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Social theory is a complex area. Many students will already be aware that it contains strands based on the work of different individual thinkers, or organised around different ‘perspectives’, ‘approaches’, ‘paradigms’ or ‘schools’ (such as marxism, functionalism, interactionism, the ‘Chicago School’ and so on). At the risk of making things seem even more complex, though, I want to begin my discussions by suggesting there are different ‘levels’ or ‘locations’ for social theory too. Other commentators have identified different ‘levels’ for social theory before – some people think of theory as divided in to ‘classical’ and ‘recent’ types, for example (see Ritzer 1996). Waters (1994) sees theory as split according to its intentions into ‘formal’, ‘substantive’ and ‘positivistic’ types. Others have identified an underlying evolution of theory, from object-related to metatheory, or from practice-dominated to reflection-dominated types. However, it is by no means easy to simply see the relations as evolutionary, with smooth progressions over time. The relation between classical and modern types of theory, for example, can involve selective interpretation, forgetting, restatements, announcements of new beginnings and so on – see Bourdieu on ‘How to Read an Author’ (Bourdieu 2000). When we discuss Lyotard,we might find the notion of ‘paralogy’ useful too (Lyotard 1984) (and see file). My classification is different, though, based on what might appear to be an immediate and important social division for the student. At one level, social theory is performed and disseminated by individual ‘great thinkers’ or specialist theorists, but at another, social theory is an academic subject in a definite location – the university. This later level has its own structuring effects on social theory, I shall be arguing. To illustrate the point about levels, the classic tradition in sociology usually includes the ‘founding fathers’ such as Durkheim, or Marx, and one common device is to see these thinkers as founding ‘schools’ or developing ‘perspectives’ as above. It is common to structure courses and textbooks around such perspectives. This helps pedagogues (teachers and writers) organise academic histories and debates, but one of the many questions raised by such schemes can be detected immediately, perhaps – did each great thinker found a school or ‘perspective’, and if not, where do the isolated individuals fit? (Often, for example, Weber plays a series of walk-on parts, as a kind of ‘action theorist’, as an organisational theorist, or as a theorist of social class and so on, rather than as a founder of a distinct approach or school). Another question arises quickly here too -- does everyone fit into a ‘perspective’ like this (one controversy surrounded the location of feminism, for example)? Where should we place current writers, academics and intellectuals such as Baudrillard, Bourdieu, Eco, Featherstone, Giddens, Grossberg, Habermas, Hall, Jameson or Morris? Current social theory at the most general level goes on outside the neat divisions of school syllabi, and sometimes outside of actual universities for that matter, at high-powered international and prestigious conferences as well as via best-selling publications or in journals. The titans of social theory meet, discuss and publish their work at an apparently ‘pure’ level, where arguments are pursued for their own sake, following internally-set agendas of relevance and interest, with no apparent ulterior motives, no particular anxieties to justify their ‘quality’ to exterior bodies, and no obvious desire to maintain institutional, national or subject matter boundaries. Given the current isolation of social theorists from power, at least in the UK, there are no obvious (conventional) political implications either. Hints of this sort of activity also appear in textbooks, as arguments ebb and flow apparently in a purely logical or theoretical way – although, from my limited experience, textbook writing also features other important constraints as well. However, social theory also has a much more mundane and workaday existence, based in universities and colleges, as a taught element in broad courses in social science. These courses are assessed and bear public awards. Here, the mediators and representatives of social theory are likely to be paid academics and pedagogues, working in institutions that, in Britain at least, have increasingly strong constraints placed upon their activities. Social theory courses certainly are
constructed
in definite institutional contexts. They develop according to a number
of
interwoven agendas, of which the pursuit of theory ‘for its own sake’
is
but one, and where the freedom of the course designer is limited by a
number
of institutional factors, ranging from the nature of the teaching
system
and its organisation (as a modular scheme, perhaps, with a volatile
student
‘market’, and with particular forms of student assessment), to the type
of
faculty structure and policies affecting the distribution of work and
the
organisation of collective course design and teaching ( single- or
multi-disciplinary,
for example. There are also academic conventions to consider, the need
to
make a course ‘balanced’, ‘up-to-date’, ‘rigorous’ and assessable. Social
theory
courses are also received rather differently in the two spheres I have
outlined.
Social theory at the grand, ‘pure’, international level is pursued by
those
with definite interests in theory, either as fellow researchers and
theorists
or, even these days, as more general intellectuals who may not actually
be
employed by universities but who have an interest as journalists,
writers
or even as artists of various kinds. As I have implied, that
constituency
used to contain politicians, even in Britain. Members of such audiences
are
not, of course, tested on their retention of the main concepts, are not
necessarily
treated as intellectual or social inferiors, and are expected to impose
their
own agendas and interests on the topics they have discussed. The
reverse
applies at the institutional level. There is a
strong status distinction between the activity of reading or hearing
social
theory in the two settings, and this is perhaps one reason why the
institutional
setting is so little discussed as a problem for social theory. In the
professional
ideologies of academics, it is common to see the practice of actually
teaching
social theory as a lesser task, a low-status necessity which funds the
loftier
activity of doing social theory at conferences. Some colleagues try and
gloss
the differences between the two levels I have outlined, so that for
them
teaching a social theory course is (or ought to be) the same as giving
a
paper at an international conference, however restive or distracted the
actual
audience becomes. Such
ideologies
are comforting, and I have certainly indulged in these occupational
fantasies
myself, but I want to argue that the institutional level is important
as
a factor in its own right. To put this in a contentious way, one
serious
source of difficulty with social theory is that it has often become
institutionalised,
dominated by the requirements of a ‘suitable education’ with its
concepts
of ‘proper standards’, its notions of ‘coverage’ or ‘depth’, and, above
all,
its requirements to generate acceptable distributions of student
grades.
‘Pure’ social theory is difficult enough to understand, but
institutionalising
it can compound the problems. To be fair,
and to acknowledge the often heroic efforts of my fellow teachers,
institutionalised
social theory can offer students some solutions to the problems of
‘pure’
theory too. The whole structure of academic courses assumes that
newcomers
need help to grasp the principles, and that is why we design special
teaching
sequences or special materials to mediate between students and the
originals.
I am no exception here – my mediating materials attached to this book
take
the form of the ‘reading guides’ on my website.. However,
there
is always a price: any teaching system will make life easier for some
students
and, at the same time, more difficult for others. With that paradox in
mind,
let us begin our discussion with some thoughts about the most likely
form
of encounter with social theory for most people -- not as participants
in
an international conference but as students on social theory courses in
an
educational institution. Let us begin with a look ‘behind the scenes’,
at
the work of the course designer. Designing
Social Theory Courses If my
experience
is anything to go by, social theory courses are widely regarded as
‘difficult’
by both parties involved in the business of teaching and learning.
Staff
or faculty find the field notoriously difficult to pin down and face an
early
question -- what is appropriate social theory? Of course, this is a
constant
question in the wider politics of sociology -- national politicians,
especially
in Britain, have continually asked about the relevance and place of
‘theory’
in a modern education system, often in a way which implies a suspicion
of
political bias. Courses which feature marxist theory will have obvious
problems
here, but the whole area of social theory is chronically likely to be
seen
as subversive or frivolous: ‘...students... in such fringe subjects as
media
studies and sociology, absorb limited resources which could go to help
children
with innate potential from lower income and educational strata’
(Sherman
1996). At the more
local institutional level too, theory courses have to find a place amid
competing
courses which look more ‘vocationally relevant’ or ‘practical’, as
colleges
and universities become more ‘market orientated’ and as accountants and
managers
increasingly affect policies. Student ‘choice’ can have an impact too,
producing
a drift towards courses which just seem more familiar, and thus easier
and
less demanding. There is also a tendency for disciplines such as
geography,
history or English to develop versions of social theory within their
own
frameworks. In all these cases, at the institutional level, the
self-sufficiency
of social theory, or its claims to be embedded best within sociology,
come
to be questioned, implicitly if not openly. These
institutional
matters are not easily solved by an appeal to an authoritative
tradition
or public consensus among experts. Social theory has always been a
contested
field, with powerful rival approaches, and a good deal of reflexive
critical
commentary about the rival merits and limits of each approach. As
everyone
must be aware, for example, there has been a recent upsurge of radical
debate
with, and criticism of, ‘postmodernism’. The most popular versions of
the
‘postmodernist crisis’ refer to serious and detailed doubts about the
fundamental
(or ‘foundational’) claims of social theory, to deliver some organising
‘grand
narrative’ and to offer some kind of emancipation (in thought if not in
political
practice), somehow on behalf of ‘humanity’ or ‘the people’, or in some
other
universal interest. For the radicals, this sort of searching critique
has
led to a complete abandonment of the usual kinds of social theory as an
attempt
to make sense of the current social scene. The notion
of the ‘end of the social’ (see, for example, Smart 1993) means, among
other
things, the disappearance of the classic social conditions which
spawned
sociology (and marxism), and which shaped social life and culture --
the
controlling influence of shared beliefs and institutional practices
which
supported them, or the overwhelming constraints of the ‘mode of
production’,
or of some unstoppable grinding rationalisation of social life. In the
postmodern
era, it is argued, we have new forms of culture and identity, far less
constrained
by these social conditions, with their own dynamics and autonomous
impulses,
and so the old classic sociological (or Freudian, or semiotic, or
political)
explanations and ‘grand narratives’ no longer apply. This
specific
and internal sort of crisis can reveal how designers of sociology
courses
have to cope (enquiries from national politicians about political bias
can
be handled differently). The challenge of postmodernism is by no means
the
first, of course – similarly radical challenges have come from marxism,
various
approaches in linguistic philosophy, or feminism, which have all
announced
the redundancy of all earlier theory. Of course, redundancy is a word
with
institutional and personal implications too, and it is not surprising
to
find teachers of social theory wanting to carry on with the older work,
whatever
the radicals argue. Crises like these often have to be contained or
(concealed
or otherwise ‘managed’), in other words, in the practical business of
teaching
social theory in sociology or other courses. A number of options to
structure
syllabuses can help here: 1.
The
‘museum’ approach, where classical social theory, the work of the
‘founding
fathers’ is displayed as a matter of necessary historical interest. As
with
all the best museums these days, any dry and dusty material can be made
more
palatable with modern ‘applications’. These can tend to gloss the issue
of
the continued relevance of classical approaches: Durkheim can be
profitably
employed, no doubt, to discuss modern forms of social solidarity, (see
Alexander
1988) or Weber to offer insights into Japanese business practices (Ritzer 1994), but it is never quite clear why
they should
be so employed instead of anyone else. Sometimes there can be an
implicit
‘generationalism’ in this approach too, whereby older approaches are
simply
assumed to be less relevant, and where ‘recent’ means ‘good’ or ‘more
powerful’.
Such generationalism can work in reverse too, when old hands smilingly
shake
their heads at new fashions such as postmodernism. 2.
The
‘filing cabinet’ approach, to borrow a term from Craib (1992), where
options
are simply displayed in a kind of list, like files in a directory. A
syllabus
often provides the rationale for the sequences. With this sort of list
structure,
there is often no real attempt to offer any guidance about how to
choose
between the options, merely a succession of options, each one equally
plausible
(officially at least -- in practice it is often difficult to avoid
quietly
privileging personal favourites). This kind of indifference can be
useful
critically, of course, to question the more imperialist claims of some
of
the approaches to have replaced alternatives. This approach can also
produce
difficulties for students in that the sequences can look arbitrary –
people’s
filing systems rarely make sense to anyone else. 3.
‘Asset-stripping’,
where social theory is apparently subordinated to over-riding goals,
including
things we have mentioned already (like ‘vocational relevance’), but
also
to political commitments of various kinds (in the broadest sense). Thus
if
we expect practitioners in a field like youth work to be socially
activist
and critical, we might find ourselves drawn into a working sympathy
with
certain kinds of marxism or feminism. Social theory is deeply
implicated
with the most vocational or practical courses, of course, even though
it
might not be foregrounded as a topic for discussion. Thus any critical
debate
can rapidly head towards examining implict theoretical frameworks,
concepts
and assumptions. There can be a tendency to try and limit such debate,
though,
in the name of ‘practicality’ or ‘professional relevance’, or to
introduce
only those elements of theory that support or justify a political
position. Of course,
some institutional limits are essential given the competition for
resources
at the level of course design, and there are good pedagogical reasons
for
structure of some kind too. Our job as theorists and researchers might
involve
us in some open-ended pursuit of knowledge, but as pedagogues (and as
textbook
writers), we have what might be seen as a ‘contract’ with students to
deliver
some structure, some guidance, to limit uncertainty. In the
professional
world of the pedagogue, it is still common to talk of setting definite
and
limited objectives that students can achieve at the end of the course,
for
example, or of offering material at a suitable ‘level of difficulty’. More
generally
and informally, the purpose of doing social theory is rarely discussed
among
teaching staff, in my experience at least, in terms of producing
first-rate
theorists. Instead, a certain limited mastery is seen as a ‘good
thing’,
sometimes in order to help students understand more ‘relevant’ material
(on
social inequality, say), and sometimes more generally, as enhancing
intellectual
capacities, or as introducing students to the high-status ‘core’ of
sociology.
Staff will also talk in terms of the need to play an academic game or
to
demonstrate certain desirable and high-status qualities like managing
abstract
knowledge, or delivering some kind of participation in an elite
activity
dominated by high-powered intellectuals. At our most cynical, we are
also
aware of the need to demonstrate our ‘commitment to academic
standards’,
at least on those occasions when we are inspected, and there is nothing
like
a tough-looking social theory course to do that. Equally cynically, we
know
that students will expect an easier ride in practice, that we will have
to
attract suitable numbers for our course by avoiding any suspicion that
it
is ‘too difficult’, and that we will have to deliver student gradings
that
are both fair and acceptable. Indeed the
grading of students is one of the most important tasks affecting course
design.
It could be argued that if we did not have to grade students, we would
simply
not have to structure and manage social theory at all in the ways we
do.
Many of the apparently independent design procedures I mentioned
briefly
above (setting objectives, getting the right ‘level’ and so on) are
driven
to a large extent by the need to grade students in a publicly
defensible
way. Course design follows a curious career, where academics set out
formal
syllabuses and official student teaching and assessment schemes, and
then
treat these as external constraints, problems to be dealt with when it
comes
to ‘getting students through’. At the most obvious level, for example,
a
grading system that rewards detailed but limited knowledge of isolated
topics
(as most do) is likely to produce some pressure towards a ‘filing
cabinet’
approach (and perhaps a more detailed ‘bullet point’ technique for
individual
topics). There is
often
a professional reluctance to give grading its proper place as a key
activity
in our practice as academics, but the importance of grading comes
through
very clearly when we turn to the problems students face with social
theory. Coping
With Social Theory Courses Students
find
it hard to get involved in what often seems like an alien world of
impenetrable
jargon and obscure argument, but although we can sympathise, we need to
be
able to try and diagnose the difficulties a little. A common
institutional
response, for example, is to suggest some sort of course in ‘study
skills’.
We will discuss some of the options in more detail below, but for now
it
seems important to begin with an examination of some typical concrete
difficulties
which students experience. I have no systematic research to offer her,
but
my experience suggests that students encounter a range of problems, not
all
of which are endemic to social theory as such. For
example,
I sometimes ask my student to read a short piece of an article or a
chapter
and to note exactly when they begin to have difficulties. Some report
difficulties
with words such as ‘vicissitudes’ or ‘bifurcation’, (to cite a recent
example),
and tend to record their problems in terms of ‘sociological jargon’.
However,
these words are not particularly confined to social theory, of course,
but
feature in a particular style of writing found widely in ‘educated
English’.
In my view, many reported difficulties with the ‘style’ of social
theory
are of a similar nature -- they are really difficulties with complex
English,
with its structure of subordinate clauses and parentheses, for example.
There are
problems with the style of ‘educated English’, its habit of impersonal
and
detached writing, the ways in which different ‘voices’ sound in it, as
when
Giddens summarises Dahrendorf on Weber, for example. Finally, there are
difficulties
sometimes in grasping a sense of context or in identifying an intended
audience.
Students get disappointed and annoyed if a writer fails to address them
and
their interests directly and immediately in the ways to which they have
become
accustomed on other courses: they sometimes seem to expect Marx or
Weber
to have written in the manner of a modern textbook or handout. Even
deliberately
constructed teaching materials, such as those devised by the UK Open
University,
usually have in mind an audience of academic colleagues as well as
students,
though (see Harris 1987 for some examples). These sorts
of problems are interesting in that they require more than the usual
‘study
skills’ to make progress with them (we pursue this in the next Introductory file). They have also
attracted
some sociological commentary in their own right, of course, with strong
echoes
of the classic work of Bernstein (see Atkinson 1985), say, on the
‘elaborated
codes’ of ‘school English’ and the difficulties faced by British
working
class speakers of ‘restricted codes’. There are also several famous
studies
of the problems faced by members of ‘non-mainstream’ linguistic
communities
like native Americans (Dumont and Wax 1971) or African-Americans
(Brice-Heath
1986) on entering school systems. At the
level of
higher education, the work of Bourdieu (1988) on the academic ‘habitus’
with
its ‘high aesthetic’ and its unconscious structure of judgement and
distinction-making
seems promising, as we shall see. These analyses not only help us to
appreciate
the wider context of ‘difficulties with theory’ (the classic location
of
high-status knowledge and language, and an elitist activity, hence a
major
site for academic distinctions), but also provide some stimulating
possibilities
about what might be done to overcome some of these difficulties – see next file. At the
institutional
level, context becomes important again, as soon as concrete
difficulties
are explored. Students will frequently refer to pressures of time, for
example,
preventing them from reading in sufficient depth.. There are more
recognisable
and concrete demands placed upon students in their outside lives as
well,
which can take an acute form with female married mature students who
are
expected to look after families before
settling down
to the ‘private’ activity of reading social theory (see Morgan 1993).
Again,
it is convenient to partition these concrete problems as ‘welfare’
matters
quite separate from ‘study skills’, but the two are often inseparable
for
students who find themselves quite unable to concentrate on Weber’s
critique
of functionalism if they are worried about childcare or if they are
exhausted
from having worked the night-shift at the local fastfood outlet. To
cite
a recent real discussion again, the Student Union at my College
suggested
that supplying additional laundry facilities would produce a higher
return
on investment than employing more academic counsellors. Sometimes,
complaints about ‘pressures’ should be
read as a symptom
of something deeper. As Bourdieu seems aware, ‘pressures of time’ is a
coded
way of referring to problems engendered by clashes between a student’s
socially-located
‘dispositions’ and those of academic life (see chapter 8 in Bourdieu
1986).
Another important area indexed by complaints about ‘pressures of time’
is
student grading and assessment again: to cite the findings from a study
I
once undertook (with others), students who had dropped out from the UK
Open
University commonly referred to external pressures as the reason for
their
decision, but expressed no wish to re-enter the system even if the
pressures
were resolved. Sometimes, they seemed to mean that the whole process
was
just taking up far more time than they thought it should for a ‘proper’
student,
or that the time they were spending still did not deliver the grades
they
wanted. The
pressure
induced by student assessment has long been recognised in classic
studies
of student ‘instrumentalism’ (such as Becker et al 1995). More recent
studies
of student ‘approaches’ to their work have also suggested that
assessment
tasks can induce a superficial ‘surface approach’ to knowledge, one
which
stresses ‘memorising details, with the emphasis on assimilation of
knowledge
and information, and an external emphasis on assessment tasks’ (Morgan
1993:
77). A dependence upon the teacher and on the syllabus also follows
this
approach – students have no other way to gain access to the arguments,
no
ways to structure material for themselves. Assessment practices can
completely
reverse the lofty emphases upon independent thought in social theory
courses,
yet it is not uncommon for teachers to spend hours devising suitable
teaching
strategies while thinking little of student assessment and its
unintended
effects. Every
participant
can surely see that an onerous assessment system demanding fairly
trivial
operations will rapidly drive students into demanding nicely
institutionalised,
instantly accessible social theory in the form of quick fixes, bullet
points
or stylised debates. Such a system can also produce a definite
compartmentalisation,
as elements of courses are omitted by coping strategies of ‘selective
neglect’
(Becker et al 1995). Meeting student demands for compartmentalised
courses
which help them directly with their assessment requirements completes
the
vicious circle. This
compartmentalising
tendency is found throughout the famous textbooks that many of us meet
at
schools or in introductory sociology courses. Those texts feature a
management
strategy that clearly (and very successfully) bears in mind the main
assessment
tasks to be faced by students -- the need primarily to ‘get through’,
to
produce just a few discrete examination answers (as in the English
sociology
A-level exam). Strange incoherencies can result. It is
common,
for example, to see debates in sociology structured around the old
tension
between ‘approaches’ like ‘structure’ and ‘action’, for example, which
fits
topics like sociological methods, or discussions of deviancy
(especially
of suicide), yet when discussing stratification (say) it is more common
to
structure debate quite separately, around rival claims made by Marx and
Weber.
However, it might be interesting to ask whether the split between Marx
and
Weber could also be read as an example of the apparently universal
‘structure/action’
split, or, conversely, why the ‘structure/action’ split does not appear
in
discussions of stratification in the same way as it seems to in
discussions
of methodology, or, indeed, why Marx and Weber do not appear to have a
prominent
place in discussions of methodology -- did Marx not have a methodology?
Questions
like these would only distract the instrumental student, of course. There is
indeed
a whole industry devoted to getting people through examinations,
involving
writing textbooks, editing journals, and providing specimen answers,
often
by those who have designed or examined the relevant syllabus (see Selfe
1993
for a classic example). Nothing illustrates better the ways in which
assessment
practices can dominate the apparently neutral, natural or ‘pure’
discussions
of topics, as the very opposite of what is normally thought of as the
real
relationship. Much
pedagogic
practice at the level of higher education reveals similar qualities, I
have
already suggested. Distance education systems like the UK’s Open
University
offer student ‘study guides’ and ‘revision materials’ which often
contain
frank advice about what can be left out, or feature a series of less
obvious
structuring principles for the production of assessable course
materials.
I have identified and discussed some of these techniques myself (Harris
1987).
In more conventional institutions, the same procedures can be seen as
underpinning
some of the proposals of some recently active ‘pedagogy mongers’, like
those
advocating ‘effective teaching’ (Harris in Evans and Murphy 1993).
There
are also some interesting rumours that lecturers are increasingly
simply
‘teaching to the test’. If staff
are
already processing, packaging and managing materials for students with
both
general ‘educational’ and specific assessment-oriented goals in mind,
perhaps
students need only to learn to reproduce these packaging principles of
their
teachers? A ‘surface approach’ could
become institutionalised,
with an even tighter form of dependence for students: even their
‘deviant’
coping strategies could be topped and incorporated! Such a
development
would be a marvellous case-study for a much wider debate still under
way
in cultural studies, in fact. This debate turns on the possibility of
individual
subjects’ resistance to the increasing powers of various culture or
entertainment
‘industries' (see Harris 1992 for my own contribution). I must say my
pessimistic
conclusion here has been influenced by that debate. But until the loop
finally
closes between instrumental teaching and ‘surface’ learning, there
still
might be a possibility to both cope with the demands of a syllabus and
its
assessment and still be able to learn something for yourself, so to
speak.
The next file explores some ideas for
pursuing
this project. The
production of social theory It is
possible
to suggest the same sort of layering in theory itself, in the material,
for
example, which exists outside of the specific teaching material you
will
encounter. My thinking here follows a different model, one actually
based
on Althusser’s work on the production of formal ideas (‘ideologies’ on the one hand,
and ‘scientific
theories’ on the other). Benton (1984) has a clear discussion, if you
want
to research this for yourselves: we shall simply cheerfully borrow the
bits
that seem best to fit our introductory discussion here. Briefly, what
we
see in front of us in colleges, in the actual books and other materials
we
examine is the result of a definite production process. Ideas have to
be
produced, from raw materials, using productive practices, in definite
‘modes
of production’. We can pursue this notion to gain further insights. Some
classic
social theory, especially marxism, for example, was developed
independently
of any participation in formal teaching, since Marx and Engels were
freelance
intellectuals not university academics. Durkheim and Weber were more
attached
to college bases, but still developed their ideas with more than the
practices
of teaching in mind, and the current leading theorists can probably
claim
the same intentions. In other words, there is level of theory before
(or
behind if you prefer) institutional theory: we can think of this as the
raw
material for college-based social theory. It is important to remember
this
material – it might help us realise some of the limits of theory
courses. In order to
explore this further, let us construct a much simplified and rather
stylised
history of social theories and how they might develop. I am not
suggesting
that social theories all must necessarily ‘really’ develop like this,
of
course. It is possible to identify three phases: Stage
One
– social theory and life experiences Social
theory
arises from the definite life experiences (including political
struggles
and social agendas) of individual theorists, from their personal
biographies
but also from the intellectual, political and social climate in which
they
find themselves. As an example, Marx developed his ideas against an
experience
of social change and exile, as he moved from Germany to France and then
to
England. Several accounts (such as McLellan 1973) trace the effects of
this
journey in his theoretical thinking as he came to see the importance of
new
issues (the role of economic change and the politics of the workers’
movements
in England), and as he came to realise the limits of the old ways of
thinking
(say in his work on German thought). Similar accounts exist for
Durkheim
and his responses to the changing political circumstances of France, or
Weber
and the results of his personal family background and his subsequent
career,
according to Ritzer (1994). Just about everyone else could be included
here
as examples too -- Habermas has mentioned in interviews the effects of
his
early life and career (see Dews 1992), Foucault (1980) hints at his own
struggles
and engagements and their effects on his subsequent views, Ritzer
(1994)
supplies a personal background to his work on McDonaldisation – and so
on.
We know from the work of these writers themselves that ideas do not
spring
immediately from the mind of the individual thinker, that the stock of
experiences
available clearly have an effect (not a totally determining effect, of
course)
– clearly their own ideas cannot be exempt. Stage
Two
– systematisation As
theory gets systematised, though, it develops its own dynamics (it
enters
into a definite mode of production, if you wish). This can be hard to
grasp
until you actually do some theory yourselves, but it is a common
experience
to find that the arguments take on a force of their own, as it were.
For
example, published work gets read and criticised by other specialists.
As
a result, new implications arise, and new possibilities for research or
for
further interventions into some debate. Theorists develop their own
work
too, of course. In the next file, I have
discussed
the concrete implications of the work of Bourdieu and Habermas for
study
skills, but the implications flow the other way too, so to speak: can
we
see the work on study skills as some kind of test for the more general
theory,
something that might lead to some additional development of Habermas,
say
on whether there is a ‘good side’ of
strategic communication
in colleges, for example? Something
else can take place too -- new theoretical objects can emerge which may
have
no immediate connections with existing empirical social reality. Modern
physics
provides good examples, perhaps, with fashionable developments like
chaos
theory with its theoretical objects (produced by mathematical theory)
like
‘strange attractors’. There are equally well-known earlier examples too
--
quarks, black holes and the like – which have captured the imagination
of
the public. There are fascinating stories throughout the history of
physics
concerning the attempts to find empirical ways of measuring or
detecting
these theoretical objects, and these reveal that there is certainly no
easy
correspondence between theoretical objects and the ‘real world’. Nor
does
physics wait for the real world to reveal itself, so to speak: the
manipulation
of concepts in mathematical ways produces new theoretical objects. In
many
ways, that is the whole point of the exercise – there are systematic
possibilities
of novelty in abstract mathematical manipulations. Social
theory
can operate in a similar way, to construct theoretical objects as a
result
of the application or development of concepts rather than as
generalisations
from experience. Students can have difficulties if they do not realise
this
at first – that Weberian ‘ideal types’, say, are not the same as
statistical
types based on purely empirical generalisations, or that the marxist
concept
of ‘mode of production’ did not derive exclusively from, and cannot
simply
be ‘applied’ to, empirical data about the economy of modern Britain.
Similarly,
Durkheim’s discussion of the functions of religion clearly operates
with
a conception of religion that exists, as he tells us, implicitly in the
actual
religious practices of the social group. Social theory operates like
this
in describing some ‘virtual’ level ‘behind’, or ‘beneath’ the actual
specific
level of concrete organisations and practices. An
insistence
that theory has its own domain, in sociology or marxism as much as in
physics,
is sometimes unpopular, and there is a chronic likelihood of confusion
where
theoretical terms and everyday terms are similar. This is perhaps one
reason
why special terms have been developed in social theory, of course – not
to
confuse, bluff or mystify the beginner, as is so often suspected, but
to
signal a special theoretical use of a word. Sometimes these signals can
be
too subtle, perhaps, like the use of a lower-case ‘m’ for ‘marxism’
which
signals an interest in the body of concepts associated with a
tradition,
rather than the specific writings of the individual Karl Marx (some of
which
are marxist but by no means all, it has been argued). Theoretical
implications can lead to extensions of original concepts, but also to
substantial
revisions of whole systems of concepts. Theorists are especially open
to
theoretical challenges, in ways which non-theorists can find hard to
grasp.
Discussing the impact of ‘postmodernism’ on social theory, say, with
some
of my students can be revealing here. Why has marxism or feminism
become
so unfashionable they sometimes want to know. Why is everyone reading
the
much stranger work of Baudrillard or Deleuze instead? Whereas I tend
initially
to think of these changes in terms of a theoretical crisis in the very
foundations
of marxism, freudianism or feminism, my
students tend
to think more in terms of academics wanting to keep up with fashion,
sell
out their radical commitments, or open up some elitist distance between
those
who can read Deleuze and those who cannot. It can seem inexplicable to
abandon
whole approaches because of a mere theoretical problem, yet those
abstract
theoretical problems can be decisive for theorists themselves (often in
conjunction
with other problems too, of course). One of the
most detailed and thorough discussion of what we have been calling
‘sytematisation’
is found in Foucault (1974|) (and see file).
Foucault has a most ambitious project to explain the emergence of
specific
and sometimes conflicting ‘discourses’ (we can think, for now, of
academic
disciplines instead of this rather specialist term). The argument is
dense
and turns on the role of various ‘pre-discursive formations’ and
practices.
To take just one little element, Foucault writes about the ways in
which
discourses (disciplines) develop specific forms in relation to various
themes,
implications which get pursued and problems which arise. These emerge
within
disciplines themselves and in other disciplines: much development work
is
devoted to clarifying relations of similarity and difference between
the
discipline in which one works, and those of other specialists
(‘concomitant
fields’), which may include some general field of ‘science’ which one
approves
of, or a rival field which one wishes to build upon, replace, negate,
incorporate
or divide. Foucault’s
own examples refer to his interests in clinical medicine, political
economy
and linguistics, but something like this task (but with different
concepts)
informed my own work (Harris 1992), on the development of
‘gramscianism’
in British cultural studies, as it attempted to preserve some admired
discourse
(a variant of marxism) and identify itself with it, while tackling and
dismissing
or incorporating rivals. Stage
Three
– institutionalisation The third
stage brings us back to the earlier discussion -- social theory, as a
product
of theoretical labour, gets institutionalised in various schools,
colleges
or universities. I think this is important enough as a stage to
separate
it out from the more general Stage Two above, since many of the more
general
processes of development and systematisation take place in special
circumstances.
We have already mentioned the effects of conventions, customs, and
structures
of judgement at this stage. Theory has to be domesticated, and applied
to
respectable and specifically educational ends, sometimes despite the
intentions
of the original theorists. This almost inevitably involves a reduction
of
scope. The domestication of marxism so that it becomes a mere ‘topic’
on
an undergraduate course, or a mere ‘perspective’ in a textbook is
perhaps
the best example, although I imagine most writers would be amused or
appalled
to see themselves reduced to six bullet points in an examination
crammer.
I even have a little experience to relate here on seeing my own
extensive,
subtle and beautifully crafted critique of the UK Open University
appearing
as part of a rather dull and limited assignment -- on an Open
University
course! Reductions
and transformation like this take place under the influence of some of
the
pressures of course design we have outlined – the need to be
‘balanced’,
to take into account other courses, to provide assessable material and
so
on – and, of course, not all of these transformations are ‘bad’.
Sometimes,
pedagogy actually works, and arguments genuinely are made more
accessible
by these processes, although there are always the paradoxes of ‘access
at
a price’ that we have mentioned. One
result, which can be ‘good’ or ‘bad’, is the shock which can be felt
when
students encounter undomesticated ‘raw’ theory, if they read the
original
texts or if they stray beyond the limits of a course. Out there are
books
which are clearly written as ongoing projects or emerging thoughts,
still
struggling with ideas and straying across the apparently fixed
boundaries
of the ‘perspectives’. There are even books written deliberately in a
style
designed to resist or actively to oppose the tendency to package ideas
nicely
in a summarised form – the works of Adorno, Barthes or Foucault
immediately
spring to mind. It is not surprising that many students prefer to
remain
within the safety of a limited syllabus, a favoured textbook, the
mechanical
accumulation techniques of conventional study skills, or the
semi-deviant
world of the ‘hidden curriculum’. For the
course
designer there is also a choice to be made. Much social theory refuses
to
be domesticated, and all sorts of untidy residuals from the originals
persist.
There are often clearly ‘political’ sections and interests, lengthy,
specialist
and ‘difficult’ theoretical interludes, sometimes substantial empirical
sections
requiring some additional expertise beyond the reach of a short
‘theory’
course, clear signs of theoretical changes (from ‘early’ to ‘later’
works,
for example), and, these days especially, ‘poetic’ writings where
eminent
professors deliberately let language ‘play’ in their work. Teachers
can
feel themselves torn between their ‘contract’ to students and to
colleagues
(to provide a manageable course at ‘the right level’) and their wider
obligations
to their subject and their peers (to provide the ‘real thing’). In
courses,
and in the textbooks they write, many strive to do both, to provide a
framework
that will help students cope and gain understanding, while at the same
time
somehow alluding to something deeper, more open, more general, less
dependent
on the immediate context of the syllabus and the specific work of the
college. It is
hardly
surprising to find these tensions at work in the materials students
receive,
although it is also common never to mention them to those students: in
academic
work specifically, as in cultural work more generally, it is somehow
inappropriate
to reveal the process of construction to the consumer. Yet student
confusions
can deepen as a result of this convention. To take one example, one
UKOU
course was produced by a group of teachers who disagreed rather
profoundly
precisely about the issues we have been discussing. To those in the
know,
the twists and turns in the actual contents of the course clearly
reflected
the course of this (micro)political struggle, as first one faction then
the
other took turns to introduce their material, sometimes with little
regard
for sections that had gone before. Students remained baffled, however,
failed
to read the coded references to the underlying disputes, and sometimes
even
blamed themselves for not grasping the purely conceptual links between
the
different sections! Concluding
Thoughts The example
of institutionalisation gets to the heart of some important debates and
issues
in social science more generally, in fact. The processes involved are
examples
of the ways in which social life becomes ‘external’, ‘thing-like’
(‘objectified’
or ‘reified’ to use some sociological terms). The arrangements you will
encounter
in universities – the organisation of timetables, course structures,
syllabi,
teaching systems, programmes of work and assessment – are in one
important
sense socially constructed. They are not natural, immediately obvious
or
logically binding ways of proceeding – instead, they arise out of
various
detectable social practices, from ‘ideas’ which are expressed, then negotiated and occasionally struggled over. This
process
of emergence from ideas and recognisably localised expressions to a
material
phase of apparently objective constraint is at the heart of social life
itself,
of course, and has led to much theoretical elaboration and debate
(which
we are going to extend a little in subsequent sections). These debates
operate,
as always, at a more general level, and touch upon issues such as how
best to explain the externality of social life – as a matter
effectively
of material constraints or as the result of social constructs, or even
as
some kind of judicious combination For
participants
in institutions, these debates are differently oriented. Ideas can take
on
a personal force once institutionalised – they can appear as
constraints,
that is they are supported with sanctions of various kinds (from those
involving
social disapproval to those involving the criminal law). Any competent
social actor in any institution faces the
problem of knowing
where the practices in which they are engaging stand in this continuum
of
subjectivity and objectivity – are practices still negotiable or are
they
effectively fixed? When are rules best renegotiated and when are they
best
simply obeyed? This sort
of contextual issue returns us to the opening argument of this section:
in
‘pure’ theory, we are free to pursue arguments wherever they might
lead,
but practice (especially the practices in educational institutions)
offers
another dimension to theoretical exploration: we have to do it in
institutionally
approved ways, in accordance with practices that we are likely to
experience
as constraints. Yet it is
necessary to end by stressing that the constraints might not be as they
appear
at first. University syllabi and teaching systems are expected to be
‘open’
to a certain degree, to permit some negotiation and interaction within
fairly
loose constraints. I have suggested that the constraints might tighten
as
one moves from teaching to assessment, but even here the problem is
complicated: · assessment
requires you to show a level of challenge, critique, debate and
questioning
(‘optimal challenge’ it is sometimes called), to answer questions but
also
to do more, to show you are aware of other possibilities or contexts · formal
assessment is one aspect of a more informal series of judgements being
made
about you, which seem to include matters like how you respond in
seminars
or classes, how ‘involved’ you seem, how enthusiastic you appear about
the
sorts of debates and dilemmas that excite the professionals (for
example) · following
the rules and constraints of others entirely or completely makes for a
very
dull experience of university life, and it could well adversely affect
your
motivation and your understanding. In the next file, we can consider some implications of the processes of institutionalisation more generally. References Becker, H., Geer, B and Hughes, E. (1995) Making the Grade: the academic side of college life, with a new introduction by Howard S. Becker, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers Benton, T. (1984) The Rise and Fall of Structuralist Marxism: Althusser and his influence, London: Macmillan. Bourdieu, P. (1986) Distinction A social critique of the judgement of taste, London: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1988) Homo Academicus, Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. (2000) Pascalian Meditations, Cambridge: Polity Press. Brice-Heath, S. (1986) Questioning at Home and School: a Comparative Study, in Hammersley, M (ed.) Case Studies in Classroom Research, Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Craib, I. (1992) Modern Social Theory: from Parsons to Habermas, 2nd edition, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Dews, P. (ed.) (1992) Autonomy and Solidarity: interviews with Jurgen Habermas, London: Verso. Foucault, M. (1974) The Archaeology of Knowledge, London: Tavistock Publications Ltd. Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison, London: Peregrine Books Ltd. Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge: selected interviews and other writings 1972—1977, edited by Colin Gordon, Brighton: The Harvester Press. Harris, D. (1987) Openness and closure in distance education, Barcombe: The Falmer Press. Harris, D (1992) From Class Struggle to the Politics of Pleasure: the effects of gramscianism on cultural studies, London: Routledge. Lyotard, J-F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester: Manchester University Press. McLellan, D (1973) Karl Marx, His Life and Thought, London: Macmillan. Morgan, A. (1993) Improving Your Students’ learning: reflections on the experience of study, London: Kogan Page. Ritzer, G. (1994) Sociological Beginnings: on the origins of key ideas in Sociology, New York : McGraw-Hill Inc. Selfe, P. (1993) A Level Sociology: Patterns and Trends, London: Macmillan Press Ltd. Sherman, Sir A. (1996) ‘Opinion’, Guardian Education, July 9 1996. Smart, B. (1993) Postmodernity, London: Routledge.
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