newcomer.

Bilton et al have rewritten their famous work quite extensively in this edition. There is some substantial discussion on the new topics, on modernity and globalisation, and this is sustained in several chapters. The Preface and the Introduction makes a clear case for such material, and the authors demonstrate their own street credibility by citing their own Web page and offering a URL for on-line support services. Even here, though, there is an unevenness: ‘post’ critiques first make an appearance as

dealingmerely with ‘the role of language in human life’ (p.95), merely putting‘language, texts and discourse…at the top of sociology’s agenda’ (p.97).

It isnot until Chapter 19 that the case for the end of sociology is drawn fromBaudrillard and Lyotard ( after some necessary ground clearing in the previoustwo chapters), and even here comfort is soon offered to the reader ( and tocolleagues?): ‘Sociology. . . is a discourse well worth saying [containing]. .. truth claims which cannot be dismissed’ (p.648). Organising andcontextualising non-academic commentary also helps: students are told that thecase against human agency in such work is ‘difficult and unconvincing’ (p.649), for example, or that ‘the stance of poststructuralism andpostmodernism. . . has been rejected by many recenttheorists’ (my emphasis) (p.64.0). Earlier, the discussion of changes in‘modernity’ introduces a range of new concepts and issues - but we arereassured at the end that ‘we need sociology more than ever’ (p.49). Whetherwe need A-level sociology is not debated, though.

Hereand elsewhere, Giddens seems to structure the discussion, and there are interesting and engaging examples of his material on living in modernity (thetitle of Chapter 2), and on globalisation and modernity (Chapter 3). Readers geta stimulating discussion and sociology comes out of the museum at last - butthere is still the drag of the syllabus as a rather conventional ‘foundingfathers’ section is grafted on to the end of the piece on globalisation:readers go on to examine classical theories in a rather safe way, as some sortof innocent historical exercise in the emergence of sociology, and thus anymessiness is avoided by compartmentalisation. The pedagogic tensions are alsoevident in the contrast between the discussion in the text and the rathersuperficial quick-fix definitions in the margins or in the Glossary (a featurecommon to other texts, of course). The discussion of social class isconventional but thorough and professionally done, though perhaps it is a littletoo technical. There is a slight tendency to try to rescue social class as amaster concept, with the case against slightly muted, but the closing section isthoughtful.

Thereare no such discussions at all in Selfe’s work. This text is an expertlydevised A-level crammer, and as such it has its uses (and its fans, Iunderstand), although combining it with one of the other texts seems wise. Thepiece begins with a section on approaching the main task in hand - passing theexamination. Students are told some of the details of the operations of theExamination Boards, their marking schemes and the advice and warnings they issueto candidates and markers. Selfe describes the types of assessment on display,takes us through a suitable answer (although he says his text is not about modelanswers as such and warns against the technique: several sets have beenpublished, of course). Some rather good ideas are presented for course work andprojects, and students are offered an excellent list of research techniques.Study techniques are linked to the actual tasks presented by ‘data response’or ‘picture’ questions, and each chapter ends with a list of possiblequestions (and some ‘self-test’ questions too). Even the material in thechapters on substantive topics is organised around actual examination questions.In the opening chapter on theories and methods, arguments are presented in avery minimalist style, as lists of points for and against approaches (three‘criticisms’ and three ‘strengths’ for Marxism (p.5) for example), or aslists of bullet points. Kuhn’s work becomes five bullet points, for example,Weber gets four and Meade [sic] two.

Thechapter on social stratification offers the student charts of different classificatory schemes as well as the usual lists. Everything is cheerfully operationalised and reduced, with very little debate in fact, despite the stressin the opening. Students are offered brief summaries with almost no context, sothat Lockwood on the blackcoated worker appears as an apparent (real, later)opponent of Braverman, or Sennett and Cobb’s US study just ‘adds’ to thelist of British work on class. The Marxist perspective (just the one) is, ofcourse, simple economic reductionism and Selfe further reduces it himself - toone column on p.90.

Allthis is justifiable, no doubt, as a quick reminder for the revising student, butit is possible to doubt the approach even as a crammer. Are endless and ratherarbitrary lists of points really the best way to manage the material? Canstudents possibly know the work of Marx and Weber (let alone Schutz or Dahrendorf) well enough to pass an A-level from the quick list, the one-sentence summary and then a reference to the originals? (Most of the introductory textshave huge gaps in the reading like this, of course - one sentence on Habermas,say, followed by a reference to his Theory of Communicative Action). Selfe’slists are puzzling, on occasion, and students might find them off-putting ifthey do not agree with their notes from other sources. I also found it hard toactually do some of the self-tests in a way that agreed with the right answers.Selfe seemed able to ‘read’ the rather general question on class and gender(p.93), for example, as a cue to talk mostly about the specific debates aboutwomen and social mobility, which seems to be some sort of agreed procedure atA-level, as we noted with Barnard and Burgess. Since he is the expert, I mustassume I would have done rather badly on that question at A-level. Despite allattempts to develop a ‘technical fix’ to pass the exam (via a kind ofpedagogic Taylorism in this case), it seems that ‘answering the question’involves the same old shared tacit understandings.

As thediscussion on stratification indicates, Selfe is firmly located in the museum,where, for example, Schutz offers a ‘recent perspective in sociology’(p.14). There are no references to modernity or postmodernism in the Index, andonly one to globalisation (where, in the section on developmental sociology, weread that this ‘could become the fundamental unit of analysis in thefuture’). Doubtless, when it does, Selfe will devote a short list of bulletpoints to it, along with all the other topics he has processed.