This paper reports the results of a study aimed at understanding the processes governing the construction of educational inequalities in French classrooms, the French school system being particularly unequal. Traditional explanations have focused on the factors governing the production of inequalities but have not always shown how these factors…

Written tests for selection into medicine have demonstrated reliability and there is accumulating evidence regarding their validity, but we know little about the broader impacts or consequences of medical school selection tests from the perspectives of key stakeholders. In this first Australian study of its kind, we use consequential validity as a…

How did the undergraduate college rapidly position itself as the gateway to middle-class US employment between 1880 and 1920? This article attempts to explain one part of that process. Drawing on Weberian organisational theory, transnational intellectual history and case studies of three institutions, it identifies hierarchy as a defining aspect…

This article draws on the theoretical concepts of Pierre Bourdieu to provide an explanatory account of how socialisation and the hidden curriculum within coaching practice contribute toward the formation of social identities and powerful schemes of internalised dispositions. Drawing on a 10 month ethnography within professional football, the…

The tacit messages transmitted to indigenous learners in the science classroom provide a lens through which indigenous disengagement with school science can be better understood. In this paper, the findings of a cross-national comparative study conducted with indigenous Maori students in New Zealand and Seediq/Atayal students in Taiwan are…

The aim of this qualitative case study is to investigate how learning in "democratic participation" is constituted by the social interaction and conversation pattern in school democratic meetings in a Swedish primary school. According to the findings, a pupil control discourse and the Initiation-Response-Evaluation pattern dominates the…

Background: In this paper a study of both subject "content" and governing "processes" in Swedish physical education is presented. The reason why an analysis of both content and processes is of special interest is that it makes it possible to understand the encounter between the institutional level and the practice of education.…

The growth of surveillance in UK schools in recent years has resulted in the development of what can be labelled as the surveillance curriculum. Operating through the overt and hidden curricula, contemporary surveillance practices and technologies not only engage students in a discourse of control, but also increasingly socialise them into a…

Socialisation theories have traditionally focused on how children are socialised in a rather unidirectional manner, according to a transmission model. However, more recent research and theories show that children are not just passive recipients, but active agents in their socialisation process. At the same time, children are subordinated to adult…

Provides sociological analysis of recent documents on social education in Scotland. Argues that sociological theory underpinning prescriptions for social education takes no account of social inequalities and social conflict in both education and society. Explores contradictions between social education and meritocratic individualism. Discusses…

Uses data from English comprehensive schools to suggest that schools teach the reality of second class citizenship for African-American people through a hidden curriculum. Argues that teachers have the opportunity to challenge stereotypes and empower students by putting antiracist principles into practice. Stresses the need to recognize and…

Attempts to show that under certain circumstances, hidden curricula of schools perform an important function in maintenance of character myths. Applies Ernest Gellner's concept of conceptual incoherence to the role of the "Mechanech" (similar to American homeroom teachers, with responsibilities for pastoral care and moral education) in…

Argues that the ambiguous status of a traveling ethnic group has implications for the state's interest in its assimilation, and that government policies concerning Gypsies' schooling are largely aimed at incorporation. Discusses how Gypsies must retain control over their social reproduction through their children's upbringing, either by…

Suggests that the agenda and culture of reform in UK medical schools should be underpinned by more interpretive and reflexive research paradigms. Illustrates how the key tensions inherent in the professional socialization of doctors--between "objectifying" and "humanizing"--construct and limit both the capacity to change…

A questionnaire survey of 52 secondary schools in the three school systems (public, private, and Catholic) of Australia's state of Victoria provided information supporting the theories that behavioral values are transmitted through a school's disciplinary system and that the application of disciplinary policy has a significant effect on school…