NOTES on
Hargreaves, A. and Hammersley, M.
(1982) 'CCCS Gas! Politics and Science in
the Work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural
Studies'. In Oxford Review of Education,
8(2): 139 -44.
Dave Harris
We know that there is a tension between commitment
and 'careful explanation and appraisal' (139),
especially at times of social crisis. We
should really avoid overcommitment though,
otherwise 'the "knowledge" we produce will
undoubtedly suffer, and any political action we
pursue on the basis of that knowledge might be
misconceived as a result'. Bias undoubtedly
exists, for example in the publication of the Black
Papers. Biases were pointed out by the
CCCS publication Unpopular Education,
arguing that assertion based on common sense and
new right values took the place of careful
discussion of the evidence.
This is undeniable, but Unpopular Education
offers another example of the same trend and
tactics. It involves discharging 'vast
quantities of superficially persuasive rhetoric—a
kind of CCCS "gas", as it were—which casts an
imperceptible yet intellectually disabling cloud
of dogmatism across the theoretical terrain'
(140). This is a particular pity because
CCCS work is appealing across a wide
spectrum. It claims to offer a more
sophisticated Marxism, and 'go beyond mere
theoretical speculation by producing empirical
studies'. It is the modes of argument that
particularly need to be challenged, since they
offer 'dogmatic political assertion' masquerading
as 'subtle and open kind of social science'.
The argument is that state provided education
manages capitalism and thus cannot serve the
interests of the working class or others. It
is in this sense unpopular. Truancy and
deviants among working class pupils is better
understood as resistance. The analysis
avoids simple economic determinism, and argues
instead that state education reflects the balance
of forces of various kinds, including compromises
about developing comprehensive education involving
sociologists, teachers, unions and the labour
party, among others, acting as '"a set of
relatively autonomous trajectories"'(141).
However, there is no consideration of non Marxist
work, especially on the influences on
policy. This often takes a pluralist
approach, and is dismissed earlier in the
analysis. Instead we find 'the repetitive
use of Marxist and "marxissant" [sic] categories
of "settlement", "struggle", "balance of forces"
etc.'These are designed to replace conventional
pluralism. We can understand the commitment
to autonomous trajectories and the like better as
a response to over-deterministic Marxist sociology
of education. This left no room for
political struggle and change, or activism
[Althusser of course]. This is also why
liberal pluralism cannot be fully accepted.
Overall, the attempt is made to 'protect CCCS from
charges of political fatalism on the one hand, and
from fraternal guilt… on the other'.
Instead of blunt assertions about economic and
class forces, which would look like 'Stalinist
vulgarity' there is instead a strategy of 'gently,
subtly and repetitively' (142) making assertions
using particular terminology about 'popular'
struggles for popular education. This is
exactly what they accuse the new right of doing,
reiterating key terms in order to discredit rival
social democratic concepts. The definition
of popular is particularly broad, and includes not
only the working class but black people, women,
children, groups like teachers. However the
term popular also alludes to 19th century radical
politics, where there was a popular struggle
against the state and its control, especially of
education [as in Johnson's
piece on 'really useful knowledge']. Current
conceptions are seen as impoverished by
comparison, so change is also deterioration, and
again, 'little attempt is made to argue the
point'. Instead we have 'working class
romanticism', like the kind you find in community
studies, although with less hope of restoring
it. Nevertheless, there is an attempt to
show 'residual survivals', and to urge a focus on
them by contemporary socialists.
However, evidence for this position 'is pretty
thin'. Much reliance is placed on one text
from a former president of NUT, analysing the
school and classroom as the site of guerrilla
warfare. Willis
on penetrations and limitations is also
influential. However, this is still not 'the
politically articulate views of 19th century
working class radicals', despite continued
'reading inflated political significance into each
and every deviant act of working class
pupils'. There is other evidence on pupil
cultures which has been ignored [including the
usual suspects like Delamont, Furlong or Woods].
Citing this evidence leads to the view that no
particular group can be seen as preserving the
tradition of radical popular education, except for
CCCS. Instead, there is 'a spurious
attribution of inchoate "radical" insight or
rebellious pupils… [and]… Entirely
unsubstantiated assertions about dormant
revolutionary potential and "objective" class
interests' (143). These are based on a CCCS
vision of socialism rather than on the evidence,
and this is a prerequisite. In practice,
there is no 'conceptual centerpiece', but 'little
more than "hurrah" and "boo" words in an armoury
of political rhetoric'. Marxism does have a
role to play in analysis, but CCCS would be better
to emit less gas, deal with theoretical categories
less prescriptively, manage empirical evidence 'in
a properly skeptical way', and open themselves to
other traditions.
[hear hear!]
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