Norbert Elias and the Sociology of Education 9781350041189, 9781350041202, 9781350042582

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Series Editor’s Foreword
1 Introducing Norbert Elias to the Sociology of Education
Part One Norbert Elias’s Theory in General
2 Biography and Overview
3 The Last Classical Sociologist?
4 Key Concepts
5 Figurational Scholars and Extensions into Education
Part Two Norbert Elias and the Sociology of Education
6 Civilization, Identity and Control
7 Diversity, Inclusion and Establishment–Outsider Relations
8 Unplanned Educational Policy Processes
9 Monopoly Mechanisms in Higher Education: Disciplinarity and Curriculum
10 The Globalization of Education
Part Three Norbert Elias in Dialogue
11 Why Elias? Figurational Sociology of Education in Dialogue with Bourdieu and Foucault
12 Towards a Processual Sociology of Education
References
Index

Citation preview

Norbert Elias and the Sociology of Education

Social Theory and Methodology in Education Research series Edited by Mark Murphy The Bloomsbury Social Theory and Methodology in Education Research series brings together books exploring various applications of social theory in educational research design. Each book provides a detailed account of how theory and method influence each other in specific educational research settings, such as schools, early childhood education, community education, further education colleges and universities. Books in the series represent the richness of topics explored in theory-driven education research, including leadership and governance, equity, teacher education, assessment, curriculum and policy studies. This innovative series provides a timely platform for highlighting the wealth of international work carried out in the field of social theory and education research, a field that has grown considerably in recent years and has made the likes of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault familiar names in educational discourse. Books in the Social Theory and Methodology in Education Research series offer an excellent resource for those who wish to use theoretical concepts in their research but are not sure how to do so and who want to better understand how theory can be effectively applied in research contexts, in practically realizable ways. Also available in the series Education Governance and Social Theory, edited by Andrew Wilkins and Antonio Olmedo International Perspectives on Theorizing Aspirations, edited by Garth Stahl, Derron Wallace, Ciaran Burke and Steven Threadgold Foucault and School Leadership Research, Denise Mifsud Social Theory for Teacher Education Research, edited by Kathleen Nolan and Jennifer Tupper Forthcoming in the series Education Research with Bourdieu, Julie Rowlands and Shaun Rawolle Poststructuralist Theory and Educational Research, Tim Jay The Future of Qualitative Research, edited by Matthew Thomas and Robin Bellingham

Norbert Elias and the Sociology of Education Eric R. Lybeck

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA   BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc   First published in Great Britain 2020   Copyright © Eric R. Lybeck, 2020  Eric R. Lybeck has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.   For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on pp. vi–x constitute an extension of this copyright page.   Cover design: Anna Berzovan Cover image © Nanette Hoogslag / Getty Images   All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.   Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes.   A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.   A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.   ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-4118-9 ePDF: 978-1-3500-4258-2 eBook: 978-1-3500-4119-6   Series: Social Theory and Methodology in Education Research   Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents Acknowledgements  Series Editor’s Foreword  1 Introducing Norbert Elias to the Sociology of Education 

vi xi 1

Part One  Norbert Elias’s Theory in General  2 3 4 5

Biography and Overview  The Last Classical Sociologist?  Key Concepts  Figurational Scholars and Extensions into Education 

11 19 39 61

Part Two  Norbert Elias and the Sociology of Education  6 7 8 9

Civilization, Identity and Control  Diversity, Inclusion and Establishment–Outsider Relations  Unplanned Educational Policy Processes  Monopoly Mechanisms in Higher Education: Disciplinarity and Curriculum  10 The Globalization of Education 

83 95 111 133 143

Part Three  Norbert Elias in Dialogue  11 Why Elias? Figurational Sociology of Education in Dialogue with Bourdieu and Foucault  12 Towards a Processual Sociology of Education  References  Index 

155 183 193 211

Acknowledgements This book was conceived as an interesting intervention to introduce researchers in the sociology of education to a social theorist they might be less familiar with, Norbert Elias. I did not realize then the task I had set out for myself, and I realize now this book could only be the first step towards much wider conversation, which I am even more convinced is worth having. So, I am now more grateful than ever to Mark Murphy, whose call for contributions to a new book series on ‘applied social theory’, particularly in the field of education research, provided a welcome prompt for this exploration. I was further encouraged by discussions with Stephen Mennell, who confirmed that, in his view, education was one of the most under-explored topic areas within the figurational sociology community. I can only hope that my far lesser knowledge of Elias’s oeuvre can do justice to his encouragement as I make a start in this direction. Concurrent to drafting the proposal for this book, I submitted an application to the Leverhulme Trust for an Early Career Fellowship that would explore the sociology of education from a figurational perspective. I am absolutely certain that I  could not have written this book, or sustained myself, financially and intellectually, without the autonomy and support provided by Leverhulme, to whom I  will remain indebted for the rest of my scholarly career. When developing this project, as a fixed-term lecturer, without a leg to stand on, I drew on the incredible support and advice from colleagues at the University of Exeter including David Inglis, Rob Freathy, Gabi Recknagel, Vivienne Baumfield, Deborah Osberg and more. Having just completed my doctoral viva at the University of Cambridge, where I developed many of the analytic frames that I  flesh out more explicitly here, I  obtained the indispensable critical support of John Holmwood and Andreas Hess. I was then able to develop the themes and theoretical potential captured here in a course on ‘Education and Society’ at Exeter for two years, where I learned as much, if not more, from my students as they picked up from me. In setting the course of action for the book so many moons ago, I  am grateful to the editors at Bloomsbury Academic, particularly Maria Giovanna Brauzzi, who has patiently tolerated my false starts in delivering the book earlier this year due to the infinite joy of welcoming our new daughter to the

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family, the frustrations and anxieties of strike action against our universities over pensions, and the relocation to new cities and jobs. In our daughter, I can see the myriad ways in which a person comes to be themselves, while, at the same time, emerging out of a field of relationships, a loving family and, in time, schools, communities and our wider, developing society. Indeed, I  can think of no process I  would rather be involved in than that of working with my wife, Eleanor, to raise our wonderful Marianne. And, while we are on the topic, I must add my thanks to Eleanor for her expert advice and support while writing this book, being as she is the most brilliant scholar I know, of English literature, culture, criticism and everything else; who contributed more than anyone to the best elements of the book you see before you (and none of the worser bits); without whose encouragement I might not have sat down to write the thing itself! As for the strikes, these were as frustrating and demoralizing, professionally and personally, as much as those positive sides of life in the past years have been enriching. I  nonetheless found ways in which the historical perspective on higher education I had been developing could be put to use in supporting a nascent recovery of academics’ involvement in higher education policy that had otherwise gone off the rails due to unplanned processes and unintended consequences, as Elias described. I  am particularly lucky to be involved in the interdisciplinary group known as ‘USSbriefs’, including Felicity Callard, Jo Grady, Leon Rocha and more, as well as to have been involved in a British Academy network for early career researchers working in the emerging field of ‘critical university studies’. I have Alison Wood to thank especially for inviting me into this network, where I  have met others pushing the boundaries of the sociology of higher education, including Jana Bacevic, Richard Budd, Dina Belluigi, Sol Gamsu and more. In this emerging field, I  have also been encouraged by discussions with Christopher Newfield, Liz Morrish and Helen Small. Meanwhile, at Exeter, I was grateful to get to know, through the strike, Clive Barnett, Ian Cook et  al., Gail Davies, Peter Riley, Laura Salisbury and a host of others in departments I  might have never met had I  stayed within my disciplinary silo (which was, in fact, an interdisciplinary mix of sociology, philosophy and anthropology). I  was also disappointed, when leaving Exeter, that my collaborative work with the emerging Global Systems Institute (GSI) led by Tim Lenton might lessen the opportunity to discuss potential points of integration between the processual sociology of higher education presented here and GSI’s ambitions to tackle climate change and other systemic global problems. Certainly among the highlights of this collaboration was the evening

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in which Bruno Latour visited our house for a glass of sherry during a massive blizzard in March 2018 while we discussed the ‘Gaia hypothesis’. But, all’s well that ends and begins again well. Indeed, I  must thank the Manchester Institute of Education and the University of Manchester for welcoming me to the university as a Presidential Academic Fellow, not least (so I am told) based on the innovative theoretical perspectives I am drawing from Elias’s figurational historical sociology and how this might contribute to the emerging scholarship in critical university studies. In subsequent discussions with Linda Evans, Steven Jones, Miguel Lim, Helen Gunter, Stuart Jones, Rita Hordosy, Jenna Mittelmeier and others within our Higher Education Research network, I have been inspired to explore even more directions of research within the field of educational research  – a relatively new field for me, an otherwise disciplinary sociologist by training. I have even found that my more ‘detached’ interpretations of higher education policy, drawn from Elias’s example, can lead to fruitful discussion with HE policy ‘wonks’ – with whom I am otherwise often at critical loggerheads with  – including Andy Westwood and Nick Hillman, with whom I  have shared fruitful coffees, meals and discussions about the future of higher education in Britain, particularly the promising aspirations of a reconstructed civic university ideal, such as articulated by William Whyte – another great historian of universities for whose acquaintance and advice I have been fortunate to gain. As I note in the concluding chapter of the book, I see this foray into applying Elias’s social theory as a contribution to a broader, processual sociology of education  – particularly recommending a synthesis between the work of the figurational school and that of Andrew Abbott’s, whose insights on disciplines and professions have informed my research into higher education. I  have learned much from discussing these possibilities with Abbott as well as Stephen Mennell, Wolfgang Knöbl, John Dupré, Ruben Flores, Alex Law, Jacob Habinek and others, especially as I developed the new journal Civic Sociology during this period with University of California Press with publisher Dan Morgan. To my mind, processual sociology can provide a basis upon which better sociological interventions into efforts to solve social problems can be conducted, by encouraging sociologists to actively engage with organizations, institutions and communities as professionals confident in their knowledge and expertise, yet humble and willing to engage with the particulars of place, time and normativity. In collaboratively developing this project, I have learned much from conversations and correspondence with Phil Gorski, Elisabeth Becker, Jane Elliott, Mitchell Stevens, Jeff Guhin, Mike Finn, Lyn Spillman, George

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Steinmetz, Ann Mische, Brandon Vaidyanathan, Lori Beaman, Damon Mayrl, Carl Fraser, Lis Clemens, Paul Lichterman, Michael McQuarrie, Siobhan McAndrew, Isaac Reed, Mark Carrigan and more, including, most recently, exposure to the fascinating scholarship ongoing at the ‘social generativity’ school in Milan, developed by Mauro Magatti, Chiara Giaccardi, Laura Gheradi and others. As I acknowledge these wonderful and inspiring colleagues, many of whom, I expect, have forgotten as many of the conversations I retained as significant contributions to the writing of this book, itself a part of the process of my developing career research into the emergence of higher education since the nineteenth century, it is worth recalling Elias’s insight into what knowledge is: not the property of one atomic individual but as a ‘social fund’ that we enter into, contribute to and hope improve. I  am therefore most grateful to have had the opportunity to present this grain to this tremendous fund we have as a product of human civilization. All the more so during an era in which this civilization is in such desperate need for such a fund. It is for this reason I chose to dedicate this book to my grandparents and my, as yet, unborn grandchildren, since we are all involved in a long-term process of human development. We may enter, extend and depart from this process, but we all contribute to its changes, for better or worse. Lewis Mumford once said, ‘Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers’, and much as I  am fond of my dad (and mum!), I  do consider the present to be an appropriate time to shift away from the politics of their generation, which has been, in my view, at times overly critical, and at other times, overly individualistic and selfish. Yet, unlike so many critical scholars of their generation, I  do not wish to revolt against everyone over the age of 30 and all that they hold dear. Neither would I wish to see an uncritical return to a golden age that never existed and was tremendously exclusive (consisting of Mumford and his patriarchs, for one). But, in working with and alongside Norbert Elias, who never failed to take those aspects of historical thinkers that ‘work’, while remaining fixed and critical of those aspects that were a product of over-involvement in one, limited perspective on the greater whole, I  see a future for scholarship in education and other social research that could become ‘post-critical’, that is, willing to work towards reconstruction of a range of elements we took for granted and lost, perhaps through no one’s fault alone. Towards re-establishing civilization on terms which are not afraid of confronting the horrors of colonialism and exclusions that remain a part of our lives, embedded within our identities and

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ways of knowing. Towards a critical yet public scholarly practice that draws from engagement with communities, both near and far; past, present and future: that moves beyond our learned habit of denunciation and towards sustained reconstruction of our long, common and connected history.

Series Editor’s Foreword Education research has a long history of adapting ideas from social theory. While this has always been the case when it comes to educational foundations, in recent years there has been an enormous growth in the adoption of social theory in the field of educational research. The names of theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu, Jürgen Habermas, Judith Butler and Michel Foucault have become commonplace in the field, making social theory increasingly familiar to those who both conduct education research and utilize it in their teaching. As its familiarity increases, so too does the desire to engage with social theory in more thoughtful and effective ways. There is currently a strong desire for applying social theory in educational research contexts, which makes sense, as without theory, much education research can be overly descriptive and/ or restricted by narrow definitions of professional practice. Social theory can assist in efforts to transcend the everyday taken-for-granted understandings of education, while also reflecting erstwhile concerns around power, control, social justice and transformation. The issue then becomes one of applying theory to method, with the focus shifting to a growing interest in the art of application itself. This interest comes with a set of key questions attached: ●●

●●

●●

How best to apply concepts such as habitus, subjectivation and performativity in educational research contexts? What are the ways in which methodological concerns meet theoretical ones? In what ways does social theory shape the quality of research outcomes?

These questions require thoughtful responses, and the purpose of this book series is to help provide solutions to these issues, while also helping to develop the capacity, in particular of postgraduate and early career researchers, to successfully put social theory to work in research. This is especially important as theory application in method is a challenging and daunting enterprise. The set of theories developed by the likes of Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Bourdieu and others could never be described as ‘simple’ or easy to navigate. On top of that there are a variety of issues faced when applying such ideas in research contexts, a field of complex interwoven imperatives and practices in its own right. These

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challenges  – epistemological, operational, analytical  – inevitably impact on researchers and our attempts to make sense of research questions, whether these be questions of governance and political regulation, social reproduction, power, cultural or professional identities (among others). So care needs to be taken when applying a challenging set of ideas onto a challenging set of practices, incorporating a strong consideration for both intellectual arguments alongside the concerns of the professional researcher. The series should hold a strong appeal to the growing numbers of researchers who are keen to apply social theory in their research, as evidenced by the growing audience for the editor’s own website, www.socialtheoryapplied.com. It will offer an excellent resource for those who wish to begin using theoretical concepts in their research and will also appeal to readers who have a strong interest in better understanding how theory can be effectively applied in research contexts in practically realizable ways. In terms of output, this series is designed to provide a collection of books exploring various applications of social theory in educational research design. Each book provides a detailed account of how theory and method influence each other in specific educational research settings, such as schools, early years, community education, further education colleges and universities. The series represents the richness of topics explored in theory-driven education research, including leadership and governance, equity, teacher education, assessment, curriculum and policy studies. It also provides a timely platform for highlighting the wealth of work done in the field of social theory and education research, a field that has grown considerably in recent years and has made the likes of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault familiar names in educational discourse. Embedded in the design of the series is a strong pedagogical component, with a focus on the ‘how’ of applying theory in research methodology and an emphasis on operationalizing theory in research. This pedagogical remit is addressed explicitly in the texts in different ways  – the responsibility of addressing this falls to the authors and editors but can take the form of case studies, learning activities, ‘focus’ sections and glossaries detailing the key theoretical concepts utilized in the research. Given the aims and remit of this series, Eric Lybeck’s new book, Norbert Elias and the Sociology of Education, provides a very strong fit. As series editor, I have to say I was very pleased when Eric and I engaged in conversation about putting together such a book back in 2016. I had myself been schooled in Elias by Stephen Mennell at University College Dublin. The curriculum  – dealing as it did with Elias’s incredible work on the civilizing process  – left a major



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impression on me and has stayed with me decades later. Although I have never directly engaged with Elias in my own research, I was always intrigued as to how his ideas about power, knowledge, culture, social change and intellectuals have never received the same attention as those of the two most influential social theorists in education, Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault (if in doubt about this, just check out the content of the British Journal of Sociology of Education and the Journal of Education Policy, respectively). Elias’s work is just as expansive, elaborate, advanced and innovative as those of Bourdieu and Foucault. Just as importantly, his ideas are as relevant as those that have so far held sway over theory-driven applied education research, that is, habitus, capital, subjectivation and discourse. To be fair, some of this relevance needs to be identified and foregrounded for the non-specialist reader. And this is where Eric’s main contribution comes in. He has delivered a text that provides practicing researchers and students with the theoretical and methodological resources required to begin scholarship incorporating the work of Elias. Connections are expertly made between Elias’s processual sociology and topics such as unplanned educational policy processes, monopoly mechanisms in higher education and globalization of education. Issues of identity and inclusion are also explored through the conceptual prism of Elias’s ideas – the reader will quickly become aware that Elias had much to say about schooling and education more generally, especially when it comes to questions of power and knowledge. I especially appreciate the content of Chapter  11 that situates Elias in conversation with Bourdieu and Foucault. In doing so, Eric positions all three as intellectual fellow travellers, often dealing with similar concerns but in remarkably different ways. My hope is that readers will engage with these intellectual dialogues and start to consider how education research can benefit from a much wider intellectual palate than is currently the case. It is also my hope that Eric’s applications of Elias can contribute to a more sustained adoption of conceptual hybridization in education research, one which combines elements of different theories to form another. Norbert Elias himself was a master of hybridization (Smith 2001: 15), and his work provides an ideal basis from which to view education and its challenges through a wider intellectual lens. That said, it is important to state that Elias was not enamoured of theory for theory’s sake. He was suspicious of theories which were ‘couched in a particularly difficult language’, developed through a desire to attract the ‘academic prestige attached to theories which are difficult to understand and which can exclude the non-initiated from access to the field’ (Elias, interviewed by Peter Ludes,

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2005:  226). As a consequence of this, Elias proclaimed that ‘there is a lot of useless knowledge produced these days’. Elias had a very different approach to theory and theorizing – his ideas were meant to be put to work and developed through research applications. Norbert Elias and the Sociology of Education is delivered precisely in this spirit – many thanks to Eric for his dedication and scholarship, and I very much hope readers can make use of it when it comes to their own bridging of social theory and methodology. Mark Murphy, Series Editor

References Elias, N. 2005. ‘Knowledge and Power: An Interview by Peter Ludes’, pp. 203–42, in Society and Knowledge: Contemporary Perspectives in the Sociology of Knowledge and Science, 2nd edn, edited by N. Stehr and V. Meha. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Smith, D. 2001. Norbert Elias and Modern Social Theory. London: SAGE.

1

Introducing Norbert Elias to the Sociology of Education

Norbert Elias was among the most important sociologists of the twentieth century, yet his work is not well known within the sociology of education, certainly compared to more familiar names such as Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault. This is, in part, due to Elias’s own neglect of treating the topic area of education as systematically as he did others in his more well-known analyses of state-formation, manners, sport and knowledge. Still, as this book will demonstrate, there are a range of potential applications to which adding an Eliasian perspective  – or ‘figurational’ perspective, as his brand of sociology is known – would contribute to new ways of understanding educational processes. Most importantly, it will be through understanding these processes as processes – that is, as historical trends developing over long timeframes – that will shed fresh light on dimensions of social inequalities of education, identities, globalization and a host of other topics. Elias fits squarely within recent trends towards ‘relational sociology’ and can be integrated with other scholars working within this broad tradition (Emirbayer 1997; Paulle, Heerikhuizen and Emirbayer 2012). Precisely because of the depth and breadth of Elias’s insights, no book could cover all of these topics and applications in full. The present volume is, therefore, intended as an introduction to facilitate the emergence of new conversations and new studies. While following the course set by Elias and figurational scholars, including Gabriel (2017b), de Swaan (1988) and others, we explore ways in which new topic areas can be researched, including for scholars interested in social identity, exclusion, educational policy and the role of expertise in contemporary societies.

1.  Towards a post-critical sociology of education Throughout the book runs a latent argument that Elias’s insights into the sociology of knowledge in particular  – in which a spectrum running from

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more ‘detached’ versus more ‘involved’ ways of knowing can provide different ‘means of orientation’ (Elias 1987a) – can facilitate overcoming certain impasses within the sociology of education. Though full articulation of this argument lies beyond the scope of the present book, it might be suggested here by way of an introductory agenda-setting that figurational sociology can contribute to a ‘post-critical’ sociology of education, as has begun to be articulated within the humanities (Felski 2015). Within education, one recent iteration of this agenda is captured in the Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy, which argues that postmodernist thought concerned with alterity and voice forecloses the possibility of acting and speaking (Hodgson, Vlieghe and Zamojski 2018). The authors advocate, instead, an orientation towards hope and recognition of the ‘good’ in the world. The theme of what to do ‘after deconstruction’ is one I have addressed with co-editors and authors in Reconstructing Social Theory, History and Practice (Dahms and Lybeck 2016), where, in contrast to the reaffirmative sentiment cited above, we acknowledged that ‘deconstruction has informed, deepened and refined our understanding of the role of discourse, difference, and expertise in determining and sustaining relations of power and inequality, and amplified our ability to recognize related patterns’ (Dahms and Lybeck 2016:  xiv). We should retain this critical power in our analyses but push farther in our postcritique to see that there is a disconnect between our increasingly complex and sophisticated critical methods and the reactionary developments in the world moving in opposite directions. This contradiction between theory and practice may have to do with the difficulties associated with translation from critique to political or pedagogic action insofar as the public often does not grasp the meanings of our critical neologisms and abstract theories. But, equally, I would argue that critical theory – particularly university-based, academic critique – is not adequately oriented to include itself as an active entity within the broader social process. Precisely this capacity to ‘detach’ from our normative, ‘involved’ commitments, in order to see the wider picture in which critique is becoming increasingly less effective in translating into practical, political and social outcomes, would be something Elias’s social theory can add to our analyses of education and related social trends. In other words, as others have argued, advocating a synthesis between postmodern and modern theorizing (Mouzelis 2008), figurational sociology can improve our capacity to research, as well as provide a basis for criticism from a more realistic picture of what our contemporary society consists of, where it came from and where it might go.



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This explains why we conclude the book by putting Elias’s approach in dialogue with more familiar critical scholarship in the sociology of education as well as cutting-edge developments in a broader ‘processual sociology’ (Abbott 2016). Perhaps, by seeing the critical sociology of education as one among a host of alternative ways of viewing education – and one that is itself related to and embedded within contemporary configurations of knowledge and power – we might develop a sociology of education that moves beyond the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ or debunking, without replacing this with mere affirmations of what exists or naive withdrawal from expertise – knowledge that is increasingly necessary within our complex, global societies. The following discussion, therefore, not only introduces Elias to unfamiliar readers but also encourages the reader and our research community of educationalists to begin to see ourselves from the ‘outside’ so to speak – from a more ‘detached’ position in which we observe education and educational research as part of a series of figurations, meaning a dynamic structure in which participants enter and leave while conforming to relatively stable positions, habits and power relations  – though the key word here is ‘relatively’, since social structures are constantly changing. As Abbott (2016: xi) succinctly put it, ‘All is change’, and it is temporary stability that, in fact, needs to be explained. Yet sociologists tend to operate with the opposite assumption, as Elias argued: ‘theorizing in the field of sociology is complicated rather than simplified by a systematic reduction of social processes to social states, and of complex, heterogeneous structures to simpler, seemingly homogeneous components’ (Elias 2000: 455). Even our most taken-for-granted institutions and norms developed over the long term, that is, centuries. Many of our habits and ways of thinking are the product of these processes. Much of what we take for granted  – even within critical modes of scholarship  – is, in fact, the product of earlier structural stabilizations, especially at the level of politics, professions and changes in class structures. So long as we neglect this earlier history we are doomed to reflect the common sense understandings of the present as though this was the only way things could or should have worked. Elias called this the ‘retreat of sociologists into the present’, suggesting both structural-functionalism and its opponents in critical neo-Marxism were equally remiss in projecting their present political concerns on history, distorting both the past and present, in the process (Elias 1987b). In contrast, rigorously engaging with the actual, long-term history of social processes can provide us with a basis upon which we can see ourselves in relation to realities we otherwise neglect because we are too involved in the phenomena we seek to understand.

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In seeing where the modern world came from, and ourselves within it, we can begin to take a more adequate stock of what our knowledge really is: recognizing, not least, that knowledge is not a property of individuals but rather amounts a ‘social fund of knowledge’ providing various ‘means of orientation’ to new members of our societies (Elias 1987a). And these individuals, it is worth noting, do not enter society as full-grown, epistemically rational adults but are born into dependent relationships and are educated over a long period of time in the home, in school and in society. Indeed, Elias challenges our very assumptions about what he termed ‘homo clausus’, the conception of the individual as ‘a little world in himself who ultimately exists quite independently of the great world outside’, including others likewise seen as separate, atomized individuals, each with a true ‘core’, ‘being’ and ‘self ’ (Elias 2000: 472). Once we see all humans as related to, emerging from and reconstructing social figurations  – as ‘homines aperti’  – we can see knowledge itself as an emergent phenomena constantly being adapted to and changing in relation to new institutions, associations and values. As sociologists of education, we can see these processes as elements within broader dynamics, and in doing so we can both add to our scholarship in educational research and draw into figurational sociology this hitherto neglected subfield of sociological study: education.

2.  Structure of the book The book does not presuppose any prior knowledge of Elias’s work and accordingly begins with an introduction to his overall project and some of his major findings. This is not necessarily comprehensive or a replacement for broader surveys, such as those of Mennell (1998), and certainly does not substitute for the richness of primary texts themselves  – in particular, Elias’s magnum opus, The Civilizing Process (2000). The first chapter, however, situates Elias within historical and intellectual context, noting especially the effects of the interwar German debates over materialism and idealism. His early career as assistant to Karl Mannheim provided a firm grounding in issues relating to the sociology of knowledge and distinguished him from his contemporaries at the Frankfurt School, known for developing a critical theory of society. Their synthesis of Marx, Weber and Freud is compared to Elias’s in Chapter 3, which positions Elias’s general project on a scale comparable to the central canonical thinkers in classical sociology, including the three noted above, Marx, Weber and Freud, as well as Émile Durkheim. Indeed, we note that Durkheim’s most



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historical work on the sociology of education, The Evolution of Educational Thought (2013), bears the strongest resemblance to what we think a figurational sociology of education would look like. In Chapter 4, we introduce Elias’s core concepts and works, including especially his insights from The Civilizing Process. This introduction provides summary of not only his central theoretical concerns, such as the mechanisms through which ‘social control’ became embodied as ‘self-control’ through the pacification of table manners and a habitus in which aggressive drives were sublimated and rechannelled into status competition in court society, but also much of the historical context referenced throughout the book. For Elias’s project was a cumulative one, and Elias provided an alternative historical account to explain the rise of modern, industrial capitalist societies  – a historical process that we will suggest better explains the rise of mass education during the subsequent period since the 1800s compared to more familiar metanarratives such as those drawing on the Marxian tradition. Chapter 5 demonstrates how this cumulative project has translated into a range of studies by other scholars working in the figurational tradition. Some of these have expanded Elias’s insights into related topic areas, such as the social construction of appetite or the control of fire – others drew his insights into the realm of education. The next section of the book draws these insights and themes into specific topic areas recognizable to contemporary sociologists of education, suggesting that adopting an Eliasian point of view opens up new ways of looking at familiar problems. The first theme, covered in Chapter  6, considers the way Elias’s analysis of civilizing processes can be connected to our understandings of socialization and identity. The next chapter draws on what Elias called ‘establishment–outsider’ relations to explore why issues related to diversity might be more complicated than we think. We can begin to see that inclusive policies related to education can, of course, contribute to more socially just dynamics in terms of involving formerly included groups within the evolving culture of the knowledge economy. And yet, we might also observe that insofar as this inclusion is ostensibly into an establishment, we might still ask, Who remains an ‘outsider’? Who becomes the new outsiders, including formerly valorized identities such as dominant ethnicities, minorities and genders who now feel left out of the establishment? Again, the capacity to ‘detach’ from one’s involvement in advocating for inclusive education allows us to see the full picture in which the overall process is changing in more or less objective ways to include some, while excluding others, even if this is not our intention.

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Indeed, Chapter 8 deals precisely with Elias’s understanding of how most social processes are ‘unplanned’, meaning no single individual or group intends certain social outcomes, although we have a tendency to blame or attribute intentionality where this is not realistically the case in causal processes. Elias provided us with a series of what he called ‘game models’, which can explain unplanned processes in relation to the emergence of ‘multi-tiered’ games, in which actors act strategically in relation to limited awareness of the overall game, especially as more and more actors enter the field. This dynamic adds greater usefulness to forms of knowledge that can provide better strategic overviews of what is going on overall; thus, we suggest, we can establish a basis upon which one could argue that some forms of knowledge are ‘better’ or more ‘powerful’ than others insofar as these may provide more useful ‘means of orientation’ within strategic games operating on one or more tiers. Chapter 9 draws us into discussion of disciplinarity and issues related to the curriculum. Elias’s sociology of knowledge and interpretation of so-called ‘monopoly mechanisms’ were drawn into discussions around what he called ‘scientific establishments’, each of which operates, in part, not only in relation to the objective content they researched but also in relation to the relatively autonomous power dynamics separating disciplines from one another. This insight connects with contemporary issues surrounding ‘decolonizing the curriculum’, since we can recommend ways of conducting this critical work while remaining aware of the relatively elite and exclusive positions of power in which these reforms take place. That is, we should recognize that decolonization efforts that take place in elite universities might change the dynamics of the ‘third tier’ of knowledge production but either have no or unintended effects beyond this elite level. Further, since topic areas in need of decolonization are not distributed equally across all the divided disciplines of the academy, it can become difficult to define one, single ‘curriculum’ nowadays regardless. This does not mean we should abandon this project, but, as in our other discussions, adopting a more detached perspective can facilitate our strategies and agendas by relating to more realist dynamics in which our activism and normative scholarship can make sustainable interventions. As knowledge becomes more and more globalized the urgency of this work expands, and Elias was effective in demonstrating that the civilizing processes he described applied both within nation states and within imperial relations across the globe. Chapter 10 draws our discussion, thus, to the globalization of education, noting especially promising connections with the work of Meyer and others in the new institutionalist school of thought (Meyer and Bromley



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2013; Powell and Dimaggio 1991). When we realize that educated individuals, who are socialized according to the expectations and norms of a given era, enter organizations, they construct the world in their image – not just within nations but around the world – we can begin to see education as not just a product of globalization but as a producer of globalization. This means that the sociology of education should not merely involve the study of social effects on education – for example, social inequalities leading to unequal opportunities – but of education’s effects on society. Having suggested several connections to areas of research sociologists of education are working within, the next section integrates these figurational insights with the theoretical traditions guiding much current educational research. Nowadays, few sociologists can avoid the work of Bourdieu, and an overwhelming number actively deploy Bourdieusian concepts of field, capital, habitus, cultural arbitrary, symbolic violence and so on (Nash 1990; Stahl et al. 2018). Chapter  11 engages in a deep dialogue with both Bourdieu and, to a lesser degree, Foucault (Ball 1990), to suggest that Elias’s own research into French court societies indicates that some of the French theorists’ framings may have been specific to that national and historical context. While noting the many similarities between Elias’s approach and the relational sociology of which Bourdieu and Foucault are central figures (Emirbayer 1997), the chapter nonetheless pushes against the way the notion of the ‘cultural arbitrary’ is used in educational research to over-sociologize knowledge, thereby limiting our capacity to determine which forms of knowledge can be more powerful and useful than others  – which elements are not the mere expressions of the dominant class? How else can we interpret the objective condition in which Bourdieusian and Foucauldian scholarship is nearly ‘doxic’ within our own cultural arbitrary? Further, how can we then interpret the effects of this doxa on educational thought, policy and practice? The chapter further encourages researchers to avoid the assumption that discourses necessarily produce subjects and subjectivities, suggesting this needs to be evidenced and, further, connected to more historical analyses of long-term trends such as those conducted by Elias and those working in the figurational tradition. Ultimately, what we need, perhaps most of all, is a fully historical sociology of education, rooted in archival and comparative analysis as much as quantitative and qualitative studies of unequal patterns of social capital and educational outcomes. The book concludes with Chapter  12, which recommends a more general ‘processual’ sociology of education, in particular connecting Elias’s work to the scholarship of Andrew Abbott and others developing this tradition (Abbott 2001b,

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2005b, 2016). Noting that Abbott also recommends a robust alternative to the Bourdieusian framework organized around an economic metaphor emphasizing one type of social relationship – domination – a processual sociology complicates this by disentangling multiple unplanned and less teleological dynamics and trends. In Abbott’s work discussing the ‘linked ecologies’ of universities, states and professions we find a model for analysing complex interactions across a range of what Bourdieu would call ‘fields’ and Elias would call ‘figurations’. For the scholar interested in extending the recommendations merely sketched in this book, introducing figurational sociology to the scholarship ongoing in the sociology of education, one can imagine a range of fruitful research projects oriented towards processual analyses of familiar – or indeed a host of new – topic areas. This book, therefore, is, like everything, part of a process. It is neither a beginning nor an end  – but rather, in providing an introduction to an increasingly significant figure in social theory, who has thus far left less of a mark in educational research than in other fields, we hope to encourage new ways of thinking, researching and learning within the sociology of education. We also hope to encourage new reflections on our role in these processes of which we are a part, ultimately with the goal of being a part of the change at the heart of all social processes.

Part One

Norbert Elias’s Theory in General

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Biography and Overview

Sociologists today recognize Norbert Elias’s social theory as one of the most significant contributions to a range of general and specific issues and puzzles concerning the social sciences, including the relationship between state power, violence and manners; long-term dynamics between classes and other group relations resulting in modern cultural and political patterns; patterns of ‘establishments’ versus ‘outsiders’; sport; death and dying; and even the fundamental ways in which human societies are connected to nature without being biologically or materially determined. Elias is therefore a central scholar in what we might call today ‘cultural sociology’.1 However, interestingly, despite his wide-ranging topical interests in areas touching on the role of knowledge, physical manners and the body, and intergenerational transfers of culture, Elias did not pursue a sustained sociology of education. We will, therefore, have to construct this using the conceptual elements and theoretical frameworks he developed for other topics. This chapter will therefore introduce these key concepts and Elias’s theoretical approach in general, providing an overview of his life, career and scholarly work.

1.  Early life and education during Weimar In 1897, Norbert Elias was born the son of a German-Jewish merchant raised in Breslau (currently Wrocław, Poland). After service in the First World War as a ‘Cultural sociology’ is a complicated subfield in sociology due to the prominence of one leading school of thought associated with Jeffrey Alexander, Yale University’s Centre for Cultural Sociology and international associates advocating a ‘strong program’ which recognizes the causal power of culture (see Alexander 2003; Reed 2011). Others might identify themselves with a ‘sociology of culture’, which explores the role of art/film/music etc. in society as in the work of Bourdieu (2018), Dimaggio (1987), Becker (1982) and others. Elias’s work does not fit easily into either of these contemporary camps but rather reflects his familiarity and participation within historic debates in Germany surrounding Alfred Weber (whose school of thought was also called ‘cultural sociology’) (Loader 2015) as will be discussed below.

1

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medic, in 1917 he enrolled in the local university to study medicine, psychology and philosophy with the intention of becoming a medical doctor. During this time, Elias’s exposure to the workings of the human body afforded in him an acute awareness of the distinction between nature and society (and culture). His later writings, for example, The Symbol Theory (1991b), explored the similarities and essential differences between natural and social processes drawing on this first-hand experience with medical science. Elias’s interest in consciousness and its social conditioning would prove significant when he travelled to Heidelberg in the early 1920s to study under Alfred Weber (brother of the eminent sociologist, Max Weber), whose cultural sociology Elias eventually deemed too detached from material social development (what A.  Weber termed ‘civilisation’) (Loader 2015). At issue was whether the economic organization of production determined ideas and cultural practices, or whether the latter maintained a certain level of ‘relative autonomy’. These are issues still raging today within social theory, and insofar as Elias provided an innovative solution to this apparently unresolvable dualism between ‘idealism’ and ‘materialism’ it is worth exploring how he engaged with these debates during his university studies and early career. Elias’s intellectual development took place over the course of the post-FirstWorld-War period, known in Germany as the Weimar era (1919–33) – named after the ‘Weimar government’ established as a condition of the Treaty of Versailles. Within post-war Germany, issues relating to war guilt, sanctions and economic depression, coupled with the first experiments with parliamentary democracy, engendered an alienated but efflorescent culture (Gay 2001). This culture was characterized, on the one hand, by loose social mores, and on the other, by radical political, aesthetic and intellectual engagement on both the Left and Right. Elias emerged from this chaotic context especially motivated to avoid such extreme positions; further, his early training as a medical student led him to focus realistically and historically as a way of engaging and countering what he perceived to be the excesses of highly abstracted and unempirical political ideologies. This commitment to balance and restraint was further encouraged as the excesses of Weimar contributed to the false promises of Nazism and policies that ultimately led to his exile as a Jew. Elias’s thought was therefore moulded by the Weimar intellectual environment, while also diverging considerably and innovatively from it. This can be seen through a review of some of his closest influences both personally and intellectually. Elias studied at Heidelberg during the 1920s and confronted there two significant schools of thought:  as noted above, in sociology, the cultural tradition of Alfred Weber alerted Elias to the relative autonomy and



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significance of culture in shaping human affairs. Second, in philosophy, the existentialist tradition of Martin Heidegger was becoming prominent (Sheehan 2017). Though documentary evidence of direct connection between Elias and Heidegger are slim, he certainly was familiar with Karl Jaspers, the well-known philosopher also drawing on existentialist ideas. Jaspers coined the term ‘Axial Age’ to demarcate the era in antiquity in which major world religions were founded in the Middle East, China and India.2 Elias scholar Richard Kilminster (2007) suggests a considerable link and influence between Heidegger’s postmetaphysical programme, the rejection of traditional abstract philosophy and epistemology, and Elias’s interest in temporality, history and sociology. In contrast to the existentialist tradition, however, Elias resolved to convert this into empirical research questions rather than speculative assertions.

2.  Idealism versus materialism Among both the Weberian cultural sociologists and the existentialists, Elias identified problems associated with ‘idealism’ – most explicitly formulated by what were called ‘neo-Kantians’ in the late nineteenth century (see Ermath 1978). Most sociologists are familiar with the neo-Kantian concept (typically attributed to Max Weber) of the ‘ideal-type’:  that the concepts and categories we use in social analysis are generally abstract idealizations of real phenomena rather than the phenomena themselves. For example, statistical averages and the demarcation of ‘classes’ express generalizations; these can never capture the complex particularity of the individual cases within – there is no ‘average’ individual person, for example. As in the case of Weber’s ‘Verstehen’ approach to social research (Weber 1947), the idealists emphasized the ‘subjective’ dimensions of research and, in the case of the anti-technological Heideggerians, rejected the pretences of ‘objective’ science entirely. This was at odds with another philosophical camp:  the ‘materialists’, who advocated the merits of realistic science from either a positivist3 point of view or a Marxist historicalmaterialist position. For sociologists, the most relevant legacy of Jaspers’s work is that of Shmuel Eisenstadt who also worked within a neo-Weberian framework to understand the relationships between ‘culture’ and ‘organisation’, the combination of which amounted to ‘civilisation’ (Eisenstadt 2003; Arnason, Eisenstadt and Wittrock 2005). The dialogue between the Eisenstadt and Elias schools remains a fruitful one – converging around the topic area of civilization and civilizing processes (Arnason 2003). 3 Positivism refers to a philosophical position in relation to scientific practice, originating in the work of founding sociologist, August Comte, which considers the only valid form of knowledge that which is scientifically observable and logically deducible (see Olsen 2008). 2

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Marxist social scientists drew inspiration from Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism which asserted that societies were shaped by the material (economic) relations of production which existed between classes in conflict with one another (see Aron 1998:  145–226). Among the scholars inspired by the Marxian strand of materialism, especially that elaborated by György Lukács (1971), were the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Elias would encounter these figures when he moved from Heidelberg to Frankfurt in 1930, though he would have undoubtedly been familiar with the Marxist philosophy of history by that stage. The first-generation Frankfurt School worked within a nearby Institute for Social Research and included Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Leo Lowenthal, Erich Fromm, Friedrich Pollock and others (Abromeit 2011; Dahms 2011; Jay 1996). Though also interested in updating the cultural dimensions of Marxist theory, especially in light of the working class’ new and apparent appreciation for authoritarian fascism, the Frankfurt School nonetheless maintained a Marxian base/superstructure model from which Elias departed. Drawing on the emerging sociology of knowledge tradition associated with Karl Mannheim (1985), Elias recognized that the material ‘base’ and ideal ‘superstructure’ were inseparable and constantly interacting and shaping each other:  neither was ‘prior’ or more important than the other. Still, unlike the idealists, Elias remained interested in and insisted on the reality of ‘real types’ – actually existing social processes – not mere ‘ideal types’.

3.  Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge Elias had moved to the University of Frankfurt to become Mannheim’s assistant – a very important early career position within German academia – while the Hungarian émigré professor, Mannheim, was himself a rising young star within sociology (Loader and Kettler 2002). Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge perspective was rooted in the fundamental premise that human consciousness cannot be understood apart from the social position of the knowing individual. In other words, social organization, and our relative position within that society, affects what we consider reality to be (see also Berger and Luckmann 1980). The novelty of this view was the manner in which it extended the Marxian notion that ideas are the product of their material (i.e. social) relations; but, ultimately, Mannheim included Marxism as a subjective point of view which sits in relation to other, more or less political points of view – for example, elitist conservatism, bureaucratic conservatism, economic liberalism, social liberalism, fascism and



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so on (Mannheim 1985). Each of these ideological positions has similarities and differences that are, in part, related to the social (typically class) positions of their advocates but are also the product of dialectical contrasts with opposing ideologies. Indeed, ultimately, in thinking about ‘culture’ or ‘cultures’, we are very often speaking of ideologies; but the sociologist of knowledge is no longer limited by the Marxist view articulated by Mannheim’s Hungarian friend Lukács (1971) which suggested the only ‘objective’ or ‘scientific’ point of view is that of the revolutionary working-class proletariat. As Mannheim noted, The sociology of knowledge is closely related to, but increasingly distinguishable from, the theory of ideology, which has also emerged and developed in our own time. The study of ideologies has made it its task to unmask the more or less conscious deceptions and disguises of human interest groups, particularly those of political parties. The sociology of knowledge is concerned not so much with distortions due to a deliberate effort to deceive as with the varying ways in which objects present themselves to the subject according to the difference in social settings. Thus, mental structures are inevitably differently formed in different social and historical settings. (Mannheim 1985: 265)

This multiplication of possible perspectives, none of which is wholly valid (or invalid), opened Mannheim up to the charge of ‘relativism’ – a position frequently criticized within our more recent ‘culture wars’ (see Wagner 2008: 149–64). The argument went as follows: by studying all ideologies along an even, or flat plane, in which the analyst makes no distinction between, say, Marxism and fascism, we lose the normative and evaluative judgments regarding which was morally right and wrong. Mannheim, however, considered his position to be ‘relationist’ rather than ‘relativist’, suggesting there could be a right or wrong way of viewing the totality of interacting ideologies during a given period. He thus added the notion of the ‘socially unattached intellectual’ (a category, in fact, invented by Alfred Weber). Intellectuals were figures without clear ties to any one social class. Rather, the intellectual sits detached and is able to see the full landscape of ideologies without feeling overly committed to any single one. Consequently, intellectuals are in a better position to make decisions regarding what would have been called ‘political education’: How do we encourage pupils to experience and try to understand all points of view? On the face of it, perhaps the best way to educate students in politics is a simple question, one which teachers of civics or citizenship classes regularly confront and have strategies for developing appropriate pedagogies. Within a liberal context this generally adheres to some principle of ‘value-neutrality’,

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in which multiple perspectives are presented without mandating there is any one ‘correct’ way of looking at politics. Incidentally, this is, in fact, a relativist point of view. However, consider first the context in which Mannheim is writing: Weimar Germany during the rise of Nazism. One might have argued then, bluntly: ‘Fascism is wrong! It must not be taught in our schools!’ While this is likely sound advice from a normative point of view, clearly the fascist position was gaining ground across Europe (as it is today, see Streeck 2017); and, further, it does not appear that the radical left or liberal centre’s simple advocacy of what was the ‘objectively’ right thing to do was stemming this rising tide of hate. Perhaps, being overly committed to one ideology prevents us from seeing what others see when confronted with alternatives; these may be factually ‘wrong’ but nonetheless politically effective. Mannheim’s more detached perspective disclosed ideological factors which were unobservable from within particular ideological positions (which were ultimately connected to social positions). For example, both liberalism and Marxism shared a faith in science and ultimately a vision of progress rooted in technology. Perhaps this faith in what another, later sociologist of knowledge, Alvin Gouldner (1982) called the ‘ideology of technology’, explains why these figures could not see that this view contradicted the neo-romantic, mystical existentialism of Heidegger and others drawing on the cultural organicism of Oswald Spengler (1927) and Houston Chamberlain (1899) peddling what historian Fritz Stern (1974) called ‘the politics of cultural despair’. The progressives could not see that in insisting there was only one right way of viewing the world (theirs) they were adding fuel to the fire. Their demands only made the ‘irrational’ classes more alienated from the political and intellectual establishments which took such matters for granted. Political education, as Mannheim would argue both in Germany and while in exile at the London School of Economics (LSE) and Institute for Education in Britain, would encourage this form of detachment in students in order to encourage more democratic societies (Mannheim 1967).

4. Exiled As Mannheim’s assistant in Frankfurt from 1930, Elias drew considerable insight from his mentor’s sociology of knowledge agenda – drawing from this key terms, including ‘sociogenesis’ and ‘psychogenesis’ explained below. Unfortunately, both Mannheim and Elias were exiled during the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, which resulted in complete dismissal of all Jewish and left-wing academics from



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German universities. Both moved to England, where Mannheim worked at the LSE and secured Elias a position there – though at the time the young assistant did not speak a word of English! In 1940, the LSE relocated to Cambridge where Elias was given little to do but explore the university library. Discovering an obscure cache of early modern documents on table manners, he was inspired to begin his most famous work, The Civilising Process (2000). Following an initially precarious career in Britain, Elias was eventually hired to lecture regularly at the University of Leicester in 1952. There he taught a number of the most important members of the next generation of British sociologists, including Anthony Giddens, whose structuration theory also sought to navigate the false dualisms between materialism and idealism, and structure and agency (Giddens 1979, 1985). In the interim, Mannheim died at the young age of 54, and Elias remained an obscure, forgotten scholar until well into the 1980s (Mennell 1998, 2015). When the aging scholar began to receive the recognition he was due, he composed a book titled Involvement and Detachment (1987), which bore remarkably Mannheimian undertones. The argument suggested that sociological research exhibits a unique factor: that humans are inevitably ‘involved’ in the situations they seek to study. The suggestion was that the social analyst should seek to ‘detach’ herself from the objects of study as much as possible so as to eliminate the biases associated with too much involvement. Elias’s notion relates to Mannheim’s identification of ‘socially unattached intellectuals’: that, of all the classes in society, only intellectuals have the potential to distance themselves from ascribed social positions and to see the world and society from a more detached position. However, unlike Mannheim, Elias did not think complete detachment is ever possible; rather, relatively more or less detachment might be obtained across a spectrum. Elias’s important idea of a spectrum of involvement and detachment was first articulated in a two-part essay called ‘Sociology of Knowledge: New Perspectives’ (Elias 1971a,b), which suggested we replace the categories of ‘subjective’ versus ‘objective’ forms of knowledge with ‘subject-oriented’ versus ‘object-oriented’ forms of knowledge. We will learn more about this complex and important discussion below, but it is worth observing here again that Elias was navigating a middle path between idealism and materialism, a concern he first encountered in interwar Germany. Indeed, though his intellectual upbringing corresponded with the virulent times of the Weimar era between the First World War and the Second World War, or perhaps because of this sense of chaos – which nonetheless appeared to exhibit a recognizable pattern  – Elias turned towards empirical, historical

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research to ground his ideas, analyses and observation in what ‘really’ happened, as opposed to analysis of ideal-types or based on normative expectations of what ‘should’ exist. In contrast to the naturalism of the medical-based philosophy he encountered in Breslau, Elias attended to human social development, that is, history. In contrast to the neo-Kantian idealists, Elias did not concern himself with ‘ideal-types’ but real types that actually existed. In contrast to the neoMarxists, he reserved autonomy for ideas, though he also attended to the co-evolutionary aspects of developing macro-social and political economics. In other ways, because of his commitment to historical detachment, Elias’s work often seems out of time:  timeless  – removed from the dramatic circumstances through which he lived. However, awareness of his biography, including his forced exile to Britain in the 1930s, helps us understand some of the latent motivations behind his work and major ideas.4

For a much more extensive and detailed biography of Elias, see Mennell (1998).

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3

The Last Classical Sociologist?

Before proceeding to a discussion of Elias’s major ideas and key concepts, it is worth taking a diversion to see precisely what scale of work he was engaged in. Particularly for readers familiar with the work of classical sociologists – typically deemed to be Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim and Max Weber – we will see that Elias combined, synthesized and, ultimately, transcended the work of these three major thinkers. Elias also integrated the well-known psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud – a classic in psychology. Thus, one way of understanding Elias’s project is as a combination of these four major thinkers: Marx, Weber, Freud and Durkheim (particularly the first three). Of course, every scholar will have had other intellectual influences; as noted in the biographical sketch above, Elias was also informed by the work of Mannheim, his mentor; his professors, Karl Jaspers and Alfred Weber; and his neighbours at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research who similarly tried to combine the insights of these social theorists and Freud in the form of critical theory (Horkheimer 1937). But, to see precisely what makes Elias’s solution to these major issues in social theory novel, we should review what each of these canonical figures (Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Freud) contributed to our understanding of societies.

1.  Marxism: Capitalism as process We have already explored some of the relationships between Marxian ideas of base/superstructure and Elias’s position, which was closest to Mannheim’s relational view. Indeed, Elias retained the truism that one’s ideas are ultimately conditioned by one’s position in a group, and, in turn, by that group’s position within society. However, Elias did not consider one’s economic position to be the only, or necessarily, the most, important determinant position, although he

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acknowledged this might be the case in contemporary capitalist societies. Rather, Elias viewed Marx’s contribution as an essential starting point in the direction of recognition that what we consider to be ‘knowledge’ is ultimately the result of longer-term social changes (as well as being an integral cause of social change). Marx, however, was himself involved in the transformations he claimed to understand as universal dynamics of history, for example, that ‘the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles’ (Marx and Engels 2011). It makes sense that Marx would think economic class-conflict drove history while living through the tumultuous nineteenth century and the dramatic changes wrought by industrial capitalism across Europe and the world. During this era, the profession of capitalists – that is, owners of factories, merchants and financiers – did ascend to previously unheard-of social positions; taking the reins of the economy, government and, perhaps, those institutions Althusser (2009) called ‘ideological state apparatuses’: mass media, families, religion and schools. Further, in the emerging chaos of industrializing, urbanizing societies, it likely appeared as though the most orderly and structured aspects of society were those most associated with the ‘economy’:  those activities controlled by the capitalist classes gaining power. These economic forces, thus, took on the appearance of universal ‘laws’ and thereby appeared understandable, for the first time, using the tools of ‘science’. But, writing only a few generations later, Elias could see that other aspects of society also had the structure of relatively, stable processual trends. These included state-formation processes, or the civilizing process of setting standards of etiquette, or, indeed, the consolidation of ‘valid’ knowledge in the form of science. Each of these processes interacted with the developing constitution of modern societies, alongside and in conjunction with the economic forces unleashed by industrial capitalism. Further, each of these processes was both ‘material’ and ‘ideal’ or, better expressed in contemporary terms, both ‘social’ and ‘cultural’. The rise of the capitalist process Marx identified demonstrates the way these co-constituted one other; but, note that Elias’s formulation does not give automatic priority to the ‘material’ base: The rise of . . . a specialized classes of occupational positions and functions, the rise of a specialized science of economics and the rise of a specialized meaning of the term ‘economics’ went hand in hand. Although the idea that the network of these specialized social positions and functions forms the ‘basis’ of society contains an ideological exaggeration, one can certainly say that they



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had, like other groups of specialized social positions and functions in highly differentiated societies, a relative autonomy commensurate to their relative power. (Elias 1971a: 154)

In a characteristic move, Elias subtly corrects Marx’s over-exaggeration, while preserving those elements of the theory (historical materialism) which have merit:  in this instance, the very real ascendance of a class of specialized economic professions and a corresponding economic ‘science’ accompanying and justifying their growing authority during the nineteenth century. We will look at the history of this process again in Chapter 4, insofar as Elias, in fact, provides an alternative, but compatible, account of the origins of capitalism. We also confront in the quote above the notion of the ‘relative autonomy’ of ideas and functions, which are also not automatically a given as in Alfred Weber’s cultural sociology or, even earlier, within German idealism and Hegel’s philosophy of spirit (Beiser 2008; Lybeck 2015). Elias’s quote suggests that, as Marx would have it, the relative autonomy of ideas is an empirical question determined by the extent to which one’s consciousness can escape the compelling force of existing power relations. This is captured within the Marxian distinction between ‘being’ and ‘consciousness’ (Fromm and Marx 2013:  17–22), which led to various central conclusions regarding the alienated consciousness of the proletariat – who are so distant from power, they cannot see their shared immiseration and exploitation by a much smaller capitalist class; they work blindly to barely subsist rather than revolting. Similarly, the being/consciousness distinction contributed to the maxim: the ruling ideas in every epoch are those of the ruling class (Marx and Engels 1970). In the case of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we can see this in the rise of classical political economy, the utilitarian ‘science’ expounded by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Francois Quesnay and others – which Marx confidently dismissed as the ideology of capitalism:  an elaborate justification for the exploitation of workers’ surplus labour. Using their very science against them, Marx developed an economic critique of capital to see through the fetishization of commodities, particularly money within the wage relationship (in which the capitalist extracts money as profits, while paying workers’ money in the form of low wages) (Marx 1999). From this, Marx could identify his own laws of capitalist societies, which would inevitably result in the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a classless, communist society. Elias could see, however, that due to Marx’s involvement in contemporaneous political struggles, he merely adopted the ‘basic conceptual scheme of the liberal

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ideology, but infused it with negative values’ (Elias 1971a:  152). This was/ is, in fact, an issue endemic in sociological investigations of knowledge (and sociological knowledge as such), which Marx, as one of the earliest pathfinders in this tradition, could not see in full. His normative evaluation of economics differed from the utilitarians, but this was due to his commitment to workingclass emancipation.1 Elias could see that, inevitably, any social analyst will be aware of and involved in a range of struggles between groups – be they local struggles within the workplace or family, or large-scale geopolitical contests between rival ideologies as in the Cold War. These will always colour our views of history. No matter how desperate sociologists might be to establish ‘value-free’ social science (e.g. Shils 1958; cf. Gouldner 1964), the existing world in which we live will ultimately inform our choice of research questions, our findings, our interpretations and the reception of those findings with audiences. And yet, this does not mean we should abandon our quest for social science all together. Elias equally saw that the logical conclusion of any interpretation of social thought as wholly conditioned by social position became a vulgar sociology of knowledge – ultimately, the ‘subjective’ version of knowledge, which corresponded with historians’ view that all processual trends were essentially unstructured: the result of random chance. A vulgar sociology of knowledge would reduce all forms of knowledge to simply being expressions of group interests. Thus, one could take any philosopher and say:  he was a ‘white, middle-class man’ and therefore all of his ideas are a reflection of this privileged ethnic, class and gender position. Some ideas, maybe. But all? As we will discuss in the course of the book, this is, indeed, a position frequently adopted by a number of students and social researchers today, including many following in the wake of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (see Chapter 11). However, this assumption ultimately leaves little to no room for the autonomy of sociological investigation itself. Retaining Marx as an example: yes, some aspects of his theory were limited by his involvement in the time in which he lived; but, in other regards, he added considerably to our understanding of a range of objective social phenomena including the circulation of capital, commodities and the social conditioning of knowledge itself. Further, how do critical students and scholars presume to be immune from this problem themselves? Perhaps even, following the logic of Marx’s own maxims, his commitment to ending economic need stemmed from his own precarious position due to biographical circumstances which abruptly ended his promising early academic career. Marx’s ideas and philosophical interests changed abruptly the moment he encountered the full force of the capitalist economy and needed to get his own job! (Sperber 2012).

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By confining their enquiries exclusively to the study of the structure of knowledge as a reflection of the structure of its subject, of human groups, by wholly neglecting to explore the relationship between the structure of knowledge and that of its objects, representatives of sociological theories of knowledge get caught again and again in a trap of their own making. They treat the dependence of knowledge on the structure of groups as absolute and identical in all cases – as not less absolute than philosophers treat its independence. (Elias 1971b: 357)

Again, we see Elias carving a middle path between the ‘objectivism’ of the vulgar sociologists of knowledge and the ‘subjectivism’ of philosophers. He replaced this dualism with a spectrum running between ‘object-oriented’ versus ‘subject-oriented’ knowledge, and encouraged sociologists, in particular, to not be so afraid of the former. In other words, sociologists should explore real long-term processes, and in doing so, it becomes possible to obtain better, if not perfect, knowledge just as it is possible (in fact, easier) within the natural sciences where the objects do not have their own points of view! As will be discussed again below, Elias replaced his initial spectrum (objectand subject-oriented) with the idea of ‘involvement’ and ‘detachment’ (Elias 1987a). He traced the processual development of the rise of detached, scientific knowledge as its own long-term development beginning in Renaissance artists’ experiments in linear perspective. Thus, we can involve at least one more process (the rise of science) alongside other concurrent developments (rise of capitalism). Elias thus saw much merit in Marx, while at the same time, dramatically diverging from several key tenets of what would become ‘Marxist’ or more recently ‘Neo-Marxist’ social theory (Therborn 2008). For the sociologist of education, this represents a useful counterpoint to the ‘new sociology of education’ of the 1970s, diverging especially from the ‘correspondence principle’ of Bowles, Gintis and others (Bowles and Gintis 2011; Weis, McCarthy and Dimitriadis 2006). The advantages for the social researcher is that one can retain many of the most useful aspects of a Marxist theory of political economy and sociology, while avoiding some of the problematic economic determinism of a historical materialist philosophy of history.

2.  Max Weber: Elective affinities Elias was not the first to challenge a materialist, or economically determinist view of modern societies. The classical social thinker Max Weber also recognized the value of maintaining view of the role of competing economic classes in

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history, though he also emphasized the autonomous power of political parties, and the cultural significance of status positions, such as educational credentials or aristocratic titles. Weber also considered the development of capitalism as central to the emergence of new forms of social relationships, state power and bureaucratic forms of organization. However, in his well-known study of the contribution of the Protestant work ethic to the ‘spirit’ of capitalism, Weber preceded Elias in suggesting there was more than one major process involved: We have no intention of defending any such foolishly doctrinaire thesis as that the ‘capitalist spirit’ . . . let alone capitalism itself, could only arise as a result of certain influences of the Reformation . . . We intend, rather, to establish whether and to what extent religious influences have in fact been partially responsible for the qualitative shaping and the quantitative expansion of the ‘spirit’ across the world, and what concrete aspects of capitalist culture originate from them. (Weber 2002: 36, emphasis in original)

This quote highlights a frequent misunderstanding of the Protestant Ethic thesis, which students and scholars believe means: Protestantism caused the emergence of capitalism. Yes and No, depending on one’s definition of ‘cause’. Weber clearly suggests above that something else could have caused capitalism – Protestantism happened to be partially responsible within the particular historical conjunctures which took place during the early modern era. In fact, Weber’s research questions were different insofar as he was not interested in what, single cause caused capitalism. He had already undermined the materialist view that economic relations alone created the modern economy. The actual story is far more complex as the magnum opus Economy and Society (1968) suggested: changes in law, religion, class structure, property, agricultural and technical processes and so on all influenced the outcomes of the modern world. Instead, the Protestant Ethic essay is concerned with identifying the ‘elective affinities’ between capitalism and religious practices (practices which were the side-effects of religious beliefs such as predestination and ‘thisworldly’ action). Weber identified a correspondence between the behaviour of Protestants and the behaviour of successful capitalists. Protestants were not the only beneficiaries of capitalism  – Catholics, Jews, atheists and others could also succeed in the growing mercantile and industrial economies. But, the well-known observable outcome that a higher percentage of Protestants did so well suggested that something about the religion facilitated this success more often. Exploring the content of those doctrines and ethical practices would tell us something not just about Protestantism but also the kinds of ideologies



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capitalism encourages and rewards. This is what the study of elective affinities is all about:  the relationship between cultural and material processes, not necessarily which ‘causes’ which in a mechanistic or linear sense. The hidden nature of capitalist ideology becomes all the more important for us now, after the initial faith in Protestantism dissipated, or became ‘disenchanted’, resulting in the ‘iron cage’ of capitalist, bureaucratic organization. In fact, the initial translation of ‘iron cage’ from the German – stahlhartes Gehäuse – is better translated as ‘casing as hard as steel’, that is, ‘casing’ as in sausages. The original German image is worse, for we would not even know we are trapped in an iron cage (which we could see through); rather, we are stuffed like sausages into rigid forms which become like a second-skin for us. Within this disenchanted, oblivious condition it becomes all the more important to understand the initial motivations of those who submitted themselves voluntarily to these organizational patterns. Exploring the genesis of these conditions in the early success of Protestants gives us some window into those affinities which may have been ‘elective’ in the past but which are now necessary for survival within the modern economy. Elias drew much from Max Weber’s example navigating one path between idealism and materialism – and the influence of Max is even greater than that of his brother, Alfred, Elias’s professor at Heidelberg. Certainly, the topic area of the state monopoly of violence was important to Weber (Max hereafter) and central to Elias’s work on the Civilizing Process, as will be discussed in detail below. However, here it is worth noting the difference between Weber’s concept and interest in ‘elective affinities’ and the extension via the categories of habitus, figuration, interdependence, self-control and more which Elias developed to integrate the concurrently developing psychoanalytic theories of Freud. Recalling the Protestant Ethic thesis example, we can see that the elective affinities between Protestantism and capitalism, in effect, ‘selected’ those members of Calvinist, Lutheran, Quaker and other Reformed churches as successful members of capitalist societies. There is even further evidence of ‘self-selection’ insofar as Protestants wishing to demonstrate their predestined grace with God might pursue capitalist enterprise. However, if we think of the later epochs of modernity, in which we are trapped in an iron cage or steel skin:  Weber’s pessimistic view is that we are forced to live in a bureaucratic, capitalist world in which we no longer have faith. The values of Protestantism have been replaced by the disenchanted values of scientific rationality (Weber 1958). We are simply doomed to live in their world. Although Weber’s view is historical, it is remarkably static: once the structure of capitalism is set, it appears

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to take on a life of its own. Historical sociology only provides us with the tools to disclose earlier moments in which such structures were ‘baked in’ so to speak. The resulting analysis ultimately provides an ironic, even tragic, view in which devout and ascetic Protestants had no idea they were the midwives of a world of capitalist excess and, ultimately, expressive, immoral individualism (see also Bell 1996). Elias’s mentor Mannheim described Weber’s pessimistic approach as ‘disillusioned realism’ (Mannheim 1986), perhaps contributing to his Nietzschean idea that the only way to change such a system was through charismatic leadership. Elias’s view of long-term processes ultimately proved more dynamic insofar as not only the structures were changing during the course of the rise of capitalism, science, manners and so forth. The human beings emerging from these processes were also changing generation after generation. In other words, suppose Protestantism did contribute to the establishment of bureaucratic capitalism; bureaucratic capitalism would then encourage the socialization of new human ‘selves’ who would not simply be the passive victims of the technocratic machine. They would themselves, through their relationships and interdependencies, produce the next overall social structure. Indeed, there is, in fact, no social structure without the individuals composing and recomposing it. In The Society of Individuals Elias explained: Our thinking today is still extensively governed by ideas of causality which are inadequate to the process under discussion: we are strongly inclined to explain any change in a particular formation by a cause outside that formation. The mystery of the specifically socio-historical transformation only begins to be dispelled if one understands the following: that changes need be caused neither by changes in nature outside human beings nor by changes in a ‘spirit’ within individuals or nations. (Elias 1991a: 45)

Again, relating this to Weber’s ‘spirit’ of capitalism analysis, we can see Elias adjusting the problematic stasis or overdetermined nature of Weber’s account of the unstoppable capitalist social structure, while at the same time avoiding the counterposition that tries to trace social change to the intentional or expressed actions of individuals or national cultures. For Elias, as for Weber, long-term social change is largely unplanned – but it is neither directionless, nor determined. To correct the errors of economic determinism does not require adoption of the paradoxical position that everything is both unpredictable and futile. We can instead see that all social change is accomplished by societies



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composed of individuals who are constructed and moulded out of the social configurations they find themselves in. Recall the sociology of knowledge view that social position conditions consciousness. In this case, changes in the social structure result, slowly, and over time, in particular changes in individuals’ consciousness. Consciousness and behaviour in this view are not fixed but rather are changing in particular directions based on the changes also occurring in wider society  – especially changes in relations of power. Once these ‘individuals’ are moulded and entered into new configurations, these in turn enact the processual changes we observe over the long-term. From this view, certain phenomena can be observed to follow patterns, which might not follow ‘universal laws’ as Marx suggested, but might retain enough structure and patterning for us to speak of ‘process universals’ – that is, generalizations which are relatively true provided the historical context and trends remains consistent in certain ways (while also changing as the processual position would imply).

3.  Freud: Social control as self-control In addition to the sociology of Max Weber, Elias integrated the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, who posited a three-tiered self, consisting of ‘superego’, ‘ego’ and ‘id.’ This structural model of consciousness noted the significant role of unconscious mental processes in shaping conscious thought. The ego is the more or less conscious element, or self, which we are aware of; but this is conditioned to a large degree by the unconscious, or preconscious aspects of the id – sublimated mental processes which were repressed and removed from view. Typically, the id would consist of aggressive, sexual or otherwise taboo aspects of being a human, which needed to be controlled and repressed in order to function. The super-ego was another unconscious structure which was the mechanism through which social expectations – initially those emanating from the ‘mother’ or parental ­figure – became integrated, unconsciously in individuals behaviour. The ego, thus, became less of an autonomous or free agent and more of an expression of the various push-and-pull factors from the irrational id and the over-socialized super-ego. As we will discuss below, Elias drew upon Freud’s mechanism of the superego to explore the ways in which ‘social-constraint’ becomes ‘self-constraint’. His study of the civilizing process, in this sense, grounded the historical emergence of a particular mode of super-ego – the socialized element of the self – and through

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this, societal controls become internalized within the individual. Thereafter, the individual controls themselves according to social expectations. This self-restraint is ingrained so deeply from an early age that, like a kind of relay-station of social standards, an automatic self-supervision of their drives, a more differentiated and more stable ‘super-ego’ develops within them, and a part of the forgotten drive impulses and affect inclinations is no longer directly within reach of the level of consciousness at all. (Elias 2000: 374)

This provided the necessary link between the broad social developments of the state, including the pacification of violence and the means through which individuals internalized these modes of pacification. Only with the formation of this kind of relatively stable monopoly institutions do societies acquire those characteristics as a result of which the individuals forming them get attuned, from infancy, to a highly regulated and differentiated pattern of self-restraint . . . does it become, as it were, ‘second-nature’. (Elias 2000: 369)

Instead of Freud’s transhistorical psyche, which was generally understood to be the product of ‘Nature’ or biology, Elias positioned the particular self (or selves) which emerged within specific historical contexts of the medieval and early modern eras in Europe. In fact, Elias was arguing that the particular type of self which Freud observed  – within a particular bourgeois culture of fin-de-siècle Vienna – only became evident at a certain point within the social emergence of modern societies. He termed these moments or processes of emergence:  ‘sociogenesis’. Just as Elias viewed Marx’s thought as a product of his time, so too was Freud’s conception of the essential aspects of consciousness a reflection of his own position within a particular era within the broader processes of modern, differentiating societies. Freud himself began to explore the variability of socialization late in his career after the First World War, and the traumas of the interwar era encouraged him to adopt a more pessimistic attitude. This was particularly evident in Civilization and Its Discontents, published in 1930 (Freud 1963). While still retaining the relative static notion that natural instincts or ‘drives’, as he termed them – including the death drive ‘Thanatos’ and its opposite, the pleasure principle ‘Eros’ – Freud began to acknowledge the trade-off for many individuals when we allow ourselves to become more ‘rational’ and ‘civilized’. We tend to deny ourselves access to our ‘primal’ instincts as we adopt the ‘life of the mind’ so to speak. This civilization results in a sublimation of natural instincts, which is necessary for the functioning of society; however, this allows



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the super-ego to dominate the ego and id, producing widespread dissatisfaction among many individuals in modern society: the modern malaise, or alienation of the white-collar worker (see also Mills 2002; Riesman 1950). Society would need to develop outlets to release these tensions, or, perhaps the therapeutic science of psychoanalysis could provide help in treatment of the resulting neuroses. Particularly important for Freud, and for Elias following in his footsteps, was the manner in which aggressive impulses are held in check by ‘civilization’. Freud noted how this is achieved in the biography of the individual, that is, in growing up: His aggressiveness is introjected, internalized; it is, in point of fact, sent back to where it came from – that is, it is directed towards his own ego. There it is taken over by a portion of the ego, which sets itself over against the rest of the ego as super-ego, and which now, in the form of ‘conscience’, is ready to put into action against the ego the same harsh aggressiveness that ego would have liked to satisfy upon other extraneous individuals. The tension between the harsh super-ego and the ego that is subjected to it, is called by us the sense of guilt; it represses itself as a need for punishment. (Freud 1963: 70)

The description of the mechanism is a remarkable, reversed circuit, in which the sublimation of aggression towards others actually results in something akin to self-loathing, in which the instinctive vigilance against others is turned inward against one’s self. This manifests in various forms of self-punishment, guilt and denial – perhaps even asceticism as in Weber’s Protestant Ethic thesis. Elias was similarly interested in this sublimation of aggression – the pacification of violence and the introduction of ‘civilized’ table manners  – but he did not see this as a ‘natural’, given outcome of being a member of any society as Freud did. In fact, as will be discussed below, his study demonstrated emphatically that, historically, people were violent and disgusting by modern standards. Thus, Elias historically tracked the emergence and consolidation of the phenomena Freud observed, just as he followed Marx in observing the process of capitalism, and Weber in tracking the monopolization of violence in the state. Elias, in fact, grasped that these processes were occurring in conjunction with one another and were related to one another. In particular, the monopolization of violence in the Absolutist courtly state surrounding Louis XIV was coincident with the introduction of courtly manners. The sublimation of violence in elaborate rituals of etiquette corresponded with and reinforced broader ‘macro-sociological’ dynamics in which the aristocracy’s role as the warrior class was pacified and quell as part of the centralization of the absolutist monarchy.

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What is most remarkable and interesting about tracking those emerging patterns of civility is that these also produce new forms of disgust  – that is, physical revulsion. There is no ‘natural’ reason why we find someone eating with their hands revolting. People used to do this in the Middle Ages. Why does this now make us gag? Elias demonstrated that these social norms and expectations actually produce new, automatic bodily responses: a new, and second nature. Freud explored the ways in which sexuality and consciousness and ‘natural’ instincts for aggression and desire interacted and became embodied within particular individual bodies and psyches. Elias later observed that these interactions – and perhaps even the structure of consciousness and unconscious habits – changed in relation to changes in the social structure and culture. Thus, Freud’s observations were taken from their transhistorical, timeless standpoint and turned into an historical, moving processes. Civilization and socialization become a moving target, producing new types of human beings, new types of human nature.

4.  Conclusion: From the Frankfurt School to Durkheim The brief discussions of Elias’s relationship to the social theories of Marx, Weber and Freud highlights the scale and scope of his overall project, which effectively preserved the most useful elements of each theorist, while correcting or transcending some of their emphases and problems  – particularly those elements which incorrectly encouraged ‘static’ and/or ‘transhistorical’ thinking. Further, the resulting synthesis is more than the sum of its parts insofar as a consistent and comprehensive theory comes into view, which connects Marx, Weber and Freud into a coherent framework to understand real processes, which have resulted in modern societies, which have in turn shaped who we are. Still, Elias was not alone in attempting this line of enquiry. Indeed, the Frankfurt School noted above, in effect, were developing a similar theory of ‘advanced industrial society’ that also tried to synthesize Marx, Weber and Freud into a consistent ‘critical theory’ of modern societies (Dahms 2011; Horkheimer 1937). Scholars at the Frankfurt School were interested in the role of ideology in clouding the proletariat’s ‘revolutionary consciousness’. A range of studies began to explore the ‘authoritarian personality’ in both Germany and the United States (Adorno et  al. 1950; Durkin 2015; Stoner and Lybeck 2011). These explained the emergence of fascism by better understanding the mechanisms through which members of society exhibiting latent forms of prejudice were activated



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to become overtly anti-Semitic and racist, particularly during economic crises. Thus, a relationship between the inevitable consequences of capitalism and the consciousness of individuals and groups could be established. These findings, in turn, led to theorization of the manner in which the ‘culture industry’  – that is, Hollywood and other forms of mass market culture – could discourage revolt among the masses, or ‘mass society’ (Adorno 2001). People would watch television and become stupefied and passive – satisfied by their advertisements and consumer products. The theory ultimately connected to the same elements of Freud’s, in which consumption and mass culture allowed for a controlled release of sublimated aggressive and sexual impulses – but without undermining the overall stability of a bureaucratic, alienated corporate society. Herbert Marcuse took this line of thinking to its furthest conclusion in works like Eros and Civilization (1969) and One-Dimensional Man (1991), in which he argued that we, today, suffer from ‘surplus repression’ requiring a counter, ‘desublimation’ agenda in which we release the sexual tensions built up through oversocialization. This line of reasoning would inspire elements of the 1960s’ radical counterculture. At the same time, Marcuse saw the conservative world of the 1950s as a repressed, entirely pacified generation in which we had become satisfied with the rituals and choices provided to us by modern television and mass marketing. These advertisers and public relations companies even used Freudian psychoanalysis to develop the most effective techniques of, in a sense, selling our surplus repression back to us as consumer products. Critical theory was designed to see through these illusions, to uncover the actual power relations at work  – which remained more or less capitalist economic relations as theorized originally by Marx. However, the Frankfurt School did also bring into their picture the insights of Weber regarding the role of bureaucracy and ‘instrumental reason’. This refers to types of knowledge, which are considered ‘rational’ according to specified means-ends relationships; technical knowledge that is predictable and oriented towards determining the most efficient means of obtaining a desired end – most often, within capitalist societies: the pursuit of wealth. The Frankfurt School saw instrumental reason and anonymous, bureaucratic power as taking over everything, including the culture industry. In this way, capitalist society created the stupefied population, which would both work in its soulless bureaucracies as well as buy all the junk produced by the industrial economy. The Frankfurt School, working initially just up the road from Elias and Mannheim at the University of Frankfurt during the Weimar era were, thus, working through a very similar set of issues, using a comparable combination

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of Marx, Weber and Freud. Their form of critical theory – rooted ultimately in a base/superstructure model of capitalist economics – would set the course for a range of Marxian forms of social analysis, which were interested in ideology and culture known as ‘Western Marxism’ (Anderson 1976). Students of education will recognize others in this tradition, including Antonio Gramsci (1972) and Louis Althusser (1971). With a greater or lesser degree of complexity, these forms of critical analysis consider the role of schools from a perspective similar to the one described above as the Frankfurt School’s agenda: that is, using a base/ superstructure model of material/ideal conditions. For example, Althusser’s science of society considered schools to be a part of the ‘ideological state apparatus’ which does not exhibit the raw, violent power of the ‘state’ as we are used to thinking of government; as Weber would have it: the state is the institution with the monopoly of coercive force. Rather, schools, like the media, push and pull students through ideological mechanisms, which limit the boundaries of what is allowed to be thought, done and said. While some freedom of consciousness remains to a lesser or greater degree, through what Althusser called ‘interpellation’, a narrow set of options of allowable and predictable thought are encouraged, while others are discouraged and disciplined out of the increasingly compliant student, who then becomes the compliant citizen. The outcome of school, therefore, is a mass of what critics of Althusser and other functionalists implied were ‘cultural dupes’. Schools are, like the media and government, another means of compelling the ideological subjects necessary for the smooth operation of the capitalist machine. However, we have seen that Elias’s agenda  – while drawing on similar sources – produced a very different set of conclusions and ways forward for the social researcher, including the educational researcher. As noted in his criticism of Marx:  the essential science and observations of the eighteenth-century classical political economists remained in Marx’s analysis  – these were only replaced with a negative evaluation. This did not sufficiently relativize Marxism itself as one position among others at a particular moment in time  – which, incidentally, dramatically changed the course of history as in the rise of the Soviet Union, China, the Cold War and so on. Thus, base/superstructure and being/consciousness models fail to consider the relationship between Marxism and other ideological positions. All adapt and change to one another and do so within a range of processes, which, recall, includes more than one, capitalist, process alone. In other words, adopting a purely ‘critical’ relationship to the sociological relationships between knowledge, education and society results in a distortion



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due to an overly involved commitment, which the politically or normatively motivated researcher adopts towards the research object at hand, in this case, education. This might result in a condition in which everything one observes is treated solely as an expression of economic and social class domination, which leads to neglect of other factors, such as issues of gender and ethnic discrimination, or even earnest efforts to improve education for its own sake. In fact, education issues can involve all of these things and more besides – including aspects of social structure, which are neither necessarily positive nor negative. We can only begin to observe such processes and structures if we take a more ‘detached’ point of view. Elias, thus, provides an alternative to the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and related approaches insofar as not everything that enters his view is deemed to be negative in advance. As he noted in an interview in 1969 discussing Marcuse: The sort of general description of our society with complete hostility is as harmful as the description which rests content with what is, and regards it as wonderful. We have to sit down and do some hard work and hard thinking in order to find out what is wrong. But if one just sits down and calls our world mad, this helps as little as when one says, ‘How wonderful our world is.’ (Elias 1998c: 146)

In fact, what we encounter in Elias’s work is a kind of realist optimism insofar as he believes that sociology can, in fact, understand and potentially ameliorate serious problems, which many have given up trying to fix. He considered the overly pessimistic form of critical theory represented by his erstwhile neighbours at the Frankfurt School as merely the flipside of the overly optimistic positivists who believed their empiricist surveys and functionalist theories could explain everything. Social scientists must not give up but rather become more serious about what they are doing and how to do this well. Most importantly, we must understand societies a social processes, as moving through time. Societies are not fixed or static; they are changing and developing and regressing and becoming something new. This does not mean ‘anything goes’; processes may develop in planned, or unplanned, ways, resulting in contradictions, tensions and conjunctions which may be complex but never entirely random or impossible to understand. We simply have to consider these processes as developing over the long-term; then, maybe, we have a chance of facilitating major social interventions such as the actual end of war and violence (rather than the mere sublimation of aggression

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in etiquette and consumption). For Elias, social science has the potential to make such interventions, but is presently at too underdeveloped a stage of development as a science. Sociologists are also too involved in the processes they try to understand. This is, in part, due to the complexity of the objects, but also due to the sequence of events leading to the emergence of modern society and science insofar as the first problems tackled by science were natural ones (because these were ultimately more stable and predictable). Once our knowledge of these began to settle, we turned to more complex and intractable social problems, all the while having the stability (in terms of control of nature) to observe more and more aspects of natural and social processes (including their interaction). Without inter-state conflicts, which are for people today barely easier to explain and control than epidemics in the Middle Ages, the development of knowledge about the nature of the atom and the corresponding technology would have followed a different route from the development of armaments. The pollution of the earth is similarly not a natural scientific problem, but a social and therefore social scientific one. (Elias, van Krieken and Dunning 1997: 361)

Elias therefore exhibited a faith in the possibility of a science of society, while at the same time being critical of the state of this science at the time of his training and work. His published writing, most of which was produced late in life under the encouragement of committed supporters and advocates, amounts to an attempt to lay the foundations of what a proper social science would consist of; that we can speak of social matters with a reasonable degree of accuracy, which can, in turn, inform and ethically integrate and potentially shape the further development of social processes themselves. In this sense, Elias was perhaps closest in spirit to the last canonical figure in sociology worth mentioning briefly here: Émile Durkheim. Just as he followed Weber and Marx in identifying central problems in our understanding of the emergence and develop of the modern economy and modern state, Elias also acknowledged Durkheim’s important contribution to the division of labour in modern society. However, Elias did not see this as an external ‘social force’ or ‘social fact’ compelling individuals to act but rather was a consequence of the civilizing process itself – that, as social constraint become self-constraint, this enabled the possibility of a range of different social groups, or ‘figurations’, as he termed them. This also went hand in hand with ‘rationalization’, which he did not see as originating exclusively with the bourgeois classes as will be discussed further below:



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Changes of this kind, however, do not ‘originate’ in one class or another, but arise in conjunction with the tensions between different functional groups in a social field and between the competing people within them. Under the pressure of tensions of this kind, which permeate the whole fabric of society, the latter’s whole structure changes, during particular phases, in the direction of an increasing centralization of particular dominions and a greater specialization, a tighter integration of the individual people within them. And with this transformation of the whole social field, the structure of the social and psychological functions is also changed. (Elias 1998c: 67)

In other words, when we are exploring a social process  – for example, the emergence of capitalism or education in the nineteenth century – we must not fall into the trap of crediting or blaming the process simply on the dominant class involved in that transformation. Rather, as the historian E. P. Thompson famously noted, ‘the working class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time. It was present at its own making’ (Thompson 1964: 9). The industrial revolution – or industrial process, if you will – involved the co-creation of bourgeois, working class, aristocratic and other classes. Each was codetermined or related to one another and would not have adopted the particular shapes they did assume, had the other classes not been constructed in particular ways (including in relation to the others and the overall process). As we will explore below, and as Elias noted in a less well-known essay, one important differentiation that emerged in this period was between child and parent (Elias 1998c: 189–212). The particular way in which this was articulated – within discourses and institutions, including especially schools – has influenced and informed educational processes ever since. In this way, those patterns continue to exhibit important, potentially latent, yet recognizable influences on the way education works today. In other words, these historical processes are not simply interesting things to think about in terms of where we have come from – they have been ‘baked into’ the social process itself. In fact, these invisible, taken-for-granted processes might be all the more important precisely because we take them for granted as ‘just the way things always are and always have been’. In fact, this is an aspect of Durkheim’s work which is less familiar to students more aware of his statistical studies on suicide rates (Durkheim and Buss 2006). In fact, Durkheim’s first major professional post at the Sorbonne involved responsibility for the education of secondary school teachers across France. In this role, he taught a series of lectures subsequently published as ‘L’évolution pédagogique en France’, or ‘The Evolution of Education Thought’ in English (Durkheim 2013). The work is remarkable for being especially (and uncharacteristically) historical,

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which is why it is worth concluding this discussion of Elias’s relationship with the key classical social thinkers with the suggestion that Durkheim’s text could serve as a starting point for drawing out Elias’s own take on education (or, what that study might look like, since he did not produce this himself). The study, or lecture series, consists of a review of the long, sequential develop of European ideas of education moving from the original Christian church, to Cathedrals, to universities, to the Jesuits, to the modern Republican forms of education taken for granted in Durkheim’s own day. Durkheim noted that this review of the past succession of different ideas of education did not prevent us from repeating past errors but rather detached us from our existing conception of the current way of doing things as the only, ideal way of educating students. We shall see, however, that there was nothing arbitrary about any of these theories and these systems, which have undergone the test of experience and been incarnated in reality. If one of them has not survived, this was not because it was merely the product of human aberration but rather that it was the result of specific and mutually interacting social forces. If it has changed, this because society itself has changed. (Durkheim 2013: 9)

There is thus a relationship between the overall society and its structure, norms and culture, and the education system that prevails within it. This educational system in turn instils those norms, and, indeed, Durkheim seems to suggest it is precisely the emergence of schools during the early Christian era which produced a consistent idea of ‘society’ and thus, social facts, as such. However, this process is by no means static – neither literally motionless, nor reflective of a stark binary division between ‘mechanical’ simple societies and ‘organic’ complex modern societies. Rather, the history of education fills in the wandering, processual gap between these early societies and the more complex and differentiated societies we observe today. Thus one comes to realise on the basis of first-hand experience that there is no immutable form of education, that yesterday’s cannot be that of tomorrow, that while on the one hand, the systems are in a state of perpetual flux, these continual changes (at least when they are normal) connect at any given moment in time with a single-fixed and determining reference-point:  namely the condition of society at the relevant moment. (Durkheim 2013: 9)

Durkheim here expressed a fundamentally processual account of education and captured the way in which, on the one hand, everything is in flux and



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changeable – yet, on the other, retains structure and fixity through its reference to currently existing society as the point to which education relates. In other words, education is always itself overly involved with society as currently conducted. The recommended way out of this dilemma is to historicize this as an outcome of a process – which shows not only that it can be different (as might be the case within a utopian view) but also that it has been different and that these historical variations continue to inform and influence existing practices. That education today is merely one epoch within an evolving train of educational processes. And, finally, that education is itself producing that complex society which the next generation confronts. Changes in education are socialized into generations of students who henceforth responded to shared ‘social facts’ and, in turn, reshaped the world. Indeed, by the end of the nineteenth century, Durkheim credited modern schools with instilling the all-important ‘cult of the individual’ as both a producer of modern selves but equally as the legacy and product of the long trends in educational theory running from the Romanesque cathedrals through medieval universities, Renaissance classicism and so on. He noted, ‘In each one of us, in differing degrees, is contained the person we were yesterday . . . It is just that we don’t directly feel the influence of these past selves precisely because they are so rooted within us’ (Durkheim 2013: 11). This view of the ‘educational process’, as we shall call it hereafter, is what we are interested in exploring within the rest of this book. We will review Elias’s scholarship on his own terms, specifying his central ideas, now contextualized within his wider project of synthesizing Marx, Weber, Freud and others. We will then attempt to apply these ideas to aspects of the ‘educational process’ to see how Elias’s social theory can contribute to a better understanding of these aspects of schooling and society which we might alternatively take for granted or dismiss as being either too complex or too polluted by existing forms of powers. In other words, we will explore the possibility of a more detached – and consequently newer – understanding of modern education than those currently prevailing in contemporary educational research.

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Key Concepts

1.  The Civilizing Process: Courtly manners and etiquette Before proceeding with a detailed discussion of how we might apply Norbert Elias’s analyses to education, we should first elaborate what his actual studies consisted of. Far and away the most important of these was his magnum opus: Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation (On the Process of Civilization), typically known as ‘The Civilizing Process’. Originally published in two parts, the book was by no means an instant bestseller. Though written in 1939, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that the work came to be recognized as a classic of modern sociology. It would be impossible and unnecessary to summarize the entire text here, but an overview of some of the core ideas will prove useful as we delve into further detail on specific aspects as these might relate to the sociology of education. Elias’s aim was to provide a realist account of the historical emergence of modern states and the interdependent changes in self-control, or ‘habitus’. These changes were wrought through the development of manners within ‘court society’ – aristocratic social circles centred in the state. By demonstrating the way these micro- and macrosociological changes occurred over the course of centuries, Elias countered many prevailing tendencies of his day, including the debate between materialism and idealism. By focusing on the monopoly mechanism, through which aristocrats and monarchs monopolized violence and the right to taxation within their territories, Elias uncovered a historical basis for contemporary political economic organization. The process was relatively unplanned but nonetheless highlighted the manner through which social classes emerged, then extended the social franchise, while at the same time becoming imprinted with the mannerisms and self-control of pre-existing social figurations.

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Elias’s core research question was whether one could empirically isolate changes in the personality structure of human actors across time. He achieved this through close study of books of etiquette: texts instructing boys and girls on how to behave properly at suppertime and so on. On the surface such an inquiry might appear of some interest to specialist historians of medieval or early modern Europe. However, Elias’s secondary question was whether one could also demonstrate a connection between these changing personality structures and tastes and the larger sociopolitical developments of the modern state. The former, long-term changes in personality was termed ‘psychogenesis’, whereas the broader changes in society was called ‘sociogenesis’. To adequately explore a long-term process one needs to do both. The form and structure of the more conscious and more unconscious psychological self-steering functions can never be grasped if they are imagined as something in any sense existing or functioning in isolation from one another . . . Nor can their structure and changes be understood if observation is confined to individual human beings. They can only be comprehended in connection with the structure of relationships between people, and with the long-term changes in that structure. (Elias 2000: 411)

The book, in four parts, ingeniously travels from a review of different forms of etiquette across centuries covering the fine details of using forks, knives, as well as control of bodily behaviour in polite society. The changing attitudes within courts, including new forms of disgust – for example, when manners were not followed – enabled the internalization of social control as self-control. Every new actor within these courtly societies was socialized into a ‘figuration’ and process conditioned by the broad trajectory of state formation as well as the habits and tastes of the court. Indeed, precisely because the court was so much the centre of Absolutist society, the pressures, social constraints and channelling of psychic drives which obtained were extended throughout the rest of society, especially as the ascending bourgeois classes took on some of the courtly principles and mannerisms. The centrality of the court of Louis XIV was already a feature of Elias’s previous study of Court Society (1983) conducted in Germany as part of his Habilitation. The Sun King’s court of Versailles provided a model that was reproduced across Europe. What Elias observed was the manner through which aristocracies, whose power was distributed across French lands, was eventually constrained and contained within the elaborate rituals of French court. On the one hand, the style and consumption patterns, which other sociologists might deem ‘luxuries’



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or ‘leisurely’, were, in fact, necessities within this context (cf. Veblen 1924). On the other hand, the centralization of social power within the capital and court meant that the aristocracy became dependent on the king and further isolated from other classes, in particular, the bourgeoisie. The centralization of court, in a sense, ‘defanged’ the aristocracy, which would have historically been a warrior class. Rather than residing within their respective provinces, the aristocrats competed for status within court. These rituals emphasized the social distance between the monarch and the court, and, in turn, the court and the rest of society, including the (resentful) bourgeoisie and the public at large. Eventually, this inequality culminated in the French Revolution but not before setting a pattern of etiquette which has remained remarkably consistent even to this day: in terms of how we hold our forks and knives, how to be polite at the supper table and a range of other marks of ‘high society’ and haute couture. Elias captured the fundamental lack of freedom – that is, constraint – within this particular figuration (a word we will define properly below). Etiquette and ceremony increasingly became . . . a ghostly perpetuum mobile that continued to operate regardless of any direct use-value, being impelled, as by an inexhaustible motor, by the competition for status and power of the people enmeshed in it – a competition both between themselves and with the mass of those excluded – and by their need for a clearly graded scale of prestige . . . No single person within the figuration was able to initiate a reform of the tradition. Every slightest attempt to reform, to change the precarious structure of tensions, inevitably entailed an upheaval, a reduction or even abolition of the rights of certain individuals and families. To jeopardise such privileges was, to the ruling class of this society a kind of taboo. The attempt would be opposed by broad sections of the privileged who feared, perhaps not without justification, that the whole system of rule that gave them privilege would be threatened or would collapse if the slightest detail of the traditional order were altered. So everything remained as it was. (Elias 1983: 93)

Thus, we can see the manner in which social constraint became embodied as selfconstraint. Even if a particular individual wanted to change their manners and habits, they would risk so much – effectively, excommunication from the central court society – so, they did not even consider this as an option. Further, to reject these patterns of behaviour would be to, in effect, criticize the very status one held; in a sense, this would amount to rejecting one’s self and one’s identity. The result was an ultimately highly conservative structure which was nonetheless constantly

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changing in terms of new participants, new events, even new manners – as the textbooks of manners reveal changes occurring over the long-term. This solid structure despite change is what Elias meant by ‘figuration’ – a term which many use to denote the entire tradition of scholarship following in his wake: thus, ‘figurational sociology’ is a way of referring to what others might call ‘Eliasian sociology’. The classic example Elias used was that of a dance – especially a formal dance of the kind characteristic of court society, though equally a round dance such as a folk ceilidh or square dance. Once the dance gets started, the ‘dance’ exists and can go on all night. And, yet, participants come and go – the specific individuals involved makes no difference to the overall structure even when the size of the dancing population might rise and fall; the music changes and so on. Yet, the dance is a ‘figuration’ with a structure. There are certain steps and expectations and relationships between space, gender, hierarchies  – even perhaps parental authority, in terms of chaperones and so on. But, again, it is not static. The ‘dance’ is, in fact, a process. Interestingly, recent philosophy of biological and other natural processes have come around to this way of thinking as well: The living world is a hierarchy of processes, stabilized and actively maintained at different timescales. We can think of this hierarchy in broadly mereological terms: molecules, cells, organs, organisms, populations, and so on. Although the members of this hierarchy are usually thought of as things, we contend that they are more appropriately understood as processes. (Nicholson and Dupré 2018)

Similarly, the objects of social study – states, markets, schools, even individual people – are not static ‘things’ but processes evolving according to internal and external, that is, ecological pressures. Such a view is therefore compatible with a range of educational psychology research emphasizing developmental processes such as that of Bronfenbrenner (2009). Accordingly, just as Elias effectively combined the psychoanalytic theories of Freud with the social theories of Weber and Marx, the processual approach provides a means of connecting the insights of psychological research with that of sociology and, indeed, natural science in general (see Quilley and Loyal 2005). And, notably, without falling into reductionist traps such as those prevalent within behavioural and evolutionary psychology emphasizing naturalistic assumptions which overlook the long history of an evolving educational process. Elias noted, What changes in the course of the process which we call history are the reciprocal relationships, the figurations, of people and the moulding the



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individual undergoes within them . . . Each single aspect of human social life is comprehensible only if seen in the context of this perpetual movement; no particular detail can be isolated from it. (Elias 2000: 403)

Elias conceived of and wrote The Civilizing Process while in exile in England during the Second World War. The immediate inspiration for the work was his discovery of books of manners at the British library. These texts provided Elias with a window into the changing personality structure of European elites across centuries as reflected in social expectations for polite behaviour. He then connected these manners to changes in the larger, macrosocial environment during the monopolization of violence in the state. Thus, although the study is most well known for Elias’s careful extraction of various examples of changing table manners – such as those instructions by Erasmus to young men during the Renaissance: ‘to lick greasy fingers or to wipe them on your coat is impolite. It is better to use the tablecloth or the serviette’ (Elias 2000:  77)  – the entire second half of the book provided an alternative macrosociological account of the emergence of the modern state. For the educationalist interested in utilizing Elias’s theory and work, we shall see that this processual account provides a useful metanarrative in which we can reinsert what we know of the history of education, professions and knowledge in the modern era. In the core section of the text, Part II, Elias engaged in a close reading of various etiquette books written for young elite men. Across centuries one can observe differences in what is considered appropriate behaviour with respect to dining habits, bodily movements, such as when and where to urinate or defecate, and sexual habits. Especially important were changes in the acceptability of violence. In the Middle Ages, the possibility of duels, bloody fighting, torture and other violence was more of an everyday occurrence than today. This not only limited what we would today consider ‘refined’ or ‘courteous’ behaviour but ultimately shortened the temporal scope medieval actors had to plan and coordinate action. There was less of an incentive to plan for one’s retirement when one might be knifed in a back alley at any moment. Much of what appears contradictory to us  – the intensity of their piety, the violence of their fear of hell, their guilt feelings, their penitence, the immense outbursts of joy and gaiety, the sudden flaring and the uncontrollable force of their hatred and belligerence  – all these, like the rapid changes of mood, are in reality symptoms of one and the same structuring of the emotional life. The drives, the emotions were vented more freely, more directly and more openly than later. (Elias 2000: 168)

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Only to us, living within a subdued, rational, ‘civilized’ society does the behaviour, manners and chaotic expressions of affect – including violence in the form of dagger strokes, duels and banditry – appear irrational. However, by tracing the gradual development of instructions given to adults and children – particularly those of the literate upper classes – Elias demonstrated that these aggressive drives were eventually tamed, so much so that such outbursts literally disgust us today. We cannot imagine defecating, urinating or flatulating during a meal, yet this was a regular occurrence then. The early instructions in manner books advised that this might be impolite provided solid historical evidence that such behaviour occurred and was widespread enough to warrant such recommendations. As the centuries progressed, we see these instructions were replaced with more formal expectations of holding a knife and fork correctly, of picking meat up off dishes appropriately, of conversing politely with one’s neighbour and the host, and so on. Through such texts we can see the gradual emergence and consolidation of a set of social standards of civility or civilization.

2.  The Civilizing Process: Monopolization of violence and taxation We must also recall that these standards were being set within a very particular class of people at a very particular era of early modern history: the centralization of absolutist courts and among the aristocracy as this class was being pacified. Here we can ‘zoom out’ so to speak to see the bigger macrosociological forces at work. During the late medieval period, the kingdom of France under the Capets began to consolidate their territories through a centripetal process. The means are familiar: war and marriage encouraged the growth of territories; however, we must recall such growth was (a) always at the expense of another ruler and (b) was increasingly necessary in order to fund the growing standing armies and navies, which were used, in turn, to acquire and defend territory. Elias situated the emergence of this monopolization of violence (under monarch-led, large, standing armies rather than aristocratic warrior bands themselves) in terms of the way agriculture and property were organized within feudalism. Rulers had to expand their territory in order to gain wealth as there was no capitalist option for economic growth. And, further, since every ruler was trying to expand at the same time, every ruler needed to defend themselves: kill or be killed. Initially, conflicts, stalemates



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and settlements were accomplished through ritualisted battles between expensive (aristocratic) knights maintaining armour and horses, but various technological advances including the development of pikes and later gunpowder and cannon made the large-scale infantry more effective and accordingly gave advantage to those rulers with the greatest wealth (meaning the largest territory and population). This resulted in the centripetal force in which those with more gained more and more at expense of those with less (Tilly 1990). These victorious rulers would, in turn, actively quell the resistance of other members of the warrior classes – either by killing, coopting or pacifying them through courtly ritual. Essentially, Elias was describing a selection mechanism, in which those rulers, territories and elites who survived were most effective at consolidating their position within this evolving system. Elias used the term ‘survival unit’ to denote the states which were the outcome of this process as much as the producer of the process (Kaspersen and Gabriel 2013): Out of the competition of small dominions, the territories, themselves formed through the struggles of even smaller survival units, a few and finally a single unit slowly emerged victorious. The victor formed the centre about which a new larger dominion was integrated; he formed the monopoly centre of a state organization within the framework of which many of the previously freely competing regions and groups gradually grew together into a more or less unified, better and worse balanced human web of a higher order of magnitude. (Elias 2000: 436)

He noted that, yes, occasionally there were individual rulers  – for example, a useless son might be born to noble or royal family resulting in temporary state decline – but overall, the process continued according to the logic of larger and larger territories which were pacified internally, but externally belligerent. Just as in the dance figuration, the behaviour of individuals does little to change the overall structure of the emergent process. In these ‘elimination contests’, this process of social selection, the personal qualities of individuals and other ‘accidental’ factors such as the death of one man or a ruling house’s lack of male heirs, undoubtedly played a crucial part from time to time in deciding which territory triumphs, rises and grows. The social process itself, however, the fact that a society with numerous power and property units of relatively equal size, tends under strong competitive pressures towards an enlargement of a few units and finally towards monopoly, is largely independent of such accidents. (Elias 2000: 264)

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France, especially by the time of Louis XIV, was the leading exemplar of this form of state organized around a centralized court in Paris, then later Versailles. Other courts around Europe observing this success adopted similar forms of courts in order to establish the domination of their lesser territorial nobility. Many monarchs, including Frederick the Great of Prussia, spoke French within their courts despite being German, Italian, Russian and so forth. Successful monarchs channelled the antagonism of rivals at court towards royal ends through what Elias called the ‘monarchical mechanism’. Kings pitted the two major upper classes against one another:  the aristocracy and the ascending bourgeoisie. The aristocracy were drawn into court society and entered into the status competition we are now familiar with: elaborate rituals of etiquette and the civilizing patterns identified within the books of manners. In effect, the former warrior classes became the first sublimated consumers, spending extravagantly on clothing, gifts, houses – typically racking up extensive debts in order to do so (cf. Campbell 2005). And who provided the credit? The bourgeoisie. The merchant classes emerged out of the margins of the late medieval pacification processes,1 in particular responding to the introduction of cash into the economy due to the payments monarchs made to soldiers in their standing armies, according to Elias. Early markets were conducted in towns and cities with special privileges for the burghers, or citizens, allowing them to trade. This (‘burgh’, ‘burg’, ‘borough’, etc.) is ultimately the same linguistic root as the term ‘bourgeoisie’. In exchange for this right to trade  – which was in fact a right not have one’s good forcibly seized by the local baron, bandit or even distant monarch – the bourgeoisie paid taxes.2 Thus, Elias connected the state’s monopolization of taxation to the monopolization of violence, obtained through professionalizing standing armies, who were, unlike most peasants, paid in cash. Similarly, rations, uniforms and equipment were purchased from towns rather This observation can also be found in Weber’s analysis of cities as ‘free’ spaces from which the merchant middle class emerged  – accordingly armed with normative, liberal values emphasizing ‘freedom’, typically freedom to trade (Weber 1968: 1212–368). 2 In fact, a great deal of trade was accordingly conducted through smuggling networks, including many connected with piracy  – which came under state-sanctioned control through privateering, which, in turn, became royal navies (i.e. in effect, the private property of the monarch as the largest lord with the resources to field a standing army and navy). From the merchant’s point of view, taxes, customs or stamp duties would have been paid in order to enter a market town or city – thus, this access was deemed more profitable than trying to conduct business on the black market in the hinterland. Similarly, river and, later, canal travel presupposed duties at every border crossing – such as the dozens of towns and cities on each side of the Rhine valley – often resulting in huge expenses on customs nonetheless deemed a worthwhile trade-off for the security of barge haulage into territorial interiors. One of the major ‘liberal’ reforms requested by merchants was the removal of these duplicative customs fees if for no other reason than to reduce the need to load and unload goods every few hours! 1



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than levied from forced labour (serfdom) (cf. Aston and Philpin 1985). This cash was, in turn, spent and circulated in towns and cities, giving a boost to the merchants and the nascent consumer economy, which was, in turn, able to consolidate and expand due to the pacification of the territory. Relatedly, the medieval issue of short-term uncertainty was reduced as capitalist double-entry accounting for risk allowed for longer-term investment in capital production and more extensive overseas trade networks. Across centuries, the relative prosperity of burghers grew. However, another section of the bourgeois classes also began to expand concurrently, namely the professional civil service. As the aristocracy was co-opted into the court society, someone needed manage the distant provinces on the monarch’s behalf. Of particular importance was the need to collect taxes. This was initially the class known in France as the noblesse de robe, a kind of in-between class emerging from the lower orders of the university-educated clergy and, particularly, members and graduates of the legal faculty of jurists (see Fowler 2015). Ultimately, however, this class was ‘bourgeois’, that is, they were the highest representatives of the ‘third estate’ (‘first’ being the clergy, the ‘second’ being the nobles and the ‘third’ being everyone else). This expert fraction of the bourgeois class began organization of the national economy according to new principles of what was called cameralism, treating the monarch’s territory as an organism whose productivity should be maximized (Tribe 1988). As the historian Mark Raeff noted, these efforts made between 1750 and 1850 by ‘enlightened states’, meaning monarchs being advised by professionalizing civil servants, truly initiated the major features of modern society we live with today, including commitment to perpetual economic growth and national investment in technological and social capacity: What emerged into the open in the eighteenth century in most of Western and Central Europe is society’s conscious desire to maximize all its resources and to use this new potential dynamically for the enlargement and improvement of its way of life. The potential of resources includes not merely material products and riches, but intellectual and cultural creations as well. (Raeff 1975: 1222)

As other historical sociologists have demonstrated, it was this class which was most active in ‘modernising’ taxation systems in order to establish what we would today call ‘free trade’ (Steinmetz 1997). The educated classes also began insisting that the nobility that did enter the civil service should be educated, either through universities or what were called ‘Ritterakademie’ or knight’s academies (Rosenberg 1958). In other words, the noblesse de robe or their

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equivalent outside France began a process of institutionalizing education as a requirement for participation in the government civil service. The aristocracy was thus squeezed in two directions, on the one hand, by the monarch and court culture encouraging venal forms of stylistic competition which were nonviolent but wasteful, particularly of time: gambling was an important pastime in this era. On the other hand, aristocrats and their children were further excluded from government office unless they could demonstrate educational competence – status conferred through classical education, either with a tutor or as a ‘commoner’s degree’ at a university, academy or military school. We can see that the monarchical mechanism was a means through which the centralizing ruler kept each emerging class in competition with one another, while at the same time increasing the power and authority of the monarch at the centre of the expanding and innovating state. The noblesse de robe, generally represented the ‘middle-classes’ in government, while the aristocracy were excused from the most onerous aspect of bourgeois existence: taxation. Indeed, within France especially, in order to fund major military campaigns, such as the Seven Years’ War or the American Revolution, the monarch would have to sell a number of aristocratic titles to elite bourgeoisie. This excused these elites from further taxation; however, the trade-off was the expectation of now participating in the elaborate rituals of the ‘civilized’, aristocratic elite. Needless to say, such an elaborate structure of special, hereditary privileges did little to quell the ire of the remaining bourgeois merchants who continued to pay increasingly burdensome taxes, which were often hiked without warning, preventing any means through which merchants could reasonably organize their trade  – increasingly being conducted around the world. The bourgeoisie soon came to resent both the aristocracy and the ruling structure which prevented them from having a say, particularly within the structure of taxation. However, Elias observed it was precisely within France where the upper classes were so close to one another in economic and even social and cultural standing, that the nascent revolutionary resentment was greatest. Where the ascending class of bourgeoisie could get so close to the centres of power and yet be excluded either by lack of education, religion or status – that is, aristocratic title – while at the same time being aware of the unfair privileges propping these ‘useless’ families up  – this was a recipe for an overhaul of the entire system. Thus, as noted above, but now visible in specific detail here: Elias has provided an alternative account for the emergence of the modern capitalist state. For, what we see in the French Revolution was not simply the overthrow of the monarchy,



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aristocracy and church – the so-called ‘Old Regime’, which in any event returned briefly during the Restoration. Rather, we see the bourgeois classes assumed control of the state’s monopoly of taxation. The merchants and professional civil service together gained control of the Treasury and the government budget, which would hereafter be ‘rationalized’ in contrast to the personalist rule of the monarchs. This extension of the monopoly of taxation applied equally to Britain and other states which retained a constitutional monarchy, as it did to Republics like France. The democratization of the monopoly of taxation, in a sense, amounts to liberal democracy as such for a time. Parliaments, cabinets and government offices now managed the increasingly large-scale structure of finance and taxation modern states engaged in – including provision for larger and more technologically advanced militaries and navies, most of which became conscription-based in the nineteenth century (Lybeck 2010). This bourgeois revolution, of course, only paid lip-service to democracy ‘of, by and for the people’ (insofar as most European states took well over a century before extending the franchise to the entire population, including women and working classes (Therborn 1977)). However, the bourgeois claim made at this stage, that ‘the people’ or ‘public’ should have a say in the budget of government, was significant insofar as the middle classes, collectively, were now positioned in the role previously occupied by the monarch and his officers. In Marx’s words, the state became the ‘executive committee for the bourgeoisie’. This structure removed the monarchical mechanism, which, in turn, began the slow (but not immediate) decline of the aristocracy across Europe (Cannadine 1990; Mayer 1981). The abolition of noble privileges meant on the one hand the end of the nobility’s exemption from taxes and thus a redistribution of the tax burden; and on the other the elimination of reduction of many court offices, the annihilation of what was  – in the eyes of this new professional bourgeoisie  – a useless and functionless nobility, and thus a different distribution of tax revenue, no longer in the interests of the king but in those of society at large, or at least, to begin with, of the upper bourgeoisie. (Elias 2000: 362)

Still, the bourgeoisie did not eliminate the idea of ‘civility’ or good manners. Indeed, this is precisely what the dour Victorians are known for! (Gay 1984). As Elias noted, the change in the monopoly of taxation established bourgeois norms, values and habits, rather than those of the effete aristocracy as the central cultural pattern of modern societies. However, these bourgeois values

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were not conceived of in isolation; rather, much of what the Victorian middle classes emphasized in terms of ‘usefulness’, ‘restraint’, ‘austerity’ and other values familiar to the reader of Weber’s Protestant Ethic thesis was developed within the civilizing process by way of contrast, which in turn set these ideas of ‘utility’ and so forth in tension with the prevailing civility embodied by the court society. The aristocrats were flamboyant, and the middle classes were serious. Thus, ‘leisure’, ‘abstraction’, ‘gambling’, even ‘sexuality’, as conducted by the more or less polyamorous members of the aristocracy were turned into the new taboos of the middle classes. Rococo and baroque decorations were replaced by Georgian windows, while the black trench coat and top hat replaced the stockings and beauty marks. These perceived ‘effeminate’ features of courtly life – the powdered wigs, make-up and women’s participation in salon life (important for arranging marriages and, often, diplomatic alliances) (Chalus 2000) – were replaced with the ideal of the bourgeois, patriarchal, nuclear family. As bourgeois men assumed their ‘rightful’ place within the public sphere, voting on municipal budgets and consolidating larger and larger public trusts to build railroads, canals and turnpikes to transport goods  – their wives and daughters were increasingly confined to management of the private household. As the middle classes seized control of the fiscal management of the state in the name of all the ‘people’, it was necessary to qualify that the ‘people’ consisted only of full persons:  meaning middle-class, white, adult men.3 The woman’s ‘place’ became the bourgeois home, and they became distinguishable from both their working class counterparts who were, in fact, the foundational precarious labourers of the early Industrial Revolution (Goldstone 1996); but, elite women were also associated with the aristocratic household insofar as their leisure time – for tea, sympathy and gossip, for ­example – became a status symbol for the middle-class family at large. On the other hand, women became de facto managers of households full of domestic servants, supporting the appearance of leisure and ‘civility’ upstairs through toil downstairs. Women were thus positioned in what Marxist sociologist Erik Olin Wright (1985) might call a ‘contradictory class position’ insofar as they were expected to perform the aristocratic function of useless consumer of leisure time, while behind the scenes actually working rather hard to maintain and manage the household like a capitalist factory owner. Thus, just as the aristocrats in court society were constrained to perform It is worth noting that Elias did not explore the full consequences of these gender implications in terms of Victorian and modern society. Rather, his work on gender power imbalances was more largely focused on the ancient world, particularly Roman antiquity (Elias 1998a: 187–216).

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their leisure as a demonstration of both powerlessness vis-à-vis the monarchy and social distance from those below, namely the bourgeoisie, one can extend Elias’s analysis to observe a similar positioning of middle-class women within the emerging figuration after bourgeois men obtained the right to vote.

3.  The Civilizing Process: Civilizing missions The assumption of civility by the ascendant middle class steers us in the direction of Elias’s analysis of ‘established’ and ‘outsider’ relations, discussed in more detail in Chapter 7. We must recall that the middle classes that became the new establishment of modern society did so according to a kind of mirror image of that which prevailed in the aristocratic court. They resisted and rejected this image but were equally drawn to and desiring of that which they could not have. Those in the educated fractions of the bourgeoisie also bought into the insecurities and criticisms of middle-class materialism and ‘philistinism’, for example. Thus, they not only sublimated various pleasures of aristocratic lifestyles, they also bought into them in contradictory ways – particularly in the form of consumption (Campbell 2005). As producers of the industrial economy, the bourgeoisie manufactured goods and reaped the profits, and as they grew in wealth, they also purchased those goods and marketed them to wider and wider populations, both domestically and abroad. It was through this process that the civilizing process reached broader elements of the population. Elias noted the dynamicity and hybridity of these interactions: From the nineteenth century onwards, these civilized forms of conduct spread across the rising lower classes of Western society and over the various classes in the colonies, amalgamating with indigenous patterns of conduct. Each time this happens, upper-class conduct and that of the rising groups interpenetrate. (Elias 2000: 428)

Those groups now included in the expanding capitalist world system gained in social power, provided they adapted to the upper class’s standards of civilized behaviour. Thus, this expansion of inclusion with the establishment and exclusion of those who remained ‘outsiders’ always benefited the upper classes more than the newly ascendant working classes or colonized peoples. The result was establishment of a linear notion of civilization, which was no longer treated as a temporal process but as a fixed stage of development.

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Those who did not conform to the standards and norms of civilized society were deemed ‘primitive’ or even closer to animals. Recall, this applied now to both lower classes within nation states and also to other ‘races’ and cultures around the world. Accordingly, French and other European imperialists in the late nineteenth century adopted and justified themselves according to their empire’s ‘civilising mission’. Europeans claimed they were teaching these ‘child races’ how to live peacefully and democratically with one another (again the pacification of violence and aggressive tendencies were central). Of course, hypocritically, the civilizing mission provided justification for Europeans’ own violent repression of rebellion throughout the colonial and imperial eras – responses to the acquisition of further territory, until the entire world had been divided up among the most powerful European empires. However, Elias noted, It is not only the land that is needed but the people; these must be integrated, whether as workers or consumers, into the web of the hegemonial, upper-class country, with its highly developed differentiation of functions . . . it demands a ‘civilization’ of the colonized . . . So it became necessary, in maintaining an empire that went beyond mere plantation-land and plantation-labour, to rule people in part through themselves, through the moulding of their super-egos. (Elias 2000: 432)

Thus, we can see again the manner in which social control becomes selfcontrol – in which even the colonized actor allows the colonizing power, through adoption of their culture, habits, tastes and identities, into their own heads. Such was the insight of Franz Fanon and others in the postcolonial tradition (Fanon 2001) – one that is largely compatible with the one Elias provided in his largescale analysis of the civilizing process. It was not that the civilizing process actually led to civilization as was propounded by those using this as justification – even if a decline in violence (i.e. resistance) and other Western European standards of hygiene – followed in the wake of missionaries, doctors and legionnaires. Rather, the idea of civility, with origins in the early modern court society, had been developed and changed through the civilizing process so that these standards became ‘second nature’ to those upper classes commanding power who demanded outsiders integrated into their ways of life. Everyone needed to make these civilized habits – or ‘habitus’, a term Elias himself used well before Bourdieu’s familiar formulation of this term – their own. Those who refused these standards of manners, bodily control and pacification were not only excluded from civilized society but were actually



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deemed racially or nationally inferior, as exhibiting behaviour characteristic of earlier less civilized societies according to a staged hierarchies of peoples around the world. The closer one came to holding one’s fork and knife ‘properly’, the more likely one was deemed to be a member of advanced civilization.

4.  Other work: The Established and the Outsiders The Civilizing Process is certainly Elias’s major work and stands as the equivalent within the figurational school as Marx’s Capital does in Marxist scholarship. Nearly all of the central themes that characterize figurational sociology are contained within the text, though these topics are elaborated in further detail elsewhere and with different contexts in Elias’s other writing. As the goal of the present chapter is to merely introduce Elias’s scholarship  – to provide an overview of what he was after on his own terms before applying this to the topic of education – it is only worth referencing some of the other major ideas Elias articulated in these other works briefly, as these will come up again in chapters that follow. We have already encountered two of the three ideas worth mentioning here: established–outsider relations and involvement and detachment – each of which is discussed in full complexity within eponymously titled books (Elias 1987a; Elias and Scotson 1994). The third topic we will review below is Elias’s sociology of sport as covered in the book Quest for Excitement co-authored with Eric Dunning (Elias and Dunning 1993). As we concluded our discussion of the The Civilizing Process above, the relationship between upper classes and the inclusion of initially excluded groups, domestically and abroad, came up. The bourgeoisie, in fact, were the prototypical upstart class that eventually overtook the social position of the aristocracy  – moving from outsider to establishment. Elias would extend this concluding train of thought into a middle-range theory of ‘established–outsider relations’ (see Merton 1957 on middle-range). These reflect a general pattern at both microand macrosociological levels in which ‘we-they’ distinctions generate a mutually recognized binary between those who are in the establishment, or upper class, central group, leading nation, gender and so on, and those who are excluded or outside of this group. The mutual recognition implies each considers themselves as a ‘we’ or ‘us’ and the other group as a ‘they’ or ‘them’. Further, as Elias and his co-author John Scotson observed within their otherwise traditional study of an anonymized mid-century Midlands town called ‘Winston Parva’, these we–they distinctions produce what the co-authors

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term patterns of ‘group charisma’ and ‘group disgrace’. What this means is that, for the establishment – in the case of Winston Parva, the members of the ‘village’ in the historic part of town – the good and valourable qualities of community adhere to them. Meanwhile, for the outsiders, such as those immigrants and working-class folks on the so-called ‘Estate’ in Winston Parva, every form of individual deviance, whether that is teenagers drinking or a bit of noise or litter, was attributed to the entire group residing in that neighbourhood. Much of this attribution was done through the mechanism of ‘gossip’. ‘Gossip . . . has always two poles, those who gossip and those about whom they gossip. In cases in which subjects and objects of gossip belong to different groups, the frame of reference is not only the group of gossipers but the situation and structure of both groups and their relationship with each other’ (Elias 1998a: 249). Through these whispered attributions of ‘grace’ and blame, the establishment obtained an air of ‘respectability’ while the outsiders were considered to be lesser than, poorly behaved, uncivilized – including, and importantly, by they themselves! The residents ‘seemed to accept, with a kind of puzzled resignation, that they belonged to a group of less virtue and respectability (Elias and Scotson 1994: 8), for a remarkable feature of the patterning of establishment–outsider relations is that the outsiders tend to adopt the identities conferred on them by the establishment, which in turn reaffirms the establishment’s domination over community culture. As Elias argued, this applied as much to the local Midlands’ town as to the entire Hindu caste system at a macrosociological level. We shall see in Chapter  7 that the concept will prove most useful in understanding dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in education.

5.  Other work: Involvement and Detachment We have also encountered in Chapter  3, while discussing Marx and the sociology of knowledge, Elias’s ideas concerning a spectrum of involvement and detachment. Beyond reminding us that Elias’s general methodological approach encouraged a more detached, historical view on sociological phenomena, the specifics noted above need not be reiterated here. However, two further aspects covered in the book will be important in our discussion in Chapter 9: (a) the idea of the ‘social fund of knowledge’ and (b) Elias’s tracking of a long-term rise of abstraction and detached modes of thinking within the natural sciences in particular. This process was ultimately concurrent with the process described above in terms of the civilization of the upper classes. The capacity to reason



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abstractly, mathematically and with reference to empirical reality became associated with those idealized and valorized aspects of the upper classes, initially the European aristocracy and then the middle classes. In the early chapters of the book, Elias noted the emergence of these new ways of viewing the world emerged within the arts, specifically Renaissance artists and architects experimenting with perspective. Later, referencing a parable by Edgar Allen Poe called ‘A Descent into the Maelstrom’ (1845), Elias demonstrated that this form of detached knowledge was not simply one arbitrary option among others but provided comparative advantage for those actors who could see the ‘whole picture’ so to speak. As we encountered with Freud: the adoption of a rational mind, a ‘cool head’ or ‘realistic manner’ attentive to abstract models, theories and evidence requires a high degree of affect-control; a sublimation of the death drive and pleasure principle. In other words, civilization implies adoption of particular forms of rational thinking. Further, although aspects of these patterns are the arbitrary legacies of particular table manners aristocrats picked up during eighteenth century fine dining, others provided humans with clear advantages, particularly in relation to the conquest of nature.4 The capacity to ‘see the big picture’ and to predict risk, dangers and weaknesses allowed communities, rulers and advisors to mitigate and prepare for not only these natural disasters, such as plagues and inclement weather, but also social problems such as military defence and economic issues such as famine. In other words, rational thinking allowed societies to plan for the long-term in ways which medieval communities – exhibiting less impulse control and prone to more violence – could not achieve. Thus, the pacification of society went hand in hand with the rationalization of society. Once established and set in motion, rationalization encouraged further differentiation of knowledge and functions, ultimately resulting in specialized forms of training, themselves controlled by various scientific ‘establishments’ (Elias, Martins and Whitley 1982). This produced what Elias and other sociologists refer to as ‘relative autonomy’ of various forms of knowledge  – specialized disciplines are autonomous from one another, and according to the principles and, ultimately, values of rationalistic thinking:  scientific modes of thought attempt to be detached from societal values. Those forms of knowledge which are polluted by social values are deemed ‘ideological’; Cold War liberals, for example, accused Marxism of exhibiting ideology which Again, one can find very similar themes dealt with in the work of the Frankfurt School (see Horkheimer and Adorno 2002).

4

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was uncharacteristic of the spirit of science, which is supposedly antipathetic to ideology (Shils 1958); or, in the case of non-Western peoples, the magicalmythical ways of understanding the relationships between humans and nature was deemed ‘animistic’ and primitive by anthropologists and comparative theologians. Animistic and ideological knowledge was therefore deemed to be more ‘involved’ compared to more ‘detached’ ways of knowing. On the one hand, Elias’s recognition of the objective correspondence between these valorizations of scientific knowledge and the civilizing process, emerging concurrently (though as two identifiably autonomous processes) and integrating with one another demonstrated that we must not fall into the trap of believing societies with more rational forms of knowledge are inherently more advanced than societies with different knowledge ideals and practices. Many of our assumptions regarding science are laden with a range of sexist, imperialist and classist ideas regarding what is ‘true’ and what is ‘false’ (Harding 1998). At the same time, however, Elias did note that, particularly within complex differentiated societies such as we find ourselves living through, detached knowledge can provide strategic and practical advantages insofar as the capacity to ‘see the big picture’ can enable planning and ultimately can facilitate the acquisition and navigation of social power. This applies, of course, to individuals seeking to, say, invest in the right stock option or develop the best social policy – thus, why many will invest in accurate information as found in The Economist or academic articles in policy journals. However, Elias contributed an idea of the ‘social fund of knowledge’ to note that knowledge is never a resource ‘owned’ solely by one individual. Rather, knowledge is something which the entire community contributes to, which we access to a greater or lesser degree, and which ultimately changes according to a collective transformation: that is, as a figurational process. Sociological theories of knowledge have to break with the firmly entrenched tradition according to which every person in terms of her or his own knowledge is a beginning. No person ever is. Every person, from the word go, enters a preexisting knowledge stream. He or she may later improve and augment it. But it is always an already existing social fund of knowledge which is advanced in this manner, or perhaps made to decline. (Elias 1987a: xviii)

It is rather obvious and yet oddly misrepresented within many philosophical traditions emphasizing epistemological questions  – ‘How do we know what we know?’ – that knowledge is not something which is first acquired by a fully developed rational adult. Everyone in every society is born as an infant and very



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slowly acquires knowledge of how the natural and social world works. Indeed, it is one of societies’ prime responsibilities – perhaps evolutionarily why societies exist in the first place – to provide dependent child members of our communities with various forms of knowledge the community as a whole has acquired. Elias, thus, termed knowledge the ‘means of orientation’, which could include both religious and scientific knowledge insofar as each provided individuals with recognizable ways of orienting themselves to the world. Priests were the traditional guardians of a society’s fund of knowledge. They provided what human beings, together with some other basic requirements such as physical security and food, needed most  – additional means of orientation. That the knowledge which priests guarded and produced did not have the character of scientific knowledge should not obscure the fact that this, the provision of knowledge and its translation into social practices, was their primary function. (Elias 2009: 210)

Rationalization, which emerged in the early modern and modern eras, provided comparative advantages to society as a whole due to its more realistic, detached, specialized and differentiated qualities. Scientific forms of knowledge as a means of orientation only marginally improved the capacities of individuals but collectively represented a substantial increase in the quantity and quality of knowledge. This, in turn, connected with the expansive logic of the civilizing process so that ‘science’ has now reached all the way around the world as a globalizing process: that is, globalization. Still, this rationalization was accompanied by the differentiation and parsing of knowledge amongst different disciplines and scientific establishments. Thus, no individual can grasp all of this knowledge at once: the growth of knowledge is something which the globalized society as a whole has obtained. In this sense (and again, this is not something philosophical ways of understanding knowledge tend to consider), the growth of the social fund of knowledge necessarily implies the growth of ignorance among individuals and even entire groups. In other words, the problem of ‘not-knowing’ needs to be understood as a relational element within the process of expanding knowledge (see also Luhmann 1998).

6.  Other work: Quest for Excitement The last text by Elias we will discuss before turning to applications of figurational thinking by other scholars and, in turn, our own application to the sociology of

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education, is the collection of essays relating to the sociology of sport (Elias and Dunning 1993). Written with his student, Eric Dunning, Quest for Excitement captures Elias’s interest in the manner in which the civilizing process, on the one hand, channelled aggressive impulses into more ‘civilized’ ritualistic forms. On the other hand, modern societies developed various forms of outlets in which they could ‘vent’ these affective impulses. It was therefore no coincidence that organized sport emerged precisely during the period in which the bourgeois classes began ascending. By standardizing the pre-existing, and often exceedingly violent ball games characteristic of medieval (and contemporaneous provincial) societies, the Victorians created the conditions for organized ‘excitement’ to emerge. Sport was thus both controlled, civilized and made predictable, while at the same, unpredictable, energetic and full of emotional investment for both players and crowd. Elias further noted that the rationalizing forces noted above contributed to particular forms of measurement in sport, such as more and more refinement of timing devices in races and the like. Once the physical limits of how quickly a human could run was reached, the only way to increase excitement was to track various ‘world records’ creeping forward year after year as more and more elaborate training and nutritional regimes were developed. Indeed, our modern fitness and health regimes emerged in the late nineteenth century in which units of energy could be measured numerically in calories; in which each of us could conquer, or at the very least predict, the course of nature on our bodies. Or, we could release these ascetic tendencies through watching demonstrations of athletic skill or – as rejections of these patterns of civility – through hooliganism. Indeed, one of the most ‘impactful’ applications of Elias and Dunning’s sociology of sport was in addressing the 1970s crisis of football hooliganism, which the academics were able to explain as elements within a ‘decivilizing process’. The argument was that hooligans needed to be allowed to express themselves within controlled environments, rather than repressed entirely. These policy recommendations proved most effective in reducing violence in sport. These observations and arguments went alongside similar observations made then about the so-called ‘permissive society’ emerging after the 1960s (Wouters 1986), in which the appearance of ‘decivilization’ in fact reflected often contradictory psychological responses to self-constraint: in which revolt – like the Marxist criticism of utilitarianism noted in Chapter  3  – depended on its opposite. In other words, the hooligan’s goal was not destruction of civilization as such but rather contained release of tension and affect through sanctioned spaces for hooliganism; just as the Frankfurt School observed within certain



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forms of sexualized advertising: selling one’s sublimation back to oneself in the form of consumer products. Ultimately, what we find in the emergence of modern sport is a replacement of the aristocratic notions of ‘leisure’ with the more bourgeois ideals of leisure as involving, on the one hand, competitive  – typically team  – games but also greater interests in health and well-being: very Protestant indeed. We will return to Elias’s sociology of sport in Chapter 11, but it is worth noting here that the study highlighted his attentiveness to the particularities of national contexts, in this instance, England is a representative and key national site within of the emergence of modern sport. This observation of national particularity will prove useful in articulating important differences between Elias’s work and that of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990). The latter’s model of social reproduction remained rooted in the French context and described a hierarchical, formal structure of society organized around elaborate cultural distinctions, which were, in turn, reflected and reinforced in the pyramidal education system. Elias would have recognized this as an extension of the court society, particularly in terms of the elaborate forms of etiquette expected of the upper classes, what Bourdieu would call ‘cultural capital’ (Bourdieu 1984). However, we shall see that English society may be organized according to a different relational structure, one expressed less in terms of a pyramidal hierarchy and more in terms of rigged game. Thus, Elias’s attention to sport in Victorian and modern England will tell us something about the structure of English society and by extension provide a different way of thinking about the sociology of education.

5

Figurational Scholars and Extensions into Education

We have now reviewed Elias’s project, both generally and in terms of those particular works and concepts most important and associated with him, especially those related to the civilizing process. Other scholars have taken up these insights to develop what is called ‘figurational sociology’, drawing on Elias’s general approach and particular interests. We will explore their work briefly to demonstrate, first, that Eliasian scholarship is not confined to Norbert Elias’s works alone, that other scholars have greatly expanded upon his initial insights. Second, we shall see that, even if Elias himself only touched on education, some of the work of subsequent figurational scholars has engaged with the sociology of education. Thus, whereas much of the remaining book may have the appearance of approaching the topic area of education ‘from scratch’  – it is important to acknowledge that existing work has been done in this area from which we have much to learn.

1.  Stephen Mennell’s interlocution Recall that Elias’s scholarship was not widely known during his career as a sociologist either in Germany or after exile in Britain. For much of the 1950s and 1960s, Elias worked as a lecturer at the University of Leicester and collaborated with graduate students such as John Scotson and Eric Dunning on books about establishment–outsider relations and sociology of sport, respectively. Then, beginning in the 1970s and through the 1980s, sociologists became increasingly interested in Elias’s processual, or figurational, sociology. There were two bases for this renaissance or rediscovery:  first, the deepening institutionalization of

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figurational sociology in the Netherlands, where Elias remains a central, indeed, canonical figure in global sociology. Second, the publicity and dissemination conducted by English-speaking translators and biographers, particular the work of Stephen Mennell – then a well-established British, then Irish, sociologist. A useful guide to the history of this recovery of Elias’s work can be found in the co-edited book, Sociological Amnesia (which, in fact, adopts a figurational approach to the study of disciplinary developments in sociology) (Law and Lybeck 2015). In this book, we explored the various ways major figures in sociology were forgotten, either by being excluded from the canon or going out of fashion and so on. Elias provided an interesting counter-case insofar as he left obscurity to become famous in later life. Mennell himself contributed a chapter reflecting on his and others’ role in shining light on the important research we have summarized above. Indeed, Mennell and colleagues encouraged Elias to write and publish more after his retirement resulting in a large number of books and essays beginning in the 1980s until his death in 1990 at the ripe age of 93. Intellectual celebrity came to him very late in life, but it came. And it appears that one effect of this instance of sociological amnesia being overcome was to release the floodgates of his writing . . . No one would have predicted in 1962 that his Collected Works would run to 18 volumes made up of 14 books, well over a hundred essays, and many interviews. (Mennell 2015: 203)

Mennell was also responsible for a comprehensive introduction to Elias and several edited collections of essays which remain essential resources for the interested scholar (Elias 1998a, c; Mennell 1998). These texts not only provide further detailed background, biographical and summary information but also extensive analysis of secondary criticism and novel interpretations. Along with others associated with the international Elias network of collaborators and colleagues, institutionalized in the Norbert Elias Foundation and journals, including Human Figurations published by University of Michigan Press, Mennell has ensured that present and future generations can access the groundbreaking contributions of Elias himself as well those emerging from the network of figurational sociologists working today. In addition to this role as interlocutor, Mennell produced a number of figurational sociological works himself, including scholarship on appetite and food (Mennell 1996). Drawing on Elias’s analysis of courtly manners, Mennell noted that just as the ascendance and separation of aristocratic manners from those of lower classes became embodied in new habits of self-restraint, so too did the ideal of controlling one’s appetite and emphasizing quality over quantity



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appear within cuisine. Indeed, our contemporary ideas of ‘haute cuisine’, for example, originated in France during the era following bourgeois ascendance. The elite profession of the ‘chef ’ emerged, distinguishable from mere ‘cooks’ who might be members of the service class below decks in middle-class houses. This further contributed to notions such as that France has a national ‘cuisine’, whereas England, Germany and other nations merely have food:  meat and potatoes, traditional and not nearly as refined or ‘civilized’ as the French epicureans still setting the standard of high food culture. Further, notions of slimness and dieting in contemporary society emerge from the broader civilizing agenda of bodily control, with the most drastic pathological case of anorexia evidence of some of the negative effects of these elite standards of appetite.

2.  The Dutch legacy In hindsight, it seems nearly accidental that Norbert Elias’s impact on sociology has been greatest within the Netherlands. As the story goes, an undergraduate Johan Goudsblom studying social psychology discovered The Civilizing Process on the shelf and found it revelatory, arranging a meeting with Elias at the International Sociological Association Congress in 1956. As Goudsblom became Full Professor at Amsterdam a growing number of Dutch scholars became familiar with the depth and breadth of Elias’s scholarship. He also added considerable substance to the body of figurational sociology, notably through his exploration of the long-term processual development of human’s control and use of fire (Goudsblom 1992). Noting that the social control of fire had significant influence on the control of society itself, from the primitive to the ancient to the modern world, Goudsblom also attended to differences between, for example, the Greek worship of fire and the Christian notion of hellfire. These examples show that there was nothing inherently meaningful about fire, since each opposed notion had a historical precedent, and yet some meaning was attached and was related to different social, cultural and psychic forms. In this way, Goudsblom demonstrated a way forward in which Elias’s processual approach to sociology could be applied to topics other than the civilizing process as such. Another interesting sociologist connected to the Dutch network as well as French sociology is Johan Heilbron, who explained the emergence of social theory in the context of French absolutist courts (Heilbron 1995). Just as Elias described the long-term changes of self-presentation upon the courtly

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stage, so too did actors wishing to understand each other’s inner thoughts and behavioural patterns turned to the moral sciences, which, in turn, led to the political and social sciences we recognize today. By comparing the social theory developed in the French court society to the social theory of the Scottish Enlightenment, emerging out of a very different national and historical context, Heilbron demonstrated the usefulness of applying a figurational approach to the sociology of knowledge. The historian Peter Burke has made similar arguments recently, noting that although Elias’s sociology of knowledge appeared to be incomplete within his writings, it nonetheless provided a possible middle path through ‘the regrettable gulf between two intellectual traditions in the study of knowledge, the tradition of Mannheim and Robert Merton on one side and that of Wittgenstein, Kuhn and Latour on the other’ (Burke 2012). One could, of course, fill this book and more with further examples of compelling sociological research in the tradition of Elias, and the above references are merely signposts to look for where some of the central institutional nexuses are located. Also, one can see the manner in which Elias’s scholarship can be applied to a range of fields, either directly related to or somewhat independent of his well-known focus on French court society and related topics. The interested researcher would do well to review such material to think of ways in which she can apply Elias’s approach to topic areas of interest, such as those within the sociology of education. We will now turn to two substantial contributions to this subfield indicating the moment is ripe for further research.

3.  Figurational sociology of education: Childhood One of the most relevant points of entry for the figurational scholar interested in education would be through extension of Elias’s notion of civilizing processes, particularly his synthesis between Freud and classical sociologists. Within the field of early childhood and primary education, sociologists have explored the ways in which social constraint becomes self-constraint and how this factors into the early education of children. Work in this vein comes from the field of social psychology, a sub-discipline where Elias’s scholarship is well known and applied to a range of subjects. Recently, the sociologist of education Norman Gabriel (2017a) compiled a book synthesizing Elias within a broader ‘relational’ view of early childhood. Elias is thus interpreted as a foundational thinker within an emerging paradigm across the social science:  relationism, meaning phenomena are what they are



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by nature of the particular relations they have to other things or processes (Emirbayer 1997). Gabriel recommends Elias in order to navigate the abyss between two factions in the study of childhood:  biological determinists and social constructionists. In terms of the time it takes for young children to grow into old men and women, long-term social developments take place so slowly that they seem to stand still. This gives the impression that developments in the relationship between adults and young children are static, rather than structured changes in social expectations and behaviour. Passed on from one generation to the next, young children need to learn and internalise an enormous social fund of knowledge about the world. (Gabriel 2017a: 31)

As we have seen in the manner through which Elias historicized Freudian notions of the super-ego, ego and so forth, we can extrapolate to see how this view would contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ within childhood and education. It’s a bit of both, of course, but in fairly specific ways: humans have particular biological needs and instincts, but these are then integrated within a social and cultural situation which is particular to the moment, age and context in which they are born – that is, the social fund of knowledge. The death drive or aggressive instincts, for example, have been channelled and ‘civilized’ in particular contexts differently, in some cultures encouraging duelling and fighting, whereas in other societies sublimating these into consumer competition over style or emotional investment in sport. This navigation between natural and social science is, indeed, one of the major contributions Elias’s work could have across academic disciplines. As Quilley and Loyal (2005) have argued, Elias could be used as a ‘central theory’ connecting a range of scholarship, navigating divides such as the one Gabriel identified between biologism and social constructivism  – one, incidentally, common across a range of topic areas: for example, gender, cognitive science and so on. Quilley and Loyal argue that Elias provided a paradigm for a cumulative science of society that is both disciplinary (sociological) as well as interdisciplinary: The theory of knowledge, which is an integral component of this incipient ‘central theory’, creates a platform for the integration of findings from across the full range of human sciences, from the Annales school in history, Schumpeterian evolutionary economics, cognitive and neurosciences, psychoanalysis, through to evolutionary archaeology and biological anthropology. (Quilley and Loyal 2005: 812)

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We have seen in Chapter 4 that the processual approach Elias adopted appears compatible with new developments within the philosophy of biology (Nicholson and Dupré 2018). And, in the case of childhood, in particular, we can observe the way in which the development of children has multiple dimensions: biological, social and individual. As Prout explained, Elias provided ‘a framework within which childhood can be seen as simultaneously part of culture and nature while not treating either as a distinct autonomous or pure entity’ (Prout 2004: 3). Indeed, Elias developed a tripartite division of time to indicate the range of dimensions at work within any process or event. As early as The Court Society (1983), his habilitation, Elias distinguished three dimensions of time:  natural history, sociological history and individual history. ‘The sequences denoted by terms such as ‘biological evolution’, ‘social development’ and ‘history’ form three distinct but inseparable layers in a process encompassing the whole of mankind, the seed of change being different at each level’ (Elias 1983:  13). We perceive natural history as static because we have the most distance from it; the processes at work have been going on for billions of years, presumably since the Big Bang. The whole discussion of the relationship between sociology and history is impeded by the fact that up to now even scholarly studies have generally neglected to define clearly both the difference and the relationship between biological evolution, social development, and history . . . How much the development of human societies, social development, differs from biological evolution is shown by the fact that the former, unlike the latter, can in a certain respect be reversed. (Elias 1983: 12)

Among other factors, the continuous accumulation of knowledge contributes to changes in human organization, an accumulation which can be disrupted when intergenerational transmission of knowledge ceases. Natural evolution, on the other hand, evolves across time scales dating back to the origins of the universe. At the same time, individuals, persisting across single finite lifetimes interact with both sociological and biological history. Thus, events are the product of these mutually interpenetrating temporalities. Again, the new sociology of early childhood draws upon Elias’s more complex understanding of time to transcend the artificial divide separating biology and social science. This work draws from a less well-known essay Elias wrote on the subject which has not hitherto come up in our discussion but warrants full review here: ‘The Civilizing of Parents’ (Elias 1998b). Just as he identified certain patterns within ‘established–outsider’ relations which might change as part of a process, one can identify a ‘parent–child’ relationship which historians



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recognized changed between the medieval and modern era  – that is, the era covered by The Civilizing Process (Ariès 1965; Cunningham 2012). Elias began by drawing on Ariès’ observation that the idea of childhood changed during the course of the early modern era as evident in, for example, artistic depictions of children as small adults in Christian iconography. The hypothesis was that because life was short and children often fell ill and died, the adult community did not invest in children as children – that is, as special. Further, because medieval households were quite ‘socially dense’ – privacy, as such, did not exist – there was little reason to treat children as different from adults and to integrate them into everything else that was going on in the household and community. Subsequent historians of childhood have, in part, modified some of the overdrawn elements of Ariès’ thesis, while at the same time historicizing the discourses surrounding childhood (and, by extension, education). Cunningham noted, particularly, the influence of Erasmus on the humanistic ideal of moulding children into men: The child that nature has given you is nothing but a shapeless lump, but the material is still pliable, capable of assuming any form, and you must so mould it that it takes on the best possible character. If you are negligent, you will rear an animal; but if you apply yourself, you will fashion, if I may use such a bold term, a godlike creature. (quoted in Cunningham 2014: 43)

The connection to Elias’s analysis of the civilizing process is easy to spot insofar as Erasmus also provided some of the central books of manners he reviewed during the humanistic period. In this sense, we can begin to see the advocacy of manners as part of a broader educational agenda through which Erasmus and other humanists were attempting to encourage a more knowledgeable, civilized and less base elite. Indeed, during his visits to England, Erasmus was instrumental in introducing Classical Greek into the curriculum, which had hitherto revolved around Latin (Bywater 1919). This was further connected to a broader shift within, still religious, education, but moving closer towards secular forms of knowledge as began to emerge a century later during the scientific revolution and thereafter. Again, this reflects the broader process Elias described within Involvement and Detachment (Elias 1987a). Cunningham, Gabriel and others interested in new interpretations in the history of childhood also note a distinct shift during the Romantic era, in which childhood was demarcated as a special phase of ‘natural’ innocence. Originating especially out of the works of French philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one

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begins to see the same process of moulding encouraged by humanists taken to be a problematic course of socialization, in which the adult world came to be seen as ‘corrupt’ and the child’s world as innocent and playful, in which, quite explicitly, ‘civilization’ is something which is necessary but also damaging of the utopian world of childhood. Education was reinterpreted in this view, to draw out the particular self each individual child had, to not damage this soul or psyche in the course of socialization, to help every child be all that they could be, nay, who they really are. The new Romantic discourse surrounding education which emerged and became popular during precisely the Revolutionary and Restoration eras in which the bourgeois middle classes were assuming their role at the head of society provided one point of origin for what historian Colin Campbell (2005) identifies as the ‘Romantic Ethic’ within modern consumer capitalism. While traditionally emphasis has been laid on the production side of the industrial revolution, we must also attend to the patterns and desires of consumption, since some mass market needed to be purchasing all those products flying out of the satanic mills. Paradoxically, these producers and consumers tended to be the same people – namely, the middle classes and particularly Protestants. On the one hand, in matters of business, and perhaps in ordering their domestic spheres’ accounts, these bourgeoisie were austere and economical. On the other hand, as these men (and particularly women, managing the household) began purchasing consumer products from Wedgwood and elsewhere – both mimicking and distinguishing themselves from the aristocratic style that preceded  – these consumer tastes emphasized a new expressive individualism characteristic of Romanticism: that one’s consumer products defined who one was or wanted to be. This quality was less evident in the court society in which consumption was more of an obligation and a necessity. Here we can see again the way in which social control became more deeply embedded within bourgeois patterns of self-control. Returning to Elias’s essay on child–parent relations, we can engage with these issues, but with the added dimension of power. For this is something rarely acknowledged in discourses surrounding the family or education but which is obvious:  parents have tremendous power advantages over children who are completely dependent, especially during the early stages of life. This has historically taken the form of authority structures in which the parents make all decisions and children were expected to obey those orders. This was characteristic of Victorian households but is increasingly out of fashion within modern societies. Furthermore, as in the civilizing process, generally, we can see a longterm decline in the rate of violence involved in obtaining this authority: corporal



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punishment and so forth. What became interesting for Elias to observe during the transition period, in which the authoritarian forms of parenting coexisted with more egalitarian forms of parenting, was the way in which these became associated with different stages of ‘civility’ and, by extension, connected to wider patterns of social class. So, for example, one can observe the stereotype of working-class families exhibiting the more physical and authoritarian forms of parenting, while the middle-class families are more civilized and caring. In fact, this stereotype itself might be a product of the gossip dynamics typical of establishment–outsider relations. Regardless, the idea of appropriate behaviour vis-à-vis parents and children is established within society, and those expectations are socialized into parents. Thus, the essay is titled ‘Civilizing of Parents’. So, despite parents’ overwhelming authority and power, including physical power, society encourages the self-control necessary to restrain violence and even mental abuse in order to allow children to develop in a manner between, perhaps, the Erasmus and Rousseau ideals. Of further interest, and typical of Elias’s connection between the microsociological and the macrosociological, he highlighted the processual dynamics in which these forms of parent-child relations emerged. Specifically, what we observe during the expansion of the bourgeois professions into powerful positions was the emergence of greater and greater differentiation of spheres. This requires more forms of specialized knowledge and, by extension, the expansion of education. But, it is worth reflecting on Elias’s analysis of cause and effect throughout the essay, since he traces early expression of this process emerging as early as the late Middle Ages and specifically within the spatial reorganization of rooms within the household: the origins of privacy. This initially applied to the parents, who, like kings, began to set themselves aside from the rest of the household – servants and children – who would remain together. Indeed, children would typically eat together with the servants, which is significant from the point of view of the civilizing process interested in table manners. Once these forms of separation were established between adult and child, the child needed to transition from one state to another, a marked feature of which was demonstration of the selfcontrol necessary to conduct one’s affairs in a civilized and responsible manner. At the same time, adults extended their roles further and further into the public sphere  – to use Parsons’s terminology, they (men especially) took up more instrumental rather than expressive roles (Parsons, Bales and Olds 1956). And, again, this would prove significant when the post-revolutionary bourgeois patriarch encouraged women to remain in the home (and, thereby, occupying an expressive role comparable or along a spectrum characteristic of children).

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What we see Elias doing here is atypical relative to traditional ways of understanding either childhood or gender or education. He is tracking changing power relations and how these interact with discourses and framings, which, in turn, enter via socialization into new ways of being. In this way, subsequent generations enact the new framings of the previous generations. And, we can see this occurring through the changing parent–child relations, which, furthermore, are specific. Children and parents become distinct in the course of this process, and, in time, as parents become more and more involved in the increasingly complex world of adult society, they have less and less time to spend socializing their children. Enter mass education systems! Here we finally arrive at Elias’s explicit intervention into our understanding of the sociology of education. Education systems do not emerge simply because there is an interest in knowledge, in which some kind-hearted and progressive pioneers began establishing schools simply because they cared about knowledge for its own sake. Rather, what we see emerge in the bourgeois era was a differentiation of function in which children are no longer deemed to be raised best by their parents. This applied both to upper-class children, who began attending boarding schools in greater numbers (in part, due to the middle-class’s interest in mimicking the aristocracy); and, also, increasingly, to working-class children:  specifically, middle-class women and social reformers began encouraging courses in domestic household management, which, in time, become some of the earliest schools of education. At the same time, missionaries began expanding education abroad, often clearing the paths for imperial governments racing to colonize African and other ‘uncivilized’ territories. In both instances, we can see schools as central institutions within the bourgeois expansion of the civilizing process to, in time, everyone  – not just the elite members of society. Furthermore, Elias noted, within the increasingly differentiated and ‘civilized’ society  – in which long-term planning and specialized knowledge prevails  – knowledge does become a form of power. This, in turn, established the need for education, including an expanding tertiary education sector pushing the boundaries of knowledge ever farther. One can hardly doubt that a much broader knowledge-horizon and a very differentiated capacity for self-control and regulation of drives and affects is necessary to maintain oneself as an adult in societies of this sort, and to be able to fulfil functions for oneself as well as for others. To attain this knowledgehorizon, this specialized ability and the corresponding level of self-control,



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requires a learning-process lasting many years, which would certainly be senseless and useless if it did not go hand in hand with an extraordinary lengthening of individual life. (Elias 1998c: 203)

Education, therefore, functions as a mechanism of socialization, which is relatively independent of the family (which pursues different roles) and which provides a more specialized and expansive body of knowledge than the religious or non-scientific ‘means of orientation’ which preceded it and/or coexisted adjacent to this (either within or beyond nation states). We can now clearly see schools as institutions that are central to the modern and contemporary expansion of the civilizing process. Within Victorian societies one might have simply observed – in racist, chauvinist terms, to be sure – that one’s society was more advanced, more civilized than other societies, domestically or abroad. One could then, in turn, provide the gift of education to allow these ‘primitives’ to ‘learn’ how to conduct their affairs responsibly. To be sure, those children who enrolled in these institutions gained in social power – they obtained the means of orientation necessary to navigate this increasingly complex world. But, in doing so, did they change the conditions of their outsider group? And, could they ever really become full members of the establishment? We can conclude this discussion of early childhood studies by noting the way in which figurational sociology has been drawn upon to provide understanding of both the ‘psychogenetic’ and ‘sociogenetic’ dynamics which influence the emergence and expansion of education in the modern era. These sociologists further highlight the ways in which social control is socialized as ‘self-control’ – a process with obvious significance within schools, particularly in the postRomantic era. Lastly, we can see the way in which the civilizing process connects with processual changes in parent–child relations and the evolving expansion of the social fund of knowledge since the Middle Ages. As such, we can see the cultural dynamics influencing, reinforcing and, ultimately, producing one another through socialization across generations. However, there is still further significance figurational scholars have drawn out, particularly in terms of the political sociogenesis of the modern state.

4.  Figurational sociology of education: Welfare states We have seen that figurational sociologists, psychologists and historians have extended the work of Nobert Elias into new topic areas and fields. And, in the

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case of early childhood studies, Norman Gabriel and others have entered the recognizable subfield of the sociology of education. This point of entry was from the vantage point of social psychology and those issues relevant to educational research and teaching. Here we will explore another scholar’s work, that of Dutch historical sociologist, Abram de Swaan, who intervenes on a number of issues of macrosociological importance, particularly in relation to the rise of the modern welfare-state. To situate de Swaan’s contribution in context we might first refer to two traditional theories explaining the rise of the modern welfare state. The first was articulated by liberal sociologist T. H. Marshall in the post-war era in which he spoke of the evolution of three rights: civil, political and social (Marshall 1950). Marshall identified a logical progression in which the emergence of the first set of rights – civil or legal rights – that is, the right to a fair trial and equality before the law, provided the preconditions for the next set of rights: political rights, or the right to elect representatives who could determine the law. The last set of rights, social rights, involved the full participation in the community meaning equal access to education, health and public resources like libraries, parks and community spaces. In other words, Marshall considered the welfare state, particularly the one that was consolidated within post-war Britain, to be the natural evolutionary outcome of the development of modern liberal societies. The second sociologist, or anthropologist worth mentioning is Ernest Gellner, one of the foremost theorists of modern nationalism (Gellner 1983). Gellner, like others within a ‘modernist’ tradition in political science, considered nationalism to be a quintessentially modern phenomena. That is, nationalism is not simply the same as traditional, village- or town-level community solidarity scaled up to the larger size of the national state. Rather, nationalism emerged during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries due to the emergence of industrialism. In agrarian societies, social relations could be managed locally among familiar people engaged in face-to-face interactions. However, the transition to industrial economies, involving the mass migration of working people from country to town and city; involving the mass production and purchase of depersonalized consumer products; and, further, involving interaction with increasing anonymous and depersonalized bureaucratic organizations as Max Weber noted; all of these produced an alienated, atomistic form of individualism which necessitated new forms of identification and solidarity. The national state provided this ‘imagined community’ as another theorist of nationalism, Benedict Anderson (2006) argued.



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However, in contrast to Anderson who suggested that nationalist ideologies emerged as a consequence of print capitalism – that is to say, mass journalism – which provided readers with an awareness of the same points of reference and interpretations of events across the dispersed territories of the expanding national states, Gellner posited that it was mass education that provided the shared identities characteristic of modern nationalism. Especially significant in this process was the differentiation of a ‘high’ and a ‘low’ culture, and schools provided the means through which these distinctions were transmitted. Nationalism is primarily a political principle that holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent . . . the general imposition of a high culture on society, where previously low cultures had taken up the lives of the majority, and in some cases the totality, of the population. It means the general diffusion of a school-mediated, academy supervised idiom, codified for the requirements of a reasonably precise bureaucratic and technological communication. It is the establishment of an anonymous impersonal society, with mutually sustainable atomised individuals, held together above all by a shared culture of this kind, in place of the previous complex structure of local groups, sustained by folk cultures reproduced locally and idiosyncratically by the micro-groups themselves. (Gellner 1983: 34)

Immediately, we can see congruence between Gellner’s theory of nationalism and Elias’s civilizing process. Both identify the distinction between two cultures, one of which becomes identified as ‘high’ or ‘civilized’, which then becomes identified with the ‘national’ or ‘state’ culture. This is then gradually extended or imposed upon those populations previously excluded from the central elite networks where this highly refined culture was established and embodied. Of considerable importance is the formalization of language, ‘High German’, ‘RP English’ and so on, which replaces regional dialects. What Gellner added to our discussion was explicit reference to mass education – that is, schools – as the institutional mechanism through which this central culture displaces and replaces the traditional cultures, dialects, customs and associational patterns within these more diverse regions below the level of the nation state. Again, we should recall Elias’s analysis of the centripetal forces consolidating nation states under absolute monarchs acquiring territory through wars, marriages and diplomacy. The hoarding of territory had been a longstanding activity. What begins to occur and become necessary in the industrial period (once the bourgeois classes take over) is that all the members or citizens of these regions must become assimilated into the national cultures emanating

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from the centre. As the historian Eugen Weber (1976) noted, this meant turning ‘peasants into Frenchmen’. From the above we can see a number of resonances with Elias’s work and what de Swaan accomplishes is a synthesis and extension of Elias’s civilizing process that explains the emergence of modern welfare states – including those aspects familiar to readers of Marshall, Gellner and others: poor relief, public health and education. Whereas some of the earlier approaches might appear too teleological, simplistic and evolutionary, we can understand the same outcomes as the co-constitutive elements within a ‘collectivizing process’. Therefore, to understand the emergence of mass education, we need to understand the earlier processes which led to the collectivization of risks relating to poverty and health. Interestingly, we shall see that, contrary to popular understanding, the establishment of mass education does not correspond with an interest in widening access to knowledge for its own sake. Rather, it was only once the lack of knowledge becomes a recognizable deficiency – that is, once knowledge and expertise becomes established as central to the organization of power (in other words, when the bourgeois, industrial and professional classes assumed power) that education was introduced as a means of controlling and mediating those patterns of deficiency. In other words, when ignorance became something comparable with poverty or sickness, requiring a collective response (from elites). Let us unpack de Swaan’s argument in greater detail, which is rooted in a combination of two theoretical traditions: (1) the game-theory inspired analyses of welfare states trying to understand why communities agree to pay for benefits which are collective, rather than engaging in what is called ‘free-riderism’, and (2)  Eliasian scholarship regarding the extension and intensification of ‘chains of interdependence’ during the emergence of nation states and the rise of capitalism. What needs to be explained is why the established classes of society all of a sudden begin to care for the poor – this is by no means a natural condition as the earlier history of poor relief demonstrates and which we have encountered indirectly within our discussion the civilizing process in Chapter 4. Recall the emergence of the merchant classes during the medieval era, in which monarchs were gradually emerging as the rulers of larger and larger survival units following various elimination contests. One of the advantages monarchs developed was their capacity to field standing armies and navies, which led to the introduction of currency and more systematic forms of taxation. Eventually, of course, the bourgeoisie revolted and seized the state monopoly of taxation (and budgeting); but before this occurred, during the early modern era, they



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consolidated their authority within towns and cities. They obtained liberties and ‘freedoms’ to trade without interference (after paying customs duties and so forth). But, at the same time, technological improvements in farming  – the introduction of four-field harvesting  – compelled the capitalization of agriculture. This, in turn, led to the displacement of agrarian workers from their previous tenancies as large fields were enclosed (benefiting, in the first instance, big aristocratic families and ecclesiastical entities, like abbeys and university colleges). What these enclosures and displaced peasant migration resulted in was not urbanization of the nineteenth-century kind but rather roving bands of indigent people who threatened the livelihoods and, indeed, lives of town and city dwellers. There are gates surrounding these cities for a reason, and it was not simply martial: very often sizeable gangs of bandits would need to be kept at bay. Other forms of threatening behaviour included aggressive begging or, for women, the threat of witchcraft (not merely as paranoia but as an actively performed threat to extract payment); similarly, lepers threatened contact with communicable diseases in order to fund ‘colonies’ quarantined from respectable town folk. The traditional way of dealing with such threats typically revolved around the church and parishes that administered various forms of poor relief, which, again, were not primarily extended as alms out of kindness and sympathy (although Christian ethics of charity undoubtedly helped when passing the hat). Rather, the voluntary conferral of alms to the threatening poor would ward them off, even if temporarily. Often one band of travellers would move from one town to the next when satisfied and would, in effect, negotiate with municipal leaders to arrange a price for shifting. The collective action problem, however, then as now – within various discussions regarding immigration – was how to ensure all members of the territory paid their fair share. If one town paid the indigent and this led to their pacification, why would the next town simply not pay and encourage the poor to draw more and more upon the willing borough? In other words, the problem regarding the poor is not necessarily the poor but, rather, how to ensure the other elites benefiting from provision of care for the poor do not benefit from providing said care for the poor. One can, in fact, see the emergence of patterns of coordination among burghers from a range of towns  – in other words, the early consolidation of middle-class interests  – mediated by the parish priests and, increasingly, politicians. Even despite this increasing interdependency, the equilibria was quite unstable particularly during crises such as war and famine. What eventually led to the stabilization of a reliable system of poor relief was the illusion of the

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workhouse:  that the poor could pay their own way. In fact, the economics of the poor house were dubious and, generally, both exploitative and less efficient that paying workers fair wages. However, both the poor and the ‘charitable’ could feel confident that the conferral of alms was connected to productive labour, producing, in time, the modern factory system. This further led to the consolidation of a few central towns as manufacturing hubs, while other towns became spokes in concentric circles. Trade began to flow between these nodes eventually contributing to the differentiation of functions characteristic of the industrial revolution. Thus, the solution to the problem of poor relief was, in fact, constitutive of the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, and indigence was not merely a by-product of industry as many interpretations of (undoubtedly horrific) industrial conditions imply. What does this have to with education? First, as a paradigm of collective action insofar as capitalist elites coordinated their actions in such a way as to inspire confidence in their group capacity to solve the social problem of mass indigence, while at the same time developing the mechanisms to compel other elites into participation; not least, developing mechanisms to punish deviance, either formally or informally. Thus, as other historians and sociologists have noted about the emergence of welfare states, much of this civic coordination took place within voluntary associations (Skocpol, Ganz and Munson 2000). These functions were, in turn, co-opted by the state when establishing stateinsurance schemes for unemployment, for example, inventing the entire category of ‘the social’ in the process of identifying ‘social problems’ (Steinmetz 1993). Thus, the entire process through which theorists such as Marshall, for example, imagined the evolution of social rights developing is patently ahistorical, as we see, in fact, welfare functions emerging first within society, which were then co-opted by the nationalizing state; in part, as a function of its consolidating the ‘civilized’ culture and expectations of the upper classes, who now justified their elite authority upon their benevolence to the poor and needy; but also, in order to consolidate the collectivized constraints, by legally binding deviants to fines and various measures ensuring compliance. In addition to this general collectivizing process, the initial consolidation of, essentially, national schemes of poor relief provided new bases for the emergence of education (in this direction, Marshall is somewhat correct in his evolutionary thinking). However, we must understand the institutionalization of mass education (which emerged rather consistently across Western Europe within a relatively short window of time) as an outcome of the industrial revolution and democratizing process, an interpretation rather in line with



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Gellner’s. However, again following Elias’s analysis of changing power balances, de Swaan interprets the expansion of knowledge – particularly the expansion of standardized language and ‘communication codes’  – as being the outcome of a contest between two sets of elites:  aristocratic (gentry) and metropolitan (bourgeois). The vested local elites held a monopoly in mediation between the traditional clientele and the political and economic center. This monopoly was also very much a matter of translating between regional and national speech, and of mediating between an illiterate clientele and a national network of communication in written messages. (Swaan 1988: 9)

There was thus an interest for bourgeois elites in expanding education, because this would, on the one hand, connect excluded populations to the linguistic communication systems of the metropole  – enabling access to consumer marketing, newspapers and political communications and so on; and, on the other hand, would undermine the capacity for the other agrarian elites to serve as interlocutors. In other words, expansion of literacy via education amounted to a break-up of the monopoly of knowledge – the means of orientation – within urban and rural populations previously excluded from the central elite network (where the middle classes were by no means yet the establishment, even up to the turn of the twentieth century) (Cannadine 1990). Further, it is worth also mentioning the growing bureaucracies and the formal rationality becoming established within the professionalizing civil service. These inheritors of the social interests of the noblesse de robe also had an interest in connecting the entire territory into a single national system of communication. This would allow political coordination through direct, unmediated contact between citizen and state. Again, schools provided necessary means of orientation for students not only in terms of language but also in terms of numeracy (necessary to pay taxes), in terms of the country’s history (contextualizing the student in time) and in national geography (contextualizing in space), and, in some moral and ethical framework, to ensure consistent behavioural expectations. This last element especially involved the civilizing process and the socialization of a particular habitus, increasingly of a secular kind to distract from religious tensions (Mayrl 2016). As a consequence, across the entire world affected by and integrated with these systems of education – in other words, most nation states participating in what John Meyer calls ‘world society’ (Meyer et al. 1997) – we can see school curricula which are remarkably similar: providing those means of orientation

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noted above, even if differing in content, particular in terms of ethical education. Through schools, previously illiterate countryfolk learned to see themselves within a long chain of generations across history, within particular regions and borders, as contributing to the progress of their people, speaking their language and adhering to their customs. Through schools, those initial outsiders were provided some means of participating and investing their identities with that of the new elites, who  – recall  – were largely derived from the elite fraction consisting of industrial and civil service middle classes (not aristocracies, who often explicitly advocated against education). In justifying this expense, these metropolitan educational reformers argued that literacy was not merely a nice thing to have. Rather, illiteracy came to be seen as a deficiency – much like public health concerns relating to nutritional and other deficiencies which plagued the poor and indigent. Despite not having been a deficiency before the establishment of national systems of communication, now poor children were seen to be in desperate need of education. It became immoral to deny them access to education, which bore with it the capacities to participate in capitalist and democratic societies. Initially, of course, these educational expansions began closer to home. The goal of mass education did not apply to the truly indigent, who were treated almost as another species. Similarly, abroad, within the imperial context, bias and preference was given to existing, nearby elites, such as Indian Brahmins or Kshatriyas. Initially, schools were custodial rather than educational, much like the initial workhouses:  the majority of the population did not attend. Typically teachers would hold other roles in towns and neighbourhoods  – performing clerical work or municipal bookkeeping (again, taxation was always important) – and were rarely valorized as many were in some way physically infirmed, having suffered bouts of tuberculosis and other chronic illnesses. Like Elias, de Swaan does not provide as much stock in religious explanations, which are largely interpreted as justifications for otherwise elitist, power-oriented behaviour (see also Abercrombie and Turner 1978). Rather, de Swaan notes that religious competition  – when elites adopt various denominations across group or class lines – was most significant. Thus, during the nineteenth century, Evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants and Jews adopted a range of positions in ‘Western’ countries producing a range of variations in the ethical components of compulsory education. However, the rate of expansion of education as such seems to have been motivated by religious competition. Depending on this rate of expansion, the central, metropolitan authorities would intervene to establish the ‘proper’ national curriculum, which might or might not include an element



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of state religion. Elsewhere, aristocrats encouraged countervailing religious interpretations either among themselves or the rural populace:  for example, encouraging evangelism or ‘high church’ ritualism to foment disdain for the rationalism and ‘deism’ of the metropolitan liberals. These prejudices would make their way into schools, requiring further state intervention to ensure children were not learning the wrong things from either their local sectarian headmasters, parents, or both. Lastly, it is worth noting that once set in motion, there was little to stop working classes from educating themselves, which further complicated the goal of integrating the entire nation into a single communication system organized around compatible values, interests and economic behaviour. Still, these models of educational extensions retained the bourgeois goal of eliminating ignorance:  the notion that illiteracy and ignorance were and are a deficiency remained. Yet, it must be said that this deficiency is socially constructed, for, as Elias noted, we are all partially oriented to and familiar with a social fund of knowledge. In other words, we are all ignorant to a greater or lesser degree. What is deemed significant is the distance between those deemed properly ‘ignorant’ and those deemed ‘educated’. These distinctions are comparable to those developed in the course of the collectivization processes producing the welfare state: between the poor and rich; between the sick and healthy. Yet, if we return de Swaan’s analysis to the realm of Elias’s work on the civilizing process, in which he also identified socially constructed distinctions between ‘establishment’ and ‘outsider’ and ‘civilized’ and ‘primitive’, we can see that there can never be a teleological end point to education. This is most important to highlight as we introduce Elias to the sociology of education – characteristically oriented towards researching and, ideally, eliminating inequalities of education. Not in a fatalistic way, but through understanding the real processes through which education emerged as a solution to an invented problem of ignorance, we can see that inequalities of education (and, by extension, knowledge) cannot be eliminated. This is because the goalpost keeps moving, so to speak. Once a certain standard of what it means to be ‘educated’ is obtained, there will be large numbers of children and adults who no longer meet that standard. These become the new ‘ignorant’ – they lack certain essential forms of knowledge – say, how to use a computer (and by extension participate in national and global systems of communication), whereas previously these same folks would have been considered perhaps highly literate, competent and well informed. At the same time, due to the differentiation of functions, knowledge becomes increasingly complex and specialized; even within cohorts of professors working

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with advanced forms of knowledge, these might be ignorant of what is going on in adjacent disciplines working next door. As the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann argued, as modernity produces more and more knowledge, it automatically produces more ignorance, thus requiring mechanisms, procedures and calculations of risk to mitigate against the effects of this ignorance at a systemic level (Luhmann 1998). In a different way, Elias also pointed to the possibility that the progress of a social fund of knowledge could easily retreat backwards as easily as it grew in the first instance. What these various observations introduce is the role of knowledge for individuals and for social groups, including classes, political parties and organizations, in general. For individuals, we might see the expansion of knowledge and education as a further extension of ignorance  – necessitating further and further study in the form of postgraduate degrees and postdoctoral research, and even then in the form of specialized knowledge. But, for organizations, generally, we might see an increasing capacity to manage risk in systematic, organized ways, increasing the general amount of organization in society at large. These are open questions at this stage, but ones we will return to in the coming chapters. Indeed, having reviewed both Elias’s core work and that of scholars working in the figurational tradition, we are now in the position to consider how we might go about applying a figurational approach to a range of topic areas familiar to educational researchers.

Part Two

Norbert Elias and the Sociology of Education

6

Civilization, Identity and Control

Having reviewed Norbert Elias’s sociological theory and research as well as some figurational scholars extending his work, including into the subject area of education, we are now in a position to suggest potential applications of figurational sociology to a range of topics familiar to researchers in the field of education. We have also seen the way figurational research is both cumulative and particular. For example, in The Civilizing Process, Elias established an alternative narrative explaining the rise of bourgeois capitalist nation states. We might also wish to apply particular concepts from this text, such as ‘habitus’ or ‘survival units’ – however, these should not be separated from the broader history of the civilizing process Elias elaborated. In other words, we should avoid the temptation to pick and choose concepts and apply them without recognition of the context in which they have technical meaning. After all, as discussed in Chapter  2, figurational sociology is an attempt at object-oriented knowledge, that is, scientific and realistic knowledge of society. This does not, however, imply positivistic science inattentive to the cultural dimensions of human relations. Indeed, Elias’s research is perhaps strongest in connecting the development of cultural patterns, such as table manners, to the long-term trajectory of nation states, classes, scientific establishments and more. The following chapters will present particular concepts and apply them to particular topic areas; again, it is worth considering these applications as part of an accumulating ‘social fund of knowledge’ rather than as isolated elements within a conceptual ‘toolkit’. This chapter will look at issues of identity and socialization from the perspective of Elias’s analysis of social constraint and selfconstraint within the civilizing process. In each chapter we will begin with a brief summary of the discourse surrounding a topic area and work backwards until we confront an alternative point of view provided by applying a figurational perspective.

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1. Identity Educational researchers, particularly sociologists of education, have been interested in identity and identity formation for some time (Altugan 2015; Bennett and Smith 2018; Mavor, Platow and Bizumic 2017; Milner 2010). The identities of students, teachers, policymakers and others connected to schooling influences a number of outcomes in educational practices and contexts. As Mavor, Platow and Bizumic (2017) summarize one approach to ‘social identity’ that has been articulated since the 1980s, people pursue meaning-making activities to make sense of their experiences, developing self-concepts that are to be explained, while also explaining outcomes. Schooling is thus involved in constructing the identities of ‘students’, ‘teachers’, ‘women’ and so on as discrete things, even if these are drawn into dynamic relationships in particular practices. Importantly, variations on identity can have noticeable effects on educational outcomes, and teachers have endeavoured to incorporate reflection over these issues into their pedagogical practices. As noted by Stuart Hall, there have been three major ways of thinking about identity in the modern era: (1) Enlightenment – in which the ‘self ’ is a single unity which develops from birth to death; (2) Sociological – in which an autonomous, core self interacts with society, particularly symbolically, as in the work of G. H. Mead; and (3) Postmodern – in which there is no core or fixed self but rather a flux of changing identities interacting with internal and external narratives (Hall and Gay 1996:  275). One can undoubtedly see why all three ideas would be related to education insofar as the shaping of those identities will occur within interactions between teacher and student as well as symbolic engagement and identity construction within the curriculum, both hidden and visible (see Chapter 9). Several studies and theories have been developed to facilitate and provide new insights into how different identities – be they gender, ethnic, class or other social categories – are constructed or, perhaps, challenged within school settings. Pollard (1990) compared different outcomes for students who obtained different educational experiences, noting their divergences in identity appeared to be related to these different institutional experiences. Differences in identity and self-confidence interact with a range of other factors including skills, knowledge and prior learning outcomes. The results can have considerable bearing on students’ progress and, thus, highlight why educational researchers remain interested in the topic of identity to this day.



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Much of this work is theoretically informed by both psychological and sociological approaches to the topic area (Cerulo 1997; Ellemers, Spears and Doosje 2002). In addition to the cultural studies approach, of which Stuart Hall mentioned above was a leading advocate, some sociologists of education draw on the critical realist Margaret Archer’s notion of reflexivity (Archer 2010; Case 2015). Archer notes that individuals engage in an ‘internal conversation’ in which they are constantly mediating between their own identity and the world outside. Connecting this with the structuration approach of Giddens, popular around the same era (1990s), researchers began to speak about ‘self-identity’ and the challenges individuals now face within an increasingly complex hypermodern and globalized world (Giddens 1991). On the one hand, we have obtained the freedom or ‘agency’ to define ourselves, but we are, in fact, compelled to construct ourselves as no ascribed categories are ready-to-hand anymore. More recently, social theorists and philosophers have challenged the idea of a single identity in favour of more intersectional approaches (Crenshaw 1991). Judith Butler, for example, writes, Identifications . . . can ward off certain desires or act as vehicles for desire; in order to facilitate certain desires it may be necessary to ward off others; identification is the site at which this ambivalent prohibition and production of desire occurs. (Butler 2011: 100)

Highlighting the ‘performative’ nature of gendered identities, Butler draws attention to the ways identification both limits and enables performances of identities, which are ultimately contained within bodies as well as conscious minds, discourses and so on. Again, we can readily see how this would be relevant to education insofar as teachers both perform their own identities while also expecting students to perform one or more identities themselves. This emphasis on performance harks back to classic sociological interpretations by symbolic interactionists including Erving Goffman, whose work on stigma (2009) highlighted the manner in which certain narratives and designations of ‘outcasts’ are adopted not only by those within intolerant communities but also by the outcasts themselves. Indeed, one can trace these ideas all the way back to existentialist philosophers, including Jean-Paul Sartre, whose analysis of anti-Semitism made a similar, if still controversial argument: that the prejudicial intolerance of Jewish people in Western Europe resulted in adoption of the very qualities and characteristics they were accused of (Sartre 1965). The argument was not that this applied to the whole population – that would be a stereotype

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and gross overgeneralization – rather, what is worth highlighting here are the parallel arguments relating to the social construction of identities: of narratives constructing groups socially, symbolically and performatively, both externally and internally. The way in which identities are shaped by society and become embodied and enacted by individuals. The significance of Elias’s interpretation of establishment–outsider relations will prove relevant to this topic, and, indeed, he will have encountered existentialist philosophical ideas during his training in Weimar Germany, particularly in Heidelberg during the popularity of Heidegger there (see Chapter 2). We will return to this topic in terms of organizing inclusive educational strategies in Chapter 7. Here, we will note the ‘psychogenetic’ aspects of this process, that is, the ways in which schools are involved in the socialization of these identities, and the ways schools produce and reproduce those identities which are characteristic of society, or segments of society at large.

2.  Socialization and selection Before turning to Elias, we should step back from our contemporary notions of identity to revisit a well-known, if controversial, view of the sociology of education. Indeed, a ‘classic’ view: that of Talcott Parsons. In ‘The School Class as a Social System’ (1959), the structural-functionalist argued most of his familiar points regarding the central functions of education: socialization and selection. Our main interest is . . . first, of how the school class functions to internalize in its pupils both the commitments and capacities for successful performance of their future adult roles, and second, of how it functions to allocate these human resources within the role-structure of the adult society. (Parsons 1959: 297)

He then elaborated how the school classroom establishes the conditions through which these functions are obtained, including by eliminating distinctions of prior social background, construction of standardized tests to demonstrate aptitude and role modelling on the teacher, who represents the adult world and ultimately determines which social functions within the division of labour students should strive towards. Parsons’s position has been widely criticized, particularly on the grounds that classes and schools are not always fair and that the influences of social background occur throughout the education process. Furthermore, critics point to the changing structure of the generic classroom which is no longer as



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authoritarian as pictured during the 1950s when he was writing. These critics, however, misrecognize Parsons’s actual argument, as he would undoubtedly agree with their insights. Firstly, his suggestion is not that classrooms are equal but rather that they claim to be equal. If schools disguise the inequalities of social background, this is because they are expected to do so. And, in arguing for greater equality in the classroom, critics are simply pursuing the function Parsons suggested education and educationalist should and do perform: trying to eliminate or mitigate the influence of social background. Secondly, with respect to changing norms within teaching, such as the ‘anarchy’ which became evident after policy and pedagogical changes in the 1970s (Schenk 1976), Parsons was already aware of this in the 1950s and noted that some parents preferred the less authoritarian and ‘more progressive’ forms of education – more ‘student-led’ learning as we might call it today. Yet, he also observed that those who advocated these positions were by and large middle-class bourgeois parents. Why? Parsons disguised his explanation in abstract jargon:  ‘It has to do, I  think, very largely with the independencedependence training which is so important to early socialization in the family . . . The relation of support for progressive education to relatively high socioeconomic status and to “intellectual” interests and the like is well known’ (Parsons 1959: 313). In other words, middle-class parents send their children to school having been socialized according to prevailing standards (emphasizing independence and autonomy), whereas working-class parents expect their children to be civilized at school (thus reflecting a greater ‘dependence’ ratio). The authoritarian, or traditional, model of education suits the latter’s idea of what education is for, whereas it undermines the middle-class view that schools should be a position from which intellectual exploration begins. This is because the socializing, or civilizing, work has already been conducted within the family home by already ‘civilized’ parents. We have now introduced some of Elias’s language into our discussion to highlight that the socialization processes Parsons spoke of can be considered as part of the wider civilizing process. This further retains view of the broader inequalities inside, outside, before and after education. This is prior to any discussion regarding the selection processes through which students are allocated according to their performances within the classroom. These would reflect their acquisition of prevailing forms of knowledge – which we know is socially constructed within a wider developing process. We can see that schools perform a role in socializing students into particular patterns, based on behavioural expectations that are not qualitatively different than learning civilized table

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manners. Indeed, as Foucault (1995) and others have noted in terms of bodily discipline, one of the important aspects of schooling is producing ‘docile bodies’ necessary for the adult workforce (again, as Parsons suggested above in noting different preconditioning based on socioeconomic background). Still, we must recall Elias’s central criticism of Parsons’s structuralfunctionalist approach which was that this exhibits a fundamentally static view of society. Indeed, this common criticism of Parsons’s work stands up to greater scrutiny insofar as he did produce a ‘general theory of society’ which was by and large an ideological projection of contemporary, middle-class America, depicted as a stable, ‘functional’ system from which all other societies diverged (Gouldner 1970; Holmwood 1996). Indeed, when conjoined with ‘modernization theory’ as it emerged in the Cold War, the functionalist view of society hardly differed from the static notions of ‘civilization’ Elias criticized: in which the ‘modern’ or ‘civilized’ nations represented an end point or telos from which more ‘primitive’ or ‘developing’ nations needed to reach (Gilman 2007). We will return to this discussion in relation to the globalization of education in Chapter 10.

3.  Elias’s processual view of socialization As noted in Chapter 3, one of Elias’s projects was synthesis of the work of Marx, Weber and Freud. Interestingly, Parsons’s model of socialization was also rooted in Freudian psychoanalysis, though of a static and relatively conservative variety prevalent in the mid-twentieth century (Parsons 1978). In other words, the model of socialization Parsons used was characteristic of the static version of the self that Elias had worked to historicize. There was nothing ‘natural’ about the particular affect-control mechanisms embodied in modern individuals. Rather, these were social constructions developed over multiple generations who refined table manners and other forms of etiquette; these then became ‘second nature’ to civilized people who literally embodied manners as reflected in the physical disgust we feel over, for example, eating with one’s hands or with one’s mouth open. Elias demonstrated, like Freud (and, indeed, Parsons), that the Enlightenment notion of a unitary self that exists from birth to death was untenable, since each knowing individual is born as an infant and grows into an adult, rather than confronting the world as an epistemically rational human. And the influence of both family and schools have been acknowledged by both Parsons and Elias, in terms of socializing the young person into the standards of adult behaviour.



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We have seen Elias provided more recognition of the class differences implicit in Parsons’s acknowledge of different patterns of civility embodied by children even before they enter primary school. And we know these class dynamics are changing within the wider social context. Thus, in the twentieth century, the rise of the managerial class as noted by economists, historians and sociologists at the time (Berle and Means 1991; Chandler 1977; Mills 2002) would have had an influence on the education system their children (or perhaps, considering policy lag, their children’s children) would confront. These children would then be socialized within this new civilizational pattern and would, in turn, grow up and change the overall process. This view of the unplanned yet sequential social evolution of education, in fact, resembles that of Durkheim’s as discussed in Chapter 3. The particular idea of ‘what education is for’ changes and, in turn, is socialized in students who confront the new ideas of the world – their new ‘means of orientation’ – as taken-for-granted ‘social facts’. Indeed, in his work on higher education, Parsons described this as one of four primary functions universities provide: ‘ideological services’, defined as instilling the ‘general cultural definition of the situation as distinguished from more particularized knowledge’ (Parsons and Platt 1974: 6). He further suggested, In so far as the doctrine is upheld that in general the ‘leading men’ of the society should be educated men in the modern sense, their elite status carries with it commitment to a value-system of which the values of the scientist, and the valuation of his activities and their results, form an integral part. This integration of science, both with the wider cultural tradition of the society, and with its institutional structure, constitutes the primary basis of the institutionalization of scientific investigation as part of the social structure. (Parsons 1951: 342)

Thus, through the education of modern society’s primary elite elements, the values of science come to be inculcated within the general value-pattern of culture and society. By providing the primary basis through which cognitive rationality and value-neutrality become integrated within social organization – in other words, rationalization – the university stands for Parsons as ‘the most critical single feature of the developing structure of modern society’ (Parsons and Platt 1974: vi). Following Abercrombie and Turner (1978), one might observe that the most important ideological system in terms of the macro-organization of social power is, in fact, the ideological organization of dominant elites. ‘In fact it is typically the case that subordinate classes do not believe (share, accept) the dominant ideology which has far more significance for the integration and control of the dominant class itself ’ (Abercrombie and Turner 1978: 153).

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Christianity in the Middle Ages, for example, was not effective because it duped the masses but rather because it regulated the norms between state elites. This is similarly the view of Elias in terms of etiquette and table manners. The non-elite populations did not behave according to these standards or have these rationalist worldviews. Their significance was for the elites themselves, who embodied these norms, converting social control into self-control. We must therefore consider the mechanisms through which this pattern of ‘social control’ is embodied within individuals as ‘self-control’:  how the super-ego and ego emerges out of the social processes and constraints children encounter within interdependent  – indeed, dependent  – relations with their parents and teachers; these, in turn, draw on pre-existing discourses regarding pedagogy, parenting, social facts and so on, not least as a consequence of parents’ own socialization and schooling. Elias is therefore drawing on similar notions of ‘mechanisms’ characteristic of Freudian psychology; however, the content of these mechanisms are not automatic or natural but rather socially constructed out of broader macro- and micro-historical processes. The formative pressure on the make-up of ‘civilized’ man, his constant and differentiated self-constraint, is connected to the growing differentiation and stabilizing of social functions and the growing multiplicity and variety of activities that continuously have to be attuned to each other. The pattern of selfconstraints, the template by which drives are moulded, certainly varies widely according to the function and position of the individual within this network. (Elias 1998a: 53)

The most substantial mode of being within modern societies  – the ‘self ’ that is required and expected within contemporary advanced industrial societies – is the highly constrained rationality noted by Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents (Freud 1963). Elias noted that, on the one hand, this rational self was only a product of preceding patterns of civilizing, particularly the constrained behaviour of court society, which then became extended and transformed by the ascendant bourgeois middle classes. He also noted that this provided these ‘rational’ individuals with more power insofar as they obtained knowledge of the broader social processes, that is, access to a means of orientation that allowed them to act more strategically. However, this does not mean the process itself was rational or even intentional. Indeed, the processes are by and large unplanned. This, therefore, does not mean individuals are ‘rational’ or ‘civilized’ but that they are oriented to, and symbolically and habitually attached to the broader figuration of which they are a part. Indeed, it is very likely these individuals



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become more involved in the processes or parts of the process they are a part of; thus, they may lose the capacity to see the world from another’s point of view. This is why a more detached perspective can aid the sociologist interested in seeing things from a range of points of view. In terms of education, our historicized view of super-ego formation suggests that schooling provides students with a number of assessments and tests in order to ensure that they are oriented ‘correctly’ to the society of which they are a part. As students succeed or fail within their selection rituals, they come to either identify with the ‘establishment’ or not: either as an ‘outsider’ group from whence they have come or as a new subculture of their choosing. This is the process Giddens described as choosing a ‘self-identity’. However, is there really something distinctive about identity which has emerged within modern or postmodern societies? Perhaps. Elias and Freud could point to the extension of the rationality characteristic of bourgeois civilization. Or, more recently, we might point to the consumerist Romantic ethic’s expansion into everyday life, encouraging us to adopt the self-identities Giddens suggests we are compelled to adopt. However, could we not understand this simply as the projection of our individualistic society onto ourselves? Indeed, should we not look at the role of schools in producing this form of ‘expressive individualism’ as the cultural sociologist Robert Bellah would have termed it (Bellah et al. 2007)? Perhaps, the more ‘progressive’ pedagogic ideals of the middle classes which were nascent in the 1950s and becoming institutionalized in the 1970s have, in fact, contributed to the present emphasis on self-identity and being true to oneself as was evident in the 1990s. What, then, would we make of more recent iterations of ‘identity politics’ today, in which we are expected to ‘check our privilege’ and acknowledge an increasingly wide diversity of points of view? These are familiar views within educational research, which is precisely the point:  identity (and, indeed, other familiar concepts in educational research) are of interest to us here, not merely as an object of research, but as pedagogical ideas that provide particular ‘means of orientation’ to teachers and students. To use Parsons’s language, these amount to ‘ideological services’ providing a general description of the cultural situation. Thus, educational theory and practice which foregrounds identity, in effect, incorporates ‘identity’ and respect for different identities as an element within the civilizing process. To not respect identity becomes an uncivilized thing to do. And we might take this further and consider who might be the ‘heathens’ and ‘primitives’ outside the civilized establishment who do not conform to these new standards and expectations of behaviour? In asking such questions we

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begin shifting towards more and more detached views, developing new forms of reflexivity and internal conversations. We become less involved in the discourse surrounding identity but can reflect upon it, contextualize it historically and consider how this may or may not contribute to the broader unplanned processes in which we find ourselves in. Who are the populations (the parents, the school administrators, the policymakers) who consider identity to be an important object, something of social value? And who are the populations who are beyond these standards, who do not conform to these values? We can immediately think of popular images of Trump voters, Brexiteers, football hooligans, perhaps men expressing toxic masculinity, racists, xenophobes, homophobes and others who are intolerant of a range of identities. We might also think of excluded populations whose identities have not been included in the establishment’s discourse through no fault of their own: ethnic minorities, LGBT students, students with disabilities and learning difficulties, and so on. It becomes our responsible to ensure these students can articulate and develop their relationship with their own identities, which have been defined by forces beyond their control, perhaps by the forces of the previous group of intolerant folks (who note: are now also outsiders within our particular civilized establishment). In other words, what we are seeing emerge from our detached point of view is an establishment–outsider relationship in which teachers, schools and even professional educational researchers are highly involved. We are not merely providing information about identity; we are involved in producing, reinforcing and perhaps changing and critiquing those identities. As we have seen in the case of performative and postmodern theories of identity, those categories we apply can become narratives through which actors begin to see themselves – through which social constraint becomes self-constraint. As in any establishment–outsider relation, members of each group begin to act according to those categories we use to describe them. In time, they/we may come to exhibit the behaviours attributed to them. In this way, the social constraints, both relational – in terms of the objective power chances they have at their disposal – and discursive,1 in terms of the ways in which these roles and behaviours are interpreted culturally – are socialized within individuals, who in turn reproduce the social processes in which they are embedded. We will explore these dynamics further in the following chapter. However, for the moment we can see that Elias’s figurational view provides us with a new way On relational, discursive and performative dimensions of power, see Reed (2013).

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of thinking about the social construction of identity through the mechanisms in which social control becomes internalized as self-control. As in Parsons’s view of socialization, the school has a significant part to play in this, although in a figurational approach this process would be less static and teleological and more dynamic and recursive. We can also see that Hall’s tripartite division is perhaps not as useful as it appears insofar as the postmodern notion of identity might merely be the flip side of the modernist, or Enlightenment, view of the self. Simply stating ‘identity’ is fluid does not necessarily tell us much about the contents of that identity, either personally or socially. Of course, Hall’s cultural studies, particularly his and colleagues’ analyses of mass media representations, did provide us with critical information about the contents of those narratives that, in turn, constitute individuals’ identities. These identities are often imposed, yet potentially transgressed and reoriented, through education. However, Elias’s view, in a sense, returns us to the sociological view of the Chicago School and others: that we may be empowered by knowledge, but that change results in a change of self, which might become more or less autonomous. While we will all obtain some identity from our social fund, the precise way we do so is by no means automatic. This could, in turn, provide us with greater awareness of our social position and wider social processes. For we are not merely choosing from a menu in which all means of orientation are the same, and all remains in flux. Within this world, more reflective and detached knowledge provides genuine power, or as Michael Young might call it, ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young 2013). Further, we must realize that this change in an individual’s identity, while commendable, might still do nothing to help those members of groups beyond the reach of the teacher or educationalist. Perhaps, the vast majority will be socialized according to the wider processes they find themselves within: indeed, by contemporary standards a large number of adults are less knowledgeable than students in terms of orienting to the world, resulting in disorientation and, perhaps, anger, xenophobia and the like. Indeed, we might reflect a bit more on our role as teachers in producing the pedagogical paradigms which are passed down in different ways to different classes and different generations. We are highly involved in these processes and it behoves us to become familiar with not just particular identities and how best to serve students’ actualizations of self but also with how the entire discourse of self-actualization emerged within a particular moment in the civilizing process. Such notions were characteristic of a Romantic notion that was a response to capitalist materialism, in other words, as an aristocratic response to bourgeois industrialism, which was, in turn,

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adopted by particular fractions within the bourgeois classes themselves, notably, among women confined to the home, but also by academics and other members of what Gramsci might call the class of ‘organic intellectuals’. In other words, when encouraging recognition of identity, we should understand this as a form of ‘ideological services’, not necessarily of society or the public as a whole but perhaps merely that of our particular group of academics and professionals – those that Alvin Gouldner called ‘the new class’ (Gouldner 1979). None of the above observations discounts the value in identity, just as the next chapter will not undermine our goals of widening participation and inclusion in education. We are not seeking an Archimedean point at which a value is ‘true’ or not; rather, we seek a more detached view in which we can see the way norms and values are interacting and related to each other and the groups they obtain elective affinity with. Clearly, teachers and educationalists have affinity with the discourse surrounding identity and inclusion. What the figurational approach does is provide us with a more complex view of the actual relations going on, in which we are involved and which we should therefore respond to with greater reflection. In other words, a truly sociological view of our own identities as sociologists of education.

7

Diversity, Inclusion and Establishment–Outsider Relations

Today, one of the most pressing issues within education, educational policy and educational research, across all levels from higher education to nursery care, is widening participation, access and inclusion of disadvantaged and excluded groups. Such efforts stem from our social values including our commitments to diversity as well as meritocracy and equality. Yet, often it seems as though despite our best efforts, we seem to be getting further away from our ultimate goals of providing equal educational opportunities, experiences and outcomes for all students regardless of social background. Why might this be the case? Elias’s scholarship, particularly in the area of establishment–outsider relations may help us understand the way inclusion has taken place within education historically and how those historical patterns continue to influence inclusive educational policies today.

1.  Inclusion and exclusion in education According to Meyer (1977:  65), almost all modern nation states have some form of mass education system including both compulsory primary and secondary education. Many more have public higher education systems as well as private educational institutions at all three levels and beyond in terms of professional  education and advanced training. Indeed, in many nations, education up to a certain age, say 16, is compulsory, meaning no child is allowed to be excluded from schooling. So what do we mean when we say students are ‘excluded’ from educational opportunities? In Chapter  5, we explored Abram de Swaan’s interpretation of where this national interest in providing education derived from, namely from metropolitan, bourgeois elites’ interest in connecting all citizens to a national

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system of communication. Without basic familiarity with writing, reading and arithmetic, individuals would be excluded from the capitalist economy, mass media and the democratic political system. In other words, once literacy and education became a precondition for participation within national societies, lack of education became interpreted as a deficiency. Not right away, but certainly within recent decades, efforts have been made within educational research and practice to include – or, perhaps better expressed, include to a greater degree – students who have been historically excluded from traditional education and, by extension, participation in the wider, national community. Scholars in the field known as ‘inclusive education’ have drawn upon post-structuralism to highlight the binary distinctions between ‘normal’ and ‘special’ education. These binaries, in fact, isolate those learners designated as being different from other students, preventing them from obtaining equal access to public education. Roger Slee, an important scholar within this tradition, notes, The term, the regular school, is frequently offered as the counterpoint to the term: special school. It is also code for the implied normal school. It follows that there must be normal or regular students for whom these schools exist. And, as the logic proceeds, there are other children who are not normal, regular or valid – they are our in-valid population. Whether we call it regular or normal, neither the meaning nor the social impact change. (Slee 2011: 12)

Although these distinctions may have been constructed with good intentions in the past, and although experts in ‘special education’ may have insights into managing the behaviour and learning of children with ‘special needs’, the social impact and pattern of exclusion is ultimately that: exclusive. Schools should instead endeavour to include these and other students otherwise deemed problematic or different or less than able or whatever-the-slight-may-be. Not only would this provide those students with contact and experience with so-called ‘normal’ students, but the normal students would no longer think so rarely about their excluded peers or consider them as marked out and different. The discourse surrounding inclusive education involved criticism of policies and practices which explicitly or inadvertently reproduce these patterns of exclusion. They also advocated for more inclusive forms of pedagogy and structuring of educational experiences and learning. Further, the discourse and practices of inclusive education, while originating initially within special needs literature, has expanded to include much wider groups including ethnic



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minorities, LGBTQ+, women and other historically excluded groups of students. Through more inclusive education, students with these social backgrounds can learn alongside their peers without feeling excluded; they can fully access equal education. Indeed, the shared experience of this wide range of excluded groups highlights the significance of variations of privilege and points to the familiar theory of ‘intersectionality’ (Crenshaw 1991; Mitchell, Simmons and Greyerbiehl 2014). As Crenshaw noted in exploring the intersections between discrimination based on race and gender, ‘the focus on the most privileged group members marginalizes those who are multiply-burdened and obscures claims that cannot be understood as resulting from discrete sources of discrimination’ (Crenshaw 1991:  140). Thus, research and even anti-discriminatory legislation which focused on merely one and not the other group could result in a privileging of, say, women or those members of minority ethnic background, who were more privileged in terms of sex and race. This led to neglect of the experiences and interests of black women, for example, since legislation promoting African Americans helped black men first, while legislation promoting women largely reflected white, middle-class women’s needs. Exclusion, therefore, has several dimensions, in terms of the multiple and intersecting levels of discrimination, injustice and inequality, and also in terms of the patterns of privilege which can contribute to neglect of these injustices, that is, ignorance. Privilege is therefore a conscious or, typically, unconscious bias towards the experience of less advantaged groups  – often simply due to the absence of experiences these groups might go through (Bhopal 2018). The example of ‘special needs’ students excluded from ‘regular’ schooling is a prime example: if ‘normal’ students have no exposure or experience with these students, they may not know the challenges their peers go through. They may be unsympathetic or even hostile to their claims to need extra support or resources to pursue and achieve in educational endeavours. As she explained in her classic essay, Peggy McIntosh describes this as an ‘invisible knapsack’ those of us with privilege carry around with us: My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will . . . whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow ‘them’ to be more like ‘us’. (McIntosh 1988: 31)

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In other words, we can be taught something even by being not taught something: by avoiding difficult subjects which explain, for example, why one’s oppressive group is in the privileged position it is in, one might become oblivious to both the experiences of excluded groups as well as to the advantages one thinks are the ‘natural’ outcomes of good behaviour or meritocratic performance or even ‘free will’. We have encountered similar issues in the previous chapter relating to identity  – in that instance, we could see the way socialization patterns can encourage individuals to develop unconscious identities which position themselves at the forefront of civilization or modernity, for example. The expectation is then that those who do not exhibit this behaviour must be lagging behind and in need of more or better education to catch up. It is easy to see how such notions fit in with the broader definition of inclusive education in which the many intersecting identities which have been excluded from that which is deemed ‘normal’ within privileged and elite sections of society would need strategies to ensure they obtain access to a mass education system ostensibly premised upon the notion that knowledge is fairly distributed to the entire population.

2.  Diversity and widening participation In late October 2017, British Labour MP David Lammy criticized the failure of Oxford and Cambridge to widen participation, especially to black British students (Lammy 2017). He noted, ‘Oxford and Cambridge are national universities’ and ‘for as long as an Oxbridge degree is the golden ticket to a job in our top professions, its opaque admissions process will determine who the next generation of cabinet ministers, high court judges and newspaper editors will be’. Such comments reflect both the issues of national education and class reproduction noted in previous chapters. He and other critics, such as the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission in their report ‘Elitist Britain?’ (SMCPC 2014), are correct in highlighting the disparities of admission across Oxbridge and beyond, in elite universities within the UK and around the world. University rankings try to capture the reputations of these ‘top’ institutions and encourage competition among students seeking to obtain access to these universities which Lammy notes amounts to a ‘golden ticket’ to successful careers within the professions, government and media.



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To combat these problems, the government established an Office for Fair Access1 in 2004 to monitor universities’ ‘access agreements’, ensuring every institution made substantive efforts to widen participation in higher education to disadvantaged populations. Much research, both quantitative and qualitative, has reviewed divergences across class, ethnic, gender, geographic, disability and any number of other lines of social inequality (Côté and Furlong 2016; Crozier et al. 2008; Donnelly and Evans 2016; Mountford-Zimdars et al. 2013; Bhopal 2018; Zimdars, Sullivan and Heath 2009). Among quantitative sociologists, scholars track the percentages of students from different social groups and measure their access and successful progression through education, especially higher education (Mountford-Zimdars 2017). This ‘political arithmetic’ tradition has a long history tied to social class analysis in the UK, particularly of the kind associated with John Goldthorpe and the Oxford Department for Social Policy and Intervention (Breen and Goldthorpe 1997; Bukodi and Goldthorpe 2011; Butler and Savage 1995; Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992). More recently, this line of research has combined with more Bourdieusian approaches to formally measure cultural capital and social capital, thus providing a relatively bleak picture of the chances individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds have for accessing top university places and moving on to work in elite professions (Glaesser and Cooper 2013; Savage et al. 2013; Sullivan 2007). Further, as Goldthorpe has recently concluded, after several decades of attempts to mitigate social mobility through educational policy, nothing seems to have substantially changed conditions for groups overall (Goldthorpe 2013, 2014). Education has an effect on who is mobile, or immobile, rather than on the overall rate of mobility. Correspondingly, then, the stabilising of rates of upward mobility towards the end of the twentieth century, at least in the case of men, can be associated with a slowing rate of growth of the salariat. And, again, it is difficult to see education as an explanatory factor, except insofar as women’s rising  – but still strongly class-linked  – levels of qualification have enabled them to compete more effectively with men for the professional and managerial positions that are available. (Goldthorpe 2013: 442)

Only the post-war expansion of professional occupations presented the appearance of a ‘Golden Age’ of mobility when absolute mobility rates went up, though, then as now, relative mobility rates barely budged, meaning the relative In 2018, the Office for Fair Access was merged with the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) to become the Office for Students.

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chances for an individual to do better than peers within their cohort remained the same, and, again, this had more to do with the expansion of professional roles than education as such. At the same time quantitative sociologists observe a stalemate or even decline in rates of social mobility today, despite ever increasing policy and institutionlevel investment in widening participation, qualitative sociologists of education also observe that such efforts are insufficient at the level of student experiences. Diane Reay, for example, has observed the ways in which students entering elite higher educational institutions (HEIs) become alienated from both their group origins and from the elite culture into which they try to assimilate (Reay 2013, 2016; Reay, David and Ball 2005). Further, there is little sense in which either the overall educational system or its dominant culture are shifting despite efforts to diversify the social backgrounds of students for centuries. Within the educational system all the authority remains vested in the middle classes. Not only do they run the system, the system itself is one which valorizes middle rather than working-class cultural capital. Regardless of what individual working-class males and females are able to negotiate and achieve for themselves within the educational field, the collective patterns of working-class trajectories within education remain sharply different from those of the middle classes, despite over 100 years of universal state education. (Reay 2016: 334)

As elite HEIs within the UK pursue these policies to widen participation they risk falling into the contradictions noted by Natasha Warikoo in her study of affirmative action policies at Harvard, Brown and Oxford (Warikoo 2016). She identifies four ‘race frames’ students exhibited:  color-blindness, diversity, power analysis and culture of poverty. Noting that students tended to reproduce the assumptions of their university’s admissions policies, Warikoo challenged the frequently replicated ‘diversity bargain’ in which elite students appreciated ‘diversity’ as a ‘selling point’ but resisted policies which would affect them – for example, limiting the pool of internships to applicants from ethnic minority backgrounds. The diversity bargain resulted in a paradoxical moral imperative among elites, particularly white elites, to appear to be ‘not racist’ while doing little to promote or encourage greater social justice. For many white students dealing with the cultural meanings of race and racism in the contemporary United States was fraught with guilt, mixed emotions, and misunderstandings. In addition to a moral imperative to not be racist, to be an elite in the United States means to be familiar with a range of cultural repertoires and to be decidedly antiracist. Disapproving of racial jokes was one way white



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students could signal their moral standing with respect to racism. (Warikoo 2016: 121)

In America, the UK and beyond, where higher education and education, generally, are organized within hierarchical systems, the efforts to widen participation to excluded groups seems to have done little to actually change the unequal social structures which motivated efforts in the first place. Rather, what seems to result from such policies is the production of a more socially diverse elite, as Shamus Khan (2010) observed in his qualitative study of an elite New England prep school. Although such institutions have ‘opened’ themselves up to diverse populations, they nonetheless maintain subtle distinctions within, while paradoxically reinforcing the notion of elite meritocracy that shifts from an ‘ethic of exclusion to one of inclusion’ (Khan 2010:  39). Students explain their own success as the result of hard work, and the presence of historically disadvantaged populations only affirms that this is the case. ‘Without exclusion or protectionism and within a context that emphasizes individual talents and work, elites are still able to reproduce their position for their children . . . The great trick of privilege helps us see how the world can be more open and yet more unequal’ (Khan 2010: 40).

3.  Establishment, outsiders and anti-establishment-ism Using the figurational concept of ‘establishment–outsider’ relations, we can immediately see the relevance of this theme to the topic of widening participation and inclusion. Those who have historically been excluded from education, be they students with learning difficulties or disabilities, be they ethnic minorities, be they women or working-class students, have slowly been integrated and included within traditional education. This is characteristic of, and facilitative of, the national expansion of mass education to all citizens and residents: as populations became recognized as full citizens, it became important for these students to be educated ‘correctly’. After decades, even centuries of policies to expand this access, there nonetheless remain stark social inequalities of both opportunity and outcomes. This has led to considerable research, both quantitative and qualitative, as well as government and school-/university-level policies. So, we are familiar with the problem, but the theoretical question is, Why? In fact, a large number of studies of the kind noted above leap directly from

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observation to policy suggestions:  if black students are underrepresented at Oxbridge, we must enrol more students in Oxbridge as soon as possible. And, yet, as we shall see in the following chapter, the complexity of the processual dynamics at work suggests such policy recommendations are merely technical suggestions rather than fully theorized analyses of what it would really take to resolve some of these systemic problems. The now ‘inclusive’, yet privileged, elite Khan observed is a case in point:  if an elite educational structure persists in which privately educated, rich students are told they are successful purely based on their own efforts and merits (by implication, ignoring the entire history of privilege they entered school with, which they inherited from their parents), then how does increasing social mobility of some individuals from historical disadvantaged groups disrupt this social reproduction? Very little, as Reay, Goldthorpe and others have noticed. To better interpret this social blockage, we must detach ourselves from the normative situation we find ourselves in as educational researchers committed to diversity and widening participation. We need to see widening participation ‘from the outside’ as a long-standing historical trend, the particular iteration of which is characteristic of the figuration we find ourselves in today. In fact, as we have seen in recounting Elias’s history of the civilizing process, the entire trend towards civilization and education has involved inclusion of previously excluded populations, whether they be working-class groups within nation states or indigenous populations encountered through colonialism. In other words, there is nothing new about inclusive education. Rather, we should explore who is being included, how and what effect that inclusion has on subsequent efforts to widen the process of civilization. Let us, therefore, return to the original pattern of inclusion set during the bourgeois ascendance to power in the late eighteenth century. The middle classes had been excluded from power, especially control of the monopoly of taxation, and resented the culture, tastes and privileges of the aristocracy. As they gained power, they justified their claims in terms of their capacity to ‘represent the people’ within representative democracies. Yet, quite quickly their (conservative, elite) critics noted that these bourgeois liberals still did not include propertyless, working-class folks, women, slaves and other ethnic minorities in their notion of the ‘people’. The middle classes quickly needed to explain this contradiction and did so in relation to education and literacy (cf. Wallerstein 2004). It was not that these excluded populations were incapable of self-government, but they had not yet accessed the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions. First, we should expand education and literacy and then we will reconsider the inclusion



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or exclusion of these groups – working classes, women, minorities and so on – in decision-making. As de Swaan noted, however, the middle classes also had a political interest in getting excluded populations on their side, by connecting them with the national systems of communication, since these populations were, at that time, technically represented by aristocratic gentry who spoke on their behalf. The latter group, in fact, actively lobbied against widening access to education, since the working classes would learn too much about their condition and revolt. Workers were far happier in ignorance than with full awareness of their disadvantage. On each side of this argument, ignorance featured as either a deficiency or natural condition. The middle classes wanted to ‘cure’ these non-literate populations of their ignorance, whereas the gentry wished to keep them in their childlike state of innocence. Throughout the history of widening inclusion in education, one can see similar arguments made on behalf of women, ethnic minorities, disabled students and others who, it was assumed, would prefer not to be exposed to knowledge they would have no power to use fully. Thus, we see a consistent pattern across a range of inequalities despite intersectional differences of experiences, in which the dominant class/ethnicity/ gender has been positioned as the established, with less privileged groups as outsiders. However, what is striking is that, through education, excluded groups are drawn into the establishment’s pre-existing standards of knowledge (and, by extension, civility/civilization). While, of course, contact with different populations produced new and original forms of ‘hybridity’ as the philosopher Homi Bhabha would call it (Bhabha 1996), in general, the now included participants were expected to leave behind their ‘less advanced’, less civilized, more ignorant state and move into the dominant establishment. It was the role of the privileged to extend this possibility, through various forms of charitable schooling, both within nation states (in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and regions) and overseas within, for example, philanthropic educational work and missions in, say, ‘Africa’ (in fact, a rather large place full of diverse populations). Consider now that there is no fundamental difference between this position and that of David Lammy or the majority of educational researchers mentioned above: social mobility implies movement (the ‘mobile’ element of the concept). That is, individuals move from disadvantage to advantage, leaving behind the population and culture from whence they came – encouraged by the promise, or ‘aspiration’, of full membership in the establishment (which is ultimately less than forthcoming as research has shown). But consider the following: this implies the majority of the excluded group remains where it was:  excluded,

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ignorant, primitive – only the individual student or some percentage of students are included within the elite establishment based on their ‘ability’ and potential to become like the elite. In other words, within the traditional model of widening participation, the establishment–outsider relations do not fundamentally change. Furthermore, entry into the establishment implies acceptance of their norms, values, tastes and so on. The reason Reay and others observe no fundamental change in elite culture is that the included populations have or will adopt the standards of the establishment, including, for example, writing of essays, using particular styles, attending class on time, speaking with confidence and authority  – ‘leaning in’ to professional challenges without appearing like a ‘victim’ and so on. Indeed, often, the experience of included ethnic minorities within elite higher education establishments involves managing white feelings, such as we have seen within the diversity bargain (Warikoo 2016; Bhopal 2018). Meanwhile, educational researchers from a range of social backgrounds, but largely middle class, produce more and more publications evidencing and decrying privilege, but from a position of considerable privilege! Perhaps these policies will influence policymakers and schools to include more students, or include those students better and more humanely (i.e. in more civilized ways) – but short of dismantling the entire hierarchy of schooling, university and ultimately professional employment; these remain merely technical arguments regarding how to best widen participation within an unequal social structure which is assumed to be unchanging. Yet, we know the social process is changing all the time; in fact, it has changed in such a way that it becomes difficult for us in educational research to see that many of our assumptions, discourses and practices are, in fact, characteristic of the new, more ‘inclusive’ and ‘open’ selfconception of the more diverse elite. Perhaps it is time we asked more difficult questions as Hettie Judah recently asked of the art world: ‘Is the lack of social mobility in the arts due to a self-congratulatory conviction that the sector represents the solution rather than the problem?’ (Judah 2018). If we recall, one of the most significant roles of education is the socialization of identities – the embodiment of social control as self-control. It is through this process that the elite establishment distributes, reproduces and slowly transforms its dominant ideology, what Parsons called ‘ideological services’. Now, consider the trends within educational research for the past forty years, in which researchers have more or less divided themselves according to more technocratic and more critical forms of scholarship  – sometimes divided methodologically/theoretically between ‘positivists’ and ‘interpretivists’. Some



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provide advice regarding the technical means of widening participation, while others claim these are not good enough, thereby justifying more work. Some, having ‘come from’ working-class backgrounds in the course of their personal mobility journeys, criticize middle-class elitism  – while others speak ‘on behalf ’ of those populations still beyond the reach of organized knowledge (who, like the rural workers living in ignorance under the nineteenthcentury gentry’s yoke, cannot speak for themselves). Each move towards representation involves work of ‘translation’, generally in the direction from the outsider group into the establishment’s way of doing things, though also, occasionally, in providing relevant knowledge and experience to those outsiders interested in making the ‘journey’ to university and, by extension, membership in the professional, government and media elite (each of which has its own diversity policies and agendas reflective of the new norm, that is, ‘inclusive’, ‘open’ and ‘tolerant’). In other words, in providing advice as self-help, it is more or less taken for granted that ‘self ’ will adopt social constraints as self-constraints. Again, in being detached, we are not criticizing this condition as such but merely offering the possibility of reflecting on the objective fact that we in education are de facto working and speaking from the position of the establishment (regardless of how critical we might be of that establishment’s practices). As Parsons suggested, teachers are representatives of the adult world seeking to establish a non-hierarchical space within the classroom in which students then compete (in order to meritocratically enter unequal and differentiated social positions). Thus, our roles as educators encourage us to eliminate reference to hierarchy in order to encourage students to abandon or restrict their intolerance and prejudice of others. This is, in part, to legitimize students’ own merit, not only because these are social norms within liberal democratic societies, but also because it is necessary for us to do our professional work as teachers effectively. Gouldner described this as a linguistic conversion into the ‘culture of critical discourse’ characteristic of the new class of academics and professionals in general: ‘Public education’, whether at the secondary or tertiary levels . . . is characterized by the fact that (a) it is education away from the home and thus away from close parental supervision; (b)  it is education mediated by a special group of New Class, ‘teachers’, whose role invites them to take the standpoint of the collectivity of the whole, and who train students to believe that the value of their discourse does not depend upon their differing class origins, that it is not the speaker but the speech that is to be attended. (Gouldner 1979: 43)

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The reason it is worth reflecting on the long-term trends within inclusive educational research, and by extension educational training and teaching, is that we in modern societies are now well within, if not beyond, a period of applied pedagogy which has socialized students of all or most backgrounds into these norms and values. Indeed, it becomes a problem if students do not tolerate all members from all social backgrounds: such views are (or perhaps were before 2016) not acceptable within an ‘open’, ‘multicultural’ society. And, yet, included students from disadvantaged backgrounds can still see that the elite structures are not shifting fast enough; indeed, there is much research to back them up in this regard. Similarly, the expansion of higher education and professional qualifications has made it nearly impossible to gain employment within a knowledge economy without access to some higher credentials. While some elites appear to publicly resemble and represent diverse groups on the media or within academic and professional roles, it remains obvious that there are only so many social positions within central fields of power; the majority of those historically excluded groups will not ascend to the summit of the establishment, just as the majority of those dominant ethnic, class and gender groups do not go on to become prime minister. This leads us to the observation of another paradox visible from our more detached position:  that if we have constructed and socialized new standards of civility, which demand that we present ourselves as ‘inclusive’ and ‘diverse’, we are, by extension, now beginning to exclude those populations who do not conform to our standards. In other words, the civilizing process has changed and developed in such a way so that expression of exclusion, intolerance or resistance to diversity is considered something society, but especially elites, is not ‘allowed’ to do. Intolerance is uncivilized. Indeed, as in previous patterns of table manners and the like, even the suggestion that gender might be biologically determined, or that Europeans were right to colonize subaltern nations, might be physically revolting – producing visceral responses and even hatred of those who express such views. Further, we might observe that the mechanism of gossip is central to a process through which, because typically exponents of such intolerant views are members of otherwise privileged classes – say, white men – these ‘outsider’ positions can be generalized to the entire privileged class, which becomes polluted. This is quite a paradox in which members of the establishment are encouraged to consider other members of the establishment as outside the bounds of civilized behaviour. In fact, what we are observing is another iteration of two elite groups in conflict, each trying to identify with, rally and speak on behalf of an outsider group: be



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they, excluded minority and LGBTQ+ groups or excluded white working-class men (who, incidentally, widening participation research demonstrates also enrol in university at lower rates than their peers) (Pope 2017). Of course, these groups might diverge along class and ethnic lines – after all, one group would have been the establishment in previous epochs, and now we are seeing a more diverse establishment emerge. But, we should also recognize differences of age, since we are ultimately talking about two socialization patterns characteristic of difference phases of the civilizing process, that is:  different generations. In other words, it is very likely that older, white, male adults (who were the privileged population of the past) – as well as, perhaps their spouses and even other older members of excluded populations who learned ‘their place’ according to a different set of discourses and relations – would see the world differently from their more tolerant children. Their ‘means of orientation’ might be very different. If we consider this processual development from their view, they might feel increasingly ‘left behind’ insofar as less media and educational content today appears to express the valorizations of their lifestyles, tastes and habits they grew up with:  for example, saluting the flag and learning various gendered forms of authority and ‘respect’. Having been educated differently in, say, the 1950s, older white folks might have felt part of the establishment at one time, but no longer; as many will not be in power as such. Rather, they will see a new, more diverse elite expressing criticism (gossip?) that implies they are too ignorant to realize that the world is changing under their feet: becoming more global and competitive. Without university degrees, many will unlikely have a new job if they lose their current one, which did not require advanced education in their day. These paradoxically positioned establishment-outsiders look to university campuses and see professors advocating more and more rights and recognition for outsider groups: it looks to them as though the barbarians have sacked Rome and the establishment is now a bunch of homosexuals, feminists, Marxists and so on. Their script is familiar after 2016, where Brexit and the election of Trump in the United States have re-empowered a populist right-wing reaction against the ‘experts’ within cosmopolitan cities and university towns. We experts, almost as if by second nature, insist this new, uncivilized, brutish behaviour and talk must not be ‘normalized’. As in Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural sociology of the binary structure of the ‘civil sphere’, we insist this majority of voters are alien and foreign to our conception of our norms, values and institutions. Adopting binary distinctions between ‘civil’ and ‘anti-civil’ motives, relations and institutions, we

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navigate these semiotics to affirm that which we find sacred and exclude that which we find profane. The positive side of this discursive formation is viewed by the members of civil communities as a source not only of purity but also of purification . . . The negative side of this symbolic formation is viewed as profane. Representing the ‘worst’ in the national community, it embodies evil . . . To have one’s self or movement identified in terms of these objects causes anguish, disgust, and alarm. (Alexander 2008: 62)

Indeed, the real danger emerges when qualities and practices which are deemed ‘uncivil’ or ‘anti-civil’ are attached to persons or groups. Such was the case within the history of anti-Semitism. Yet, interestingly, in the post-war era following the Holocaust, Jewish populations across major Western European states moved from one side of the ‘civil’ binary to the other. In Eliasian terms, they moved from outsider to establishment. The examples demonstrate that establishment–outsider relations are not fixed, and further that it is important to avoid projection of our current way of viewing things backwards in time, assuming that groups that are opposed to us today were not our allies in other eras, or vice versa. Such is the risk one takes by analysing issues of inclusion and participation from an overly ‘involved’ position – that is, one in which we are already invested and committed to the norms of inclusion and therefore less likely to see limitations. In the case of widening participation, our haste in reaching for technical means to enrol as many ‘outsiders’ as fast as possible without fundamentally restructuring the social inequalities in which education is embedded produces unintended consequences throughout the social process. We might inadvertently involve ourselves in the discursive construction of a new ‘open’ yet equally elitist conception of meritocracy; we might disguise, rather than unveil, those power relations operating within the broader social process. Further, our longer-term view of the civilizing process suggests that we cannot simply expect that inclusion of a handful, or even a sizeable population of mere individuals to elite status will result in a change in the overall group structure, which is centuries in the making. Neither can we rest comfortable that in expressing our valorization of ‘diversity’ we are not, in fact, contributing to the problem. We are, after all, members of an elite, professional class, and thus more than likely a member of some privileged community in one way or another. Is it really ethical for us to ‘give voice’ to outsider groups while retaining the overall structure of the establishment? In demanding tolerance from our students



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through the disciplinary mechanisms of school and university education, are we not merely socializing a new generation of elite and non-elite students who know how to talk about ‘inclusion’ and ‘openness’ as a means of self-legitimation? How can we see our involvement within this process from a detached point of view that recognizes the contradictions and pitfalls of a purely technical or purely critical normative position? As we shall see, adopting a figurational perspective can contribute to articulation of a range of policies and cultural orientations that might realistically improve and engender those values we claim to revere: that might allow us to begin to do something about them through more conscious reflection and strategic action. In this sense, just as Elias suggested that the solution to the problems associated with civilization is more, not less, civilization  – we must go further to remove both the violent conditions and the psychic traumas associated with less-than-ideal figurations of power, knowledge and self-control. Similarly, we need to go further than we have done hitherto to genuinely include outsider populations – ultimately, we need to reconstruct the establishment as a whole. For, as we saw in Chapter 4, the bourgeois class was formed in opposition to aristocratic privilege. It is ultimately an extremely middle-class pastime to criticize privilege from a position of newfound privilege  – particularly when doing little to genuinely improve the condition of outsider groups for whom we claim to speak.

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Unplanned Educational Policy Processes

We have encountered Elias’s discussion of the civilizing process and the interactions between the national state, developing class system and education. While not identical to Marxian base/superstructure models, we can nonetheless begin by interpreting education in a manner similar to the Althusserian notion of ‘ideological state apparatuses’ (Althusser 2009). In other words, education is institutionally related, connected to and serves a function within a broader figuration of power, including power centralized within the state. However, we must not overly fetishize the state insofar as throughout the emergence of mass education, religious denominations, private philanthropies, scientific associations, industrial firms and more have been involved in shaping the educational process. We might thus connect Elias to the emerging trend within American historical sociologies of higher education, which considers the relationships between state, markets and associations (Stevens and Gebre-Medhin 2016). Interestingly, this new political and historical sociology of higher education has a processual character insofar as the three configurations emerged in sequence within the United States, yet each retained legacies of earlier epochs, now reconfigured within subsequent political economic patterns: ‘an associational configuration, nascent in the early republic and elaborated through to World War I; a national service configuration, developed through the middle decades of the twentieth century; and a market configuration, still in evolution’ (Stevens and GebreMedhin 2016: 122). This historical sequence conforms to the metanarrative we have begun exploring in the work of Elias and other figurational sociologists, in which philanthropic challenges, such as poor relief and education, were taken over by the national welfare state. Interestingly, within the economic sociology identified by Stevens and Gebre-Medhin, the marketization or ‘neoliberalization’ of higher education seems to happen last, and corresponds with the intervention

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of economists within educational policymaking (Berman 2011). Thus, in contrast to the Marxian notion that the market drives cultural institutional transformation, we can see the ‘relative autonomy’ of education and, perhaps, even a recursive relationship within the social process insofar as higher education and the professionalization of economists has a later effect on the organization of a number of institutions and policies, including higher education itself (Fourcade 2009). Finally, what is characteristic of this new historical sociology of higher education (which need not exclude compulsory education for our purposes) is the contingent, unplanned, yet ultimately explainable interactions across a range of organizational fields. Thus, while education is relatively autonomous from the state just as the state is relatively autonomous from the market economy, these do interact within and across the broader social process. As we will discuss in Chapter 12, this suggests more processual, historical accounts of educational systems such as those within Andrew Abbott’s discussion of ‘linked ecologies’ between universities, states and professions are the way forward (Abbott 2005b). To these new and innovative approaches we might add the following applications of Elias’s theories and concepts insofar as these provide both cumulative longer-term explanations of the origins of capitalist nation states (and, we have argued, mass education) as well as mechanisms for durable socialization patterns among cohorts, the means through which social-control becomes self-control.

1.  Governmentality and the performativity of policy Contemporary studies of educational policy take many forms, some of which are fairly traditional ‘briefing’ style documents characteristic of policy advocacy and analysis. Others involve more institutional analysis of changing organizational and governance structures within schools vis-à-vis local authorities, ministerial departments of education, think tanks and so on (Wilkins and Olmedo 2018). As in the widening participation scholarship discussed in the previous chapter, which is essentially one iteration of this genre of policy research, we observed qualitative and quantitative methods revealing different aspects and perspectives on similar objects of interest: namely the policy to widen participation to broader populations. We also saw the benefits of adding a more historical view to generate a detachment from existing priorities and to see ourselves from another angle. We noted several unintended consequences might be obscured from our view,



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so that our intended approaches and practices might be less significant than unseen effects of our practices elsewhere in the system, or process. Similarly, education policymakers make decisions according to the limitations and biases of their positions within the field of power. Generally, according to typical understandings of the state, this involves an educational minister making a decision about education that, in part, involves improving education, but also in terms of political agendas, such as, in the UK, the prevailing ideological interests of the Conservative or Labour Party at the time. A  good example is the New Labour agenda summarized by Tony Blair as ‘Education, Education, Education’ in which the campaign to appeal to new middle-class voters involved commitment to a service economy and the provision of the means of accessing employment in that service sector via education. In other words:  widening participation in higher education and improving education generally. Something ‘everyone’ could get behind, it was thought. However, as Goldthorpe (2013) noted, the assumptions underlying this view of social mobility were flawed insofar as these involved economists projecting present patterns (that educational attainment correlated with income) and these assumed that this relationship would hold as more and more students entered the system. In fact, the result appears to have been overcredentialization  – a phenomena well understood by sociologists since the 1970s, including Randall Collins, who wrote: Once higher levels of education become recognized as an objective mark of elite status, and a moderate level of education as a mark of respectable middle-level status, increases in the supply of educated persons at given levels result in yet higher levels, becoming recognized as superior, and previously superior levels become only average. (Collins 1971: 1015)

In other words, increasing the population of students participating in education dilutes the value of degrees, and more than likely results in the need for more and more ‘higher’ credentials to distinguish applicants from one another within selection processes, that is, job interviews. Within the UK, where the expansion of credentials has occurred rapidly (since the introduction of New Labour policies in 1997), we can see occupations which previously did not require degrees – such as police sergeants, estate agents and bank tellers – now do so, reflecting, perhaps, an increase in technical standards, but more likely reflective of the overproduction of graduates who need to work somewhere (CIPD 2015). Again, we are back to the issue of unintended consequences, but can we simply blame these outcomes on ‘neoliberalism’ or the ideology of economists,

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policymakers and think tanks? In fact, a good bit of research seems to suggest we can. In particular, within the work of Stephen J. Ball and others critical of new performance management (Ball 2007; Deem 2004; Lorenz 2012; Schneider and Sadowski 2010), we can see the way in which certain forms of discourse shape and transform not just policy itself but also the performance of policy within schools, by head teachers, administrators, even students and parents. The assumptions of, particularly, marketization policies seem to infect the relevant stakeholders who become agents of policy, rather than becoming active resistance to policies even when these go against their best interests. Using the methods of critical discourse analysis, many educational researchers review public documents, such as policy briefs, white papers and public-facing webpages to uncover hidden ideologies which explain why the marketization of education moves in the direction we see during the neoliberal era, more or less since the premiership of Margaret Thatcher in the UK. Much of this research is effective, as in Graham’s identification of changes within the registers or frames of pre- and post-92 universities as they accommodated the widening participation agenda (Graham 2013). However, there are certain limitations to these forms of discourse analysis if these are not connected to institutional and professional practices. For example, Rainford (2017) reviews widening participation policies at one university, but largely through interpretation of programme guides and summer school promotional materials, concluding these activities have more to do with marketing than widening access. But, how do we know how these framings and patterns of exclusion actually affect admissions decisions, which in these elite institutions are conducted behind closed doors? How can we assess these policies at the level of practice? One solution comes from theoretical application of Foucaultian notions of ‘governmentality’ (Ball 1990, 2013)  – a term which was developed by the French philosopher in the course of his lectures on ‘biopower’ (Foucault, Davidson and Burchell 2008), but which has taken on a life of its own as a concept indicating the production of subjects from discursive formations (Dean 2017). While not every researcher engaged in discourse analysis assumes a theory or concept of governmentality, the premise is often implied:  namely, that a discourse under consideration, such as ‘neoliberalism’ or even more localised iterations of policy, such as the elite university’s public statements about widening participation, constrain and ultimately produce subjects. This form of power applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own



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identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him. It is a form of power which makes individuals subjects. There are two meanings of the word ‘subject’: subject to someone else by control and dependence; and tied to his own identity by a conscience or selfknowledge. (Foucault 1982: 781)

Within such a view we find little to differentiate Elias’s position regarding the internalization of social control as self-control  – and, indeed, we will go into depth regarding the differences between Elias and Foucault in Chapter 11. In fact, the process through which subjects are socialized is not problematic, but, rather, the assumption that these individuals and their intentions (which may or may not be their own) then necessarily condition and determine further action within organizations and institutions should be evidenced. In other words, the premise of governmentality may (though not always) produce an oversimplification of causality within research insofar as discourses presented within texts or other forms of qualitative data (e.g. interviews, ethnographies) are assumed to have causal significance at the level of practice  – because the researcher assumes relevant institutional actors will share the premises reflected in the discursive artefacts. In other words, borrowing from an earlier critique of Althusser and Parsons – that is, vulgar functionalism – the subjects are assumed to be ‘cultural dupes’ (Giddens 1979). This assumption is perhaps most reflective of methodological limitations; after all, the researcher can likely only access one or a few institutional contexts using qualitative methods, and it can be difficult to generalize beyond these few cases without assuming some homology between, for example, interviewees and folks in similar roles in similar institutional contexts. It can be even harder to access positions of elite power, such as state offices, government departments, let alone informal network meetings over lunch or golf where actual decisions might be made. Governmentality provides a means of connecting the dots insofar as interviewees repeat back elements of a discourse within interviews, and the discourse is available online, and therefore others exposed to this discourse more than likely also reflect these identities and patterns of behaviour. If the behavioural outcomes match the discursive framings it is perhaps not unreasonable to assume the behaviour exists, in part, due to the cultural framing. Again, this is not a problem in itself, although it is difficult to square the causal assumptions contained in much discourse analysis with what is, in effect, often a lack of evidence and, thus, speculation. Rather, what we are interested in recovering using Elias’s figurational approach is understanding

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of the unintended, unplanned consequences of action within long-term social processes. While attentive to the same cultural and discursive dynamics noted here and by educational researchers engaged in critical policy analysis, Elias additionally provided a theory to explain the mechanisms through which individuals with limited awareness of organizational fields respond to power relations in certain ways, which in turn conditions the behaviour of others, which in turn can be reflected in culture and so on. We do not need some central powerful or hegemonic actor, class, state or discourse (!) to be pulling everyone else’s strings. In other words, we do not require the same level of intentionality or even subjectivity to produce outcomes which have the appearance of ‘being in the interest’ of a particular group, elite or otherwise. In fact, it is very often the case that policy outcomes of unplanned social processes are not precisely what any group intended. Hence, we might explain the irrationality of educational policy without recourse to one particular irrational ideology (e.g. neoliberalism). After all, as we have already demonstrated in the previous two chapters, if we are also including ourselves as groups within the social processes under observation, we must begin to see these social processes as produced by both neoliberals and their critics, that is, us and, in addition, a whole lot of other groups and discourses besides. The process consists of all these groups, not merely the most powerful agents and what they say or intend.

2.  Game models: A neglected sociological paradigm Even sociologists familiar with Norbert Elias’s research and his well-known theory of the civilizing process are often unaware of a particular chapter called ‘Game Models’ contained originally within the book What Is Sociology? (Elias 1978:  71–103). Yet, as Mennell notes, many professional sociologists would benefit considerably from close reading of the chapter which he suggests ‘ought to be compulsory reading for all first-year sociology students’ (Mennell 2015:  204). Where Elias’s description of multiple-level games has been integrated within sociological theory, it has been lumped together with ‘game theory’ in general (Swedberg 2001), which misrecognizes the real novelty and effectiveness of Elias’s analysis of differences in power (or ‘power ratios’). Elias’s game models provide us with three clarifications: (1) a formal explanation for why the macrosociological transformation of the state and class system occurred as it did, (2) a formal reason why abstract knowledge becomes



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especially important after this transformation and (3)  a model applicable to a range of policy processes to explain why unplanned processes progress (or regress) as they do. The following summary cannot replace close reading of Elias’s short but dense chapter, but can highlight why a figurational understanding of game models accomplishes these three things. The models are mental experiments to highlight real sociological dynamics and build up from an original, simple model Elias called a ‘primal contest’, a bit like chess or a sport like football, except violent and potentially deadly. The first model takes place between two groups, each of which measures its strength against one another through various trials to determine ‘power ratios’ between themselves. The simplified model highlights the relational character of power, which he explained ‘is not an amulet possessed by one person and not by another; it is a structural characteristic of human relationships  – of all relationships’ (Elias 1978: 74). Even mortal enemies such as those within a primal contest are interdependent, meaning the status and condition of one exists in relation to the other. Thus, one group’s or actors’ movements impact the other’s, even if they are members of the less powerful group. There is never a condition in which a group has no power or no means of influencing the enemy’s moves. Further, from a sociological position, the analysis demonstrates that there can never be such a thing as absolute chaos – there is always order, even within war or disasters. We can understand these ‘chaotic’ events and processes through analysis of these power ratios and related sub-theories we have encountered like ‘establishment–outsider’ relations or ‘parent–child’ relations, which are ultimately particular iterations of these kinds of power dynamics. So, the primal contest simply involves two small tribal groups, A  and B, competing over food in a forest, which begins to become scarcer. A  consists of physically strong men and women with few children; B consists of weaker, younger, but quicker members. The groups get into conflict over food, which results in a drawn-out struggle in which B sneaks into A’s camp at night to kill one or two enemies, which leads to A’s retribution in which women and children are killed while B’s men are out hunting. Just as in chess, the groups are involved in a functionally interdependent relationship in which one group’s move is conducted in relation to the expectation of what the other group’s move might be in future. It is not possible to explain any move without considering one group’s awareness and strategic considerations vis-à-vis the other within the contextual situation of the forest.

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Herein Elias is more or less redrafting the concept of ‘function’, which had a meaning within the dominant sociological paradigm of his day – structural functionalism – that implied some notion of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Actions which were called ‘functional’ supposedly contributed to the smooth running of the organic whole, while dysfunction (particularly individual deviance from norms) would potentially disrupt the social order. Here Elias’s notion of function essentially means ‘relationship’, so that enemy combatants have a function for one another insofar as their interdependent relation to the other conditions their actions, and, by extension, their social constitution. If we consider, for example, the child–parent relation we can clearly see a huge power ratio difference in which the dependent child requires the parent to provide food, shelter, information and a range of other resources the child simply cannot obtain for themselves. Elias identified one of the most important elements of power is therefore the ‘power to withhold’ – such as a parent holding back a ‘treat’ unless good behaviour is obtained, or a boss withholding a wage or promotion in order to maximize productivity among her workers. We can imagine a ‘student–teacher’ ratio in which the teacher has the power to confer grades and thereby the selection mechanisms leading to progression and ultimately social positions in the adult world. They withhold these grades unless satisfactory progress has been made on various competitive assessments, which become rule-governed and ‘fair’ according to prevailing societal expectations. But, as in all of these examples, even though the more powerful actor can withhold and manipulate the others’ action, there is always the possibility to negotiate the terms of these interactions. A child might refuse to eat a meal unless it is what they want. A student might cause a disruption until the teacher moves onto coursework that is more interesting. This is one reason trials of strength become so important, because these relations of power might be changing all the time. Each must learn the capacities for withholding in order to determine who will adapt their behaviour to whom and thereby predict and determine one’s own behaviour accordingly. There are both the issues of who is more powerful and also how stable is the power ratio and can each of us thereby count on this relationship enduring into the future? The primal contest is an exceptional scenario since the stakes involve the actual lives of the participants. However, we must also recognize that ultimately such violent relations lie at the historical bases of our social orders and remain possibilities without a range of social control mechanisms, such as the police, intelligence and national security apparatuses ultimately engaged in constant assessment of changes within power ratios and taking actions accordingly



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(again, for better or worse, as there is no normative content within analysis of these functional interdependencies). Once we see the last resort ultimately comes down to a question of survival, we can then ask, how do people manage to regulate the entire range of other interdependencies that avoid these and other forms of conflict? That is, how do political settlements establish themselves to enable sufficient order through which further action can take place? Within the primal contest, each side must be planning and preparing for the next attack. They share no norms or ‘means of orientation’ and thus are purely related to one another in terms of material and physical resources, constrained within time and space and in relation to one another. Those relations, however, can change  – if, for example, group B executes a significant victory, or if the forest all of a sudden reduces the pressures of scarcity. ‘That is why even in this case of interdependence between violent enemies locked in a life-and-death struggle is a process of interweaving. The sequence of moves on either side can only be understood and explained in terms of the immanent dynamics of their interdependence’ (Elias 1978: 80). From this exceptional, simplified case, Elias then builds up to include more and more elements, which complicate the models, on the one hand, but also returns aspects we would recognize as ‘social’. The first is the addition of norms and rules. He starts with a two-person game, like chess: A is strong, B is weak. A can make their own moves as well as constrain the moves B can make. Yet, as noted above, B never has zero power and will retain some scope of movement on the board, so to speak. In this example, however, A not only has greater control over B but also has a higher degree of control over the game as such. ‘Though his control of the game is not absolute, he can determine its course (the game process) and therefore also the result of the game, to a very great extent’ (Elias 1978: 81). There are thus two forms of power A has ‘more’ of: power over B and control of the game process. Elias then introduces a variation in which we imagine the power ratio between A and B diminishes. This is not the same as B simply gaining power over A, as in a revolution, but rather neither can compel each other’s moves, and the figuration starts to become less predictable. In this instance, each becomes more dependent on the game process itself, rather than on one another. As this happens, the process begins to look less and less like the implementation of an individual’s (A’s) plan and more and more like an interweaving, unplanned process. Now Elias asks us to imagine a multi-person game in which A  is far more powerful than B, C, D and more, but perhaps not all of them together.

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Positioned on ‘one level’ the non-As are separate and related only insofar as each is competing against A – thus, the actions of B are not interdependent with the actions of C except when the latter influences the position of A vis-à-vis B. OK. Now, imagine the same game but with the non-As aware of one another and potentially united. Clearly, A  loses their capacity to more or less control and plan the game, as in the unplanned process noted above. If B, C and D are not in tension with one another – for example, if none have religious differences – this lessens A’s power ratio, whereas increasing the inner tensions among the non-As would give A more room to manoeuvre. Thus, increasing tension has a comparable effect to increasing the power ratio for A. Now – and for those of us familiar with Elias’s analysis of the monarchical mechanism and the transition from Absolutism to bourgeois representative democracy in The Civilizing Process, we should begin to see how this formal model is connecting with real historical processes – imagine A declines vis-àvis a united B, C, D, producing an unplanned process comparable to the one mentioned in the two-person game. Now imagine no new central power but rather two coalitions of groups, say B, C, D versus U, V, W, X, agreeing to compete according to rules which provide equal chances of winning for each group, in which each maintains more or less equal strength. The result would have an order but would not be the result of any one group’s decisive influence, as the interweaving process would consists of moves and countermoves, all among a range of competing and/or collaborating other groups. Elias added that in order to explain and define this social order, ‘an observer needs to distance himself from the positions taken by both sides, as they appear when considered alone’ (Elias 1978: 84). We can now see how the involvement/detachment spectrum connects directly with the figurational view on processes insofar as detachment provides a view from which the sociological process can be reflected on as a totality, rather than from an involved position, which merely reflects the view of one group engaged in moves and the competitive game. The models are starting to become more interesting as Elias adds ‘levels’ to the multi-person game. We are asked to imagine that the number of participants is growing and growing; in other words, we are widening participation in the game. If we stay on one level, we might have to wait our turn, and with so many participants we might lose the mental picture of the overall structure of the game. We thereby lose our capacity to plan as we lose our ‘means of orientation’. We need a view of the figuration, but this becomes more difficult as the ‘web of interdependence’ grows, making it difficult to act regardless of the personal power one might have as an individual. As this applies to the increasing number



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of individual actors involved in the game, the process becomes opaque and eventually everyone develops a sense of lack of control:  they become aware of becoming the plaything of fortune and fate (cf. Pocock 2003). The overall functioning of the process begins to disorganize and deteriorate, producing three possibilities Elias introduces: (a)  the group fragments into a number of smaller groups, which might then play independently of one another; (b) the fragmented groups establish a new figuration of interdependent groups, which are more autonomous but remain rivals for certain chances – say budgets with a more or less feudal set-up; or (c) an integrated, complex two-tiered group. Bear with us, as there is farther to go: the two-tiered game can take at least two forms, and Elias begins with the ‘oligarchic type’. In this iteration, the players remain interdependent, but they no longer play directly against one another. Rather, specialist professionals – politicians, representatives, delegates, leaders and so on  – take over the competitive coordination of the game, which now proceeds upon another plane or tier: in courts, governments, corporate board rooms and so on. These politicians now amount to a smaller group which derive their authority from the broader populations on the first level. There are thus new interdependent relations between actors on the first and second levels as well as relations among actors within each level. The power differentials between levels can be quite considerable or relatively low. When high, we are describing an oligarchic game – one which most resembles the historical example of dynastic aristocratic societies as we are familiar with from the Middle Ages. Just as in the two-person game with high power ratios in favour of A, knowledge of the course of the game can provide advantage; however, within a two-tiered game there are at least three or four balances of power every individual has to maintain (relations with groups on the first tier, relations with other oligarchs, relations of the entire second tier to the first tier and so on). There are essentially an increasing number of social constraints (as we are familiar with from the civilizing process). Just as in other games, although the oligarchs have considerable power, the populace still has various means of compelling behaviour (they are not powerless); meanwhile, the high power ratio encourages a small circles of players which have incentives to neglect the first tier in order to focus on the intrigues of the game on the second tier. In time, the first tier finds there is no longer sufficient means through which the second tier can be made to act on their behalf. The representative function appears more of a historical artefact and a justification for inequality than a real correspondence between tiers. Perhaps, in such scenarios, entrepreneurial groups on the second tier begin to foment discontent among the first tier so as to

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weaken the power of their political rivals within court or government. This can lead to transition from an oligarchical to a ‘simplified increasingly democratic’ game. Imagine that the strength of the lower tier increases; this might not, in itself, change the system and, further, might not immediately impact the power dynamics on the second tier, if, for example, power A  (monarch) dominates the second-tier game through divide-and-rule tactics. What inhibits the first tier from changing the relation between tiers is organization and, ultimately, awareness if the lower tier is unfamiliarity with the way the upper-tier game works. Further, as particular groups from below begin to assert power, efforts to quell this emanate from oligarchs either one at a time (if formally representing a borough, for example) through concessions or discipline or by the aristocratic class as a whole:  that is, direct conflict between the entire tiers against one another. Still, as Elias explained, ‘If power differentials between the two levels decrease, the dependencies which bind the upper to the lower level will become stronger – and since they are stronger, all the participants will become more aware of them’ (Elias 1978: 90). With high power ratios, the oligarchs think of the entire game and the first tier in particular to exist for their benefit. As this dynamic shifts, the perception of the second tier begins to change; they are reconceived as representatives, and their behaviour across both tiers becomes correspondingly more complex. As in the unplanned process conditions noted above, Every individual player is now constrained and confined to a much greater degree, kept in check by the number of simultaneous interdependent games he must play with players or groups of players who are becoming less and less socially inferior. The overall figuration of these interwoven games becomes visibly differentiated and often cannot be clearly surveyed even by the most gifted player, so that it becomes more and more difficult for a player to decide entirely on his own which will be the most suitable next move. (Elias 1978: 90)

We return to the power advantages provided by knowledge, which we have seen Elias defined elsewhere as the ‘means of orientation’. We are also presented with a paradoxical situation in which the levelling or democratization of power across levels produces a more unstable order as well as one that is more constraining for actors, particularly those on the upper level who may find it difficult to act within government while being increasingly unsatisfactory to constituents. Thus, the sense that an individual or their group or class controls the whole process begins to fade and is replaced by a sense that the game process is determining moves. Interestingly, Elias notes this results in a change of ideas as



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much as relational structures insofar as conceptualizations of the overall process now become more abstract and impersonal. We thus speak of ‘capitalism’, or ‘patriarchy’ or ‘democracy’ or ‘globalization’, as being the driving force, which is determining action. In previous epochs, we might have referred to suprahuman entities like ‘God’ or a national ‘Spirit’ (Lybeck 2015). Holding out the promise of full understanding of these processes and systems can appear like a key to long-term planning for citizens and governments alike. Experts, be they priests or economists, who can claim to predict the future course of the process are given privileged positions at powerful tables regardless of whether it is, in fact, possible to know the future course of history.

3.  Education as a third tier At this stage, it should become apparent how the unequal distribution of this knowledge of broader social processes, that is, uneven levels of education, can greatly impact the power, opportunities and, ultimately, consciousness of actors, groups and institutions across these two tiers. Indeed, Elias explained that even the models he presented were far too simplistic as most advanced societies are operating multi-tiered, multiplayer games. We shall see in Chapter  9 that the differentiation of society and the differentiation of knowledge amount to a further segmentation of functions, which ultimately revolves around groups – disciplines, or ‘scientific establishments’. From one view, these knowledge fields are in competition with one another and are hierarchically ordered according to the social value of natural science versus the arts and humanities, and so on. From another view, however, we can interpret the differentiated knowledge system we see represented in university catalogues and school coursework as all part of a piece: a third tier which has emerged during the period Gellner, de Swaan and others have recognized as being when mass education systems were established by the national states and empires. Recall that only when knowledge of the means of communication (not means of orientation or power as such, in fact) became something metropolitan, bourgeois elites began providing for populations within nations and across expanding empires; only then did the lack of knowledge and education become interpreted as a deficiency. This can be interpreted from a few angles: first, as an intra-elite conflict on the second tier in which liberal elites wanted communicative access to the populations on the first tier represented by conservative gentry. The gentry, recall, prevented immediate expansion of education on the grounds that

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the poor have no need for knowledge since this would only make them aware of their own lack of power. Second, we can see the expansion of communication and integration of a wider, national population; across empires, intelligence networks worked to integrate upper-caste elites in India, for example (Bayly 1996). These amounted to increases in the metropole’s and/or government’s capacity to see the bigger picture, to plan across wider territories and longer timescales due to greater awareness of the overall process. Third, the expansion of academic knowledge and education amounted to the emergence of a third tier represented by a New Class of knowledge workers – academics, professionals, teachers, experts and so on – as described by Gouldner: ‘the New Class is a new class: it is neither identical to the old working class nor to the old moneyed class . . . it is, rather, a new cultural bourgeoisie whose capital is not its money but its control over valuable cultures’ (Gouldner 1979: 20). Gouldner’s view is similar to Elias’s processual approach insofar as he noted that it took the ‘old class’ of moneyed capital centuries to emerge beginning in the late Middle Ages with nascent urbanization processes and the waning of ‘spiritual’ power in the church. The New Class is only within its early days and has only recently begun to reproduce itself (through advanced education). The result, according to Gouldner, is that contests within the New Class resemble a ‘civil war within the upper classes’. In fact, the introduction of educated professionals, differentiated according to specialisms of both knowledge and function, has produced a condition in which relatively privileged and powerful actors and groups experience considerable alienation  – aware of the system’s operation but powerless to change a great many problems directly. In which individual professionals feel powerless to change the social structures they nonetheless feel they have understood sufficiently accurately to provide legal, business, engineering and other forms of advice to more powerful actors in government, business and so on. In relation to the multi-tiered games Elias elaborated, let us consider the discipline of political science. What knowledge does polling provide? Not necessarily a reliable account of the precise views and interests of voters but rather a ‘sample’, which can be used to inform political campaigns. As we are well aware, these propaganda efforts are not intended to produce reliable information but merely to facilitate action within the second tier of government and politics. The campaign advisors, trained in advanced statistical and survey methods, provided by their education in political science, amount to a third tier of semiautonomous advisors in which the authoritative ways to accurately measure political opinion can be debated ad infinitum – at academic conferences, within



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journals and suchlike. There remains, of course, linkages and interdependencies between political scientists and politicians and, ultimately, populations themselves  – across first, second and third tiers. Yet, as we observed in 2016 with the failure of political scientists to predict the election of Donald Trump in America or Brexit in the UK, there can be times when the relative autonomy of the third tier leads to complete disconnection from the reality, just as oligarchs lost touch with the people before the French Revolution, and just as economists failed to see economic collapse coming in 2008. To use Bourdieusian language, there are times when experts ‘misrecognize’ the field. These crises can produce disorientations for all involved, as in the case of Brexit, in which the population wants the politicians to ‘fix it’  – meaning get a grip on the process – while at the same time ‘taking back control’ for them – meaning restoring the politicians’ connection and allegiance to the first tier. Meanwhile, political scientists on the third tier struggle to untangle the range of interdependencies that have grown between Britain and the EU for decades.1 At the same time, much of the populist criticism from the first tier involves a distrust of ‘experts’ in general, in other words, dissatisfaction with the entire third tier. We can connect this critique to the issues discussed in the previous chapter on establishment–outsider relations. For example, widening participation in higher education to historically excluded populations seems to contribute to alienation among older, white citizens who might not have needed a higher education when they entered employment. Further, if we recall the socialization processes noted in Chapter 6, we can see these folks would have been socialized differently and have different mechanisms of ‘self-control’, such as an awareness to not make racist jokes, for example. This creates the appearance of ‘uncivilized’ behaviour and perhaps even disgust among the younger, new middle classes who have been educated according to the norms and expectations of the ‘diversity bargain’. However, if these normative understandings and means of orientation – which may indeed be appropriate for a more diverse and globalized world – are familiar only within the second and third tiers, this produces an estrangement between the establishment and outsiders on the first tier. For this reason, the pre-Brexit campaigning of Nigel Farage, UKIP and Vote Leave had the appearance of being out-of-bounds, resulting in ‘no

The EU, in fact, is a larger-size ‘survival unit’ which has been integrated economically, somewhat politically and only partially culturally (Alikhani 2017). The EU, for one, does not monopolize taxation, which is why it does not function like a transnational state!

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platforming’ by university students at Cambridge and elsewhere. While this protected the purity of the sacred ‘civil’ binary within the establishment, it also seems to have contributed to ignorance among the establishment that the outsiders were more widespread than polling suggested:  the so-called ‘liberal bubble’. Communications via social media, face-to-face interactions, pubs and community events (which members of the globalized New Class interact with less and less due to professional pressures to travel and live within cities), which we would now call ‘fake news’ or ‘post-truth’, were easily dismissed as such at the time, reinforcing ignorance of the scale of discontent with the metropolitan establishment. Now, such ‘alt-news’ items are the object of a considerable body of research as the third tiers struggle to get a new grip on the social process which had shifted away from their orientations without their knowing it. These are not robust analyses but merely suggestive examples which could occupy an entire research project. The case of Brexit suggests, however, that there are relations between knowledge, politics and society that are characteristic of modern societies. In certain instances, knowledge can provide powerful actors with better ‘means of orientation’  – more detached forms of knowledge can give overviews of the field and provide moving averages and projections into the future to enable strategic action and planning. However, we have also seen that changes in these relations  – including, as in the above case, the gradual equalization and inclusion of more diverse populations both politically as well as culturally – can result in ignorance of other developments occurring elsewhere within the field. Elias’s game models do not necessarily give a master key with which we can unlock these hidden elements of the social process, nor an entirely accurate view of the overall process as such. The figurational approach does, however, encourage us to look beyond our own realm to consider the process from a range of views, including those across tiers other than the one we have been socialized and specialized into. In other words, a more detached view can encourage better, more reflexive knowledge – which ultimately can provide us with power in terms of better understanding of the overall game process. Further, such a detached view strips some of the normative content which is characteristic of more involved positions within these fields. This includes reflexivity over some of the normative assumptions we have adopted as members of the New Class of academics, professionals, teachers and so on. These have historically included commitment to the norms of ‘valueneutrality’, which supposedly produce better, more objective ‘science’ (Gouldner 1964). This might indeed contribute to some more realistic, empirical facts, but



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over-commitment to the value of having no values (!) could lead us to neglect the way this positivist ideology contributed to the authoritative – some might say authoritarian  – power of professions during the mid-twentieth century. More recently, one can find taken-for-granted assumptions that ‘diversity’ is an inherently good thing, which can lead to neglect of the other functions this ideology can serve in widening participation on behalf of more powerful interests and the educated classes, in general. In other words, by adopting a more detached view, attentive to multi-tiered, multiplayer games, we can see a range of aspects within a process that are not accessible from an involved, normatively committed position. Paradoxically then, detachment can enable us to be both more value-neutral and more inclusive!

4.  Using game models to analyse policy We have seen the way Elias’s formal game models can help us understand why the civilizing process progressed as it did, insofar as the oligarchic game was converted into the democratizing type during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We have also seen why this condition would encourage the expansion of a specialized function for knowledge and education – autonomous, but not entirely disconnected from the earlier social structures which managed to maintain order across hierarchical societies with only the aid of the church providing the ‘means of orientation’. As the overall social process became more complex and interdependent, the role of knowledge expanded, and by extension the necessity of obtaining an education increased almost exponentially. Not only must one integrate with the national communication system – being able to write, add, pay taxes and salute the flag  – one must now be familiar with computing, with specialized subject material at the A level; must be tolerant of a range of different cultures without presenting one’s own culture as better than any other; must empower women and LGBT colleagues; must reduce plastic globally to combat the Anthropocene (which we have collectively just become aware of within our social fund of knowledge) and so on. All of these rhetorics and behaviours become markers of a truly educated, shall we say, ‘civilized’ person. So, abstractly, we know a bit more about the broader processes at work at a macro- and perhaps micro-level if we assume students are generally being socialized within the image sketched above. In other words, using a Foucaultian approach, we might say the ‘subjects’ are being created out of these evolving discourses (see Chapter 11).

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The game models also provide a resource for unpacking more ‘meso-level’ interactions within changing power structures, such as those going on at a policy or institutional level (see Fine 2012 on ‘meso-level’ analysis). Dopson and Waddington (1996) provide a clear example applying figurational game model analysis to a ‘managed social change’ within the British National Health Service (NHS). In 1983, the Griffiths Report proposed a substantial reorganization of the management of the NHS, with the expressed goal of providing clear strategic direction, which would, in turn, steer budget and resource allocation, performance review and so on. As the authors note, however, whereas the goals and agendas of the report were clear,  to centralize control as well as create a competitive market below the level of ‘general management’, the implementation produced a range of unintended consequences. Applying Elias’s game model framework, the authors identify seven major unplanned outcomes resulting from the Griffiths Report: 1. Greater centralization of power, increased bureaucracy, proliferation of policy alongside shrinkage of resources resulting in less freedom for workers at the district level. 2. Increased confusion in terms of accountability – a single authority became an overlapping chain of several departments constraining general management decision-making, resulting in a shift away from public accountability and reduced involvement of nurses, unions and local groups. 3. District-level variation of management’s views on roles of leadership (themselves) and professionals, particularly, medical doctors, with managers drawing on prior (business or civil service) experience. 4. Decline in status and power of the nursing profession – many shifted to quality-assurance roles seen as ‘non-jobs’; reduced influence in shaping policy decisions. 5. Symbolic link between general management and Thatcherism and ‘cuts’ since these were concurrent. 6. Doctors became sceptical and did not flock to take up general management roles. 7. Quality improvements mainly took the form of improvements in ‘hotel services’ and accommodation in hospital rather than medical care as such. (Dopson and Waddington 1996: 528) What we can see is that a number of power groups, participating within a series of contests, produced shifts, which were then reacted to by other groups,



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who moved, rose, declined or reframed themselves in relation to the evolving system. Whereas the goal of the Griffiths Report was centralization and public accountability, the pre-existing structure of overlapping jurisdictions and links with other departments and authorities resulted in a complex web of authority and accountability that made management even more opaque than before. Similarly, the notion that marketization would produce efficiency seemed to result in drawing business managers into healthcare where their expertise did not adequately orient them to the fields they managed. This contributed to the dissatisfaction and non-cooperation of one of the major professional groups: medical doctors, who, it was assumed, would welcome the efficiencies, power and freedom that rationalization would provide (likely because the rationalization did not provide these things). We can also see the decline of nursing, already one of the less powerful groups within the game models. It was then further removed from decision-making during the course of the processual transformation. In the end, rather than improving healthcare and public accountability as promised, the transformation seems to have contributed to improvements in bed linens and otherwise fostered a considerable growth in bureaucratic complexity. What we can see in Dopson and Waddington’s analysis is that whereas the unplanned process was precisely that:  unintended and almost directionless from the point of view of the participants involved, from a more detached and historical review, we can very clearly see why these particular developments occurred insofar as power dynamics and power ratios shifted and changed as each group moved in relation to the other groups and in relation to the overall process. Indeed, the course of the unplanned process in hindsight appears rather straightforward and almost predictable. Of course, reviewing such outcomes after the fact is easier than stepping outside the process mid-flow, yet there are undoubtedly lessons to be learned regarding the possibility of such centralizing management overhauls succeeding. One can see alternative paths not chosen, such as involving nurses and doctors more within the construction of the policy as well as embedding structural positions from which these essential groups delivering healthcare ‘on the ground’ could be more involved in decision-making. One could also predict the manner in which multiple authorities overlapped without clear directives, suggesting that the mere claim to produce efficiency by wiping the slate clean, so to speak, might only produce temporary clarity of the way forward, which is ultimately illusory. Likely, to actually produce better policy would require more realistic recognition of the actual, complex power relationships that constitute

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the sector at present. Removal of these power relations would involve something more strategic and integrated – perhaps a more surgical, precise or trial-based transformation rather than the blanket overhauls characteristic of new public management. We can see similar dynamics with educational policy as the work of Stephen Ball and others has demonstrated. For example, contributors to The State and Education Policy (Gunter 2011) review the ‘contested educational reform’ initiated by the New Labour introduction of academy schools. Ostensibly, the goal of academies was to interrupt processes of disadvantage by intervening in failing schools. However, in reality, academization led to a range of negative consequences characteristic of privatization in general. While the Academies Programme is meant to be about education and equity it seems that it is a political project where the economically advantaged are sustained; while rapid reform is meant to be in the interest of children, they are actually the objects of reform rather than active participants and, while choice is meant to be at the heart of the new school, it seems that large numbers of people have been alienated. (Gunter 2011: 223)

Throughout the chapter contributions, a range of policy issues, local conflicts and leadership issues are discussed, while the ‘neoliberal’ agenda is contrasted against an alternative ‘civic’ vision for educational reform. The failure of academies is, thus, connected to the wider failure of the neoliberal project, which indeed failed to obtain the outcomes it sought to disrupt, namely the reproduction of educational inequality among the more disadvantaged. In addition to the insights by the critical educationalists, one can imagine an analysis similar to Dopson and Waddington on the NHS to see precisely why and how academies failed as they did due a range of unintended consequences. In other words, what the figurational approach provides in terms extending our understanding of the processual developments of educational policy is articulation and explanation of the mechanisms in between the broader, abstract discursive and political realms and the observed, unintended outcomes we can see from a critical point of view. After all, and this is something rarely acknowledged within critical scholarship on neoliberalism, in particular:  educational reformers, by and large, genuinely wish to accomplish the goals they set out to achieve. Yes, the illogic and irrationality of the neoliberal ideas, which are well established in critical academic literature, undoubtedly affect the biases and limitations of neoliberal subjects performatively reproducing the market. But, what if there is more going on



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beyond the intentionality of the reformers and subjects? What if there are particular ways in which neoliberal interventions in processes fail due to unforeseen consequences of which the neoliberals are oblivious to? This might tell us something about better ways of reforming the sector, giving us clues as to what a more critically robust and realistic policy might look like.

9

Monopoly Mechanisms in Higher Education: Disciplinarity and Curriculum

Elias has provided us with a range of useful concepts, connected to his broader perspective on the civilizing process and its role in the emergence of modern societies. These include the notion of game models and tiers, in which we suggested in the last chapter that academic knowledge can be interpreted as being situated upon a ‘third tier’. This tier is related to the political and popular levels but differentiated and with its own rules, practices and configurations. We will now turn to analysis of this tier, retaining awareness of Elias’s other ideas relating to establishment–outsider relations, social funds of knowledge and, importantly, ‘monopoly mechanisms’. We can begin by noting Elias did write about this topic, though coming at the question from the perspective of science and technology studies rather than education as such. In 1980, a conference was organized in Oxford around responses to a theme paper Elias circulated among contributors, the proceedings of which were published as Scientific Establishments and Hierarchies (Elias, Martins and Whitley 1982). In his prompt, Elias noted that scientific establishments are hierarchical like many institutions  – the military, state, business and so on  – and, yet, they have many distinct features, particularly in terms of the relations horizontally among professors, whom Elias terms ‘the ruling class’, and vertically among junior members of staff, who, in one direction, are waiting in the wings to become professors, or in another, might be innovating to displace older generations. There is an innovation logic at work, which is ostensibly the justification behind the unusual organization of academic hierarchies within and across institutions. But, of course, when we begin looking at a scientific establishment transcending the boundaries of a single university, or even national sector, we see these are organized disciplinarily. Differentiated disciplines separate knowledge out, with the idea that this division across arts, sciences, philosophy,

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history, language, medicine and so on will offer for more in-depth research within each discipline. Elias, however, then entered an extended critique of the emergence and development of philosophy since the early modern era, noting its particularly weak understanding of ‘time’, which led to metaphysical abstractions. The case provided demonstration that there is no guarantee that clearly differentiated disciplines produce better knowledge – indeed, they may produce systematic misrecognitions of reality. Elias noted that academic departments are organized in the same way, and while lip-service is paid to the idea that each field could be integrated, if necessary, across particular dimensions of reality, there is often little effective commitment to true interdisciplinarity. If the division of academic fields was as logical as is assumed by institutional structures, it would be far easier to collaborate to solve social, environmental and technological problems. Rather, while each faces and is related to some version of ‘reality’ , the actual constitution of each field of study is, in fact, as much the result of contingent historical power struggles between disciplines and non-academic/non-scientific powers. Elias compares each discipline to a state. Some rank higher than others and are closer to the establishment, and each has different values and ideologies. As we know from the involvement/detachment spectrum many of these values can considerably determine what knowledge each discipline approaches its objects of study. Thus, organized knowledge systems are always partially related to ‘reality’ and partly related to wider historical dynamics.

1.  Disciplines as states This analogy between disciplines and states is similar to one developed recently by George Steinmetz, who asked, ‘Can one compare zones of contact among heterogeneous formations of knowledge to the relations among states in the world system?’ (Steinmetz 2007:  56). Some interactions across borders are essentially imperial in nature. Others are more like the relational structure of the Roman Empire with a central core and many satellites. Steinmetz ultimately advocates for a ‘transdisciplinarity’ characteristic of post-imperial decline in which borders are transgressed and resynthesized without the domination characteristic of imperial/subaltern relations. Like Steinmetz, Elias alerted us to the issue of structural and relational power, that variations might produce different relations and forms of interdisciplinarity and, thus, knowledge. Again, these are all processing through a figurational flow



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consisting not just of scientists but also of the ‘social fund of knowledge’, at both a ‘global’ system level and at the level of each individual specialized discipline. Elias further reminded us that such power  – the control of ‘knowledge’  – ultimately amounts to gaining control of the ‘means of orientation’ as the medieval Church sustained and as science has accomplished in modern times. This is achieved by a range of disciplines through various monopoly mechanisms which guard, transmit and develop these differentiated means of orientation. This collective knowledge provides genuine power by gaining overviews of social, natural and technological processes as noted in the previous chapter on game models: knowing the landscape well can enable more effective action and intervention in these processes, whether engineering a bridge properly or delivering foreign aid more effectively. Interestingly, another metaphor Elias uses in his essay on scientific establishments is that of the ‘prison’, specifically, a self-imposed prison in which one masters one’s field of knowledge and can orient oneself within this but without necessarily impacting or engaging other disciplines or the world beyond this reality constructed within. We might also note that he traced the roots of these monopoly mechanisms within the field of knowledge to violent origins: the Crusades, in which, thereafter, ‘Truth’ was carefully guarded through persuasion, fire and sword. Only when the Renaissance and Reformation began to break apart the original monopoly held by the Catholic Church could a more scientific relationship to knowledge take hold within the cracks. As we shall see in this chapter and the next, this transition depended not only on new ways of knowing, or orienting towards nature and society. The change involved displacement of existing professionals – clergy, especially – with academics and other university-educated professions. Accordingly, we will explore the role of the modern university since the nineteenth century in setting the trajectory of knowledge running alongside the processes we are familiar with, namely, capitalism, democratization and the civilizing process, among others.

2.  Science in the university Elias noted that the rise of a professional class of scientists dramatically changed the structure of knowledge beginning in the nineteenth century, particularly as this class institutionalized themselves within universities. The curriculum changed from having a religious orientation to a scientific one  – or did it? Recall Elias’s analysis of the civilizing process in which the rising bourgeoisie

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sought to overthrow the useless aristocracy as they tried to gain control over the monopoly of taxation. This was the goal, but the reality was a relational struggle over several centuries and generations, in which, on the one hand, the old regime retained and left its imprint on society and politics, and, on the other hand, influenced the ultimate trajectory of the bourgeoisie, who developed their own values, habits and orientations as either an imitation of or reaction against the old regime. The same can be said about the rise of science in the universities. Whereas past historical sociologists of universities have suggested the movement was driven by and for natural scientists (Ben-David 1971), a figurational analysis would highlight the reactions by humanists and clergy to the scientific threat – as in the Oxford movement in Britain (Brock and Curthoys 1997) or the Romantic nationalism in Germany (Lybeck 2018). Thus, following the logic of game models explored in the last chapter, we might observe an outcome that appears to benefit scientists: the rise of science and technology in society – yet, this might have been an unplanned result of a range of competitive dialectical and non-dialectical changes across a long-term social process. Indeed, as cited in Chapter 6, Parsons noted that the values of the scientist enter society through the professional classes, through cultural rationalization and not mere ‘faith’ in science or not science. This observation may seem straightforward but will shift considerably our orientation to the role of discourse and knowledge within the particular configurations we find ourselves in.

3.  Decolonizing the curriculum Among the most critical challenges to universities today comes from a postcolonial perspective in which academic knowledge is criticized as being Eurocentric and, thus, developed in the interest of the dominant groups of metropolitan, white men (Bhambra, Gebrial and Nişancıoğlu 2018). Nothing about this observation would be disputed from Elias’s point of view, in which he argued that the notions of what civilization consisted of were turned into stage models and then used to justify violent imperialism around the world. In education, these processes allowed colonial students to enter the system provided they assimilated into the dominant culture of the ‘civilized’. Indeed, Elias even recognized the hybridity and interaction between groups – recalling that, in his game models, there is never any scenario in which one player or group has total control, thus allowing for the ‘agency’ of the subaltern to be



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recognized as well as attuning us to the ‘connected histories’ identified by Bhambra (2010) and others (Go 2012). That said, we might draw on Elias’s insights in the sociology of knowledge to reconsider and reapproach the challenges of making more inclusive, decolonial forms of disciplinary structures beginning with recognition that there is no single ‘The Curriculum’. Rather, we have a range of scientific establishments operating on the ‘third tier’ discussed in the previous chapter. Each of these has been affected by the political, cultural and educational structures that emerged during the colonial and imperial eras. And, yet each was also developed out of interactions among local figures competing for resources at the level of the college or department levels (Camic 1989; Camic and Gross 2004). These are not mutually exclusive developments. Neither is it necessarily the case that these divisions and bifurcations are completely arbitrary; rather, they are related to certain aspects of objective reality which are captured differently, for different purposes by different disciplines. We might reconsider this question, therefore in terms of Elias’s notions of object-oriented knowledge versus subject-oriented knowledge, that is, a spectrum of ‘involvement’ and ‘detachment’. While recognizing the establishment–outsider relations and monopoly mechanisms at work, we can retrace a processual history of the interdisciplinary fields that have worked on topic areas critiqued by postcolonial and critical race scholars (and, beyond, in gender studies, queer studies and so on, which have similar relationships to more dominant, hegemonic disciplines). For a variety of reasons, the natural sciences have advantages over the humanities in the forms of evaluation prevalent in universities today, which would rate knowledge in terms of its objective practical effects. According to Abbott (2001a: 140), the humanities are not organized around similar sorts of objects, whereas the natural sciences do have aligned ‘axes of cohesion’ insofar as the levels of analysis between physics, chemistry, organic chemistry, up to, say, experimental psychology reflect hierarchical ontological levels of material reality (Abbott 2001a: 140; see also Bhaskar 2008; Elias 1991b). Interdisciplinary research between physicists and geologists address different analytic levels of the same objects. Disciplines which remain more object-oriented are more likely to produce ‘useful’ technologies and synthetic forms of knowledge. In contrast, fields which are more ‘subject-oriented’ or involved in political and normative struggles tend to recapitulate the fragmented structure of the university as a whole (Holmwood 2010). By emphasizing ‘critical’, ‘open’, ‘engaged’, ‘political’ forms of knowledge, without as much concern for whether

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the same objects are being studied within and across fields and subfields, these forms of scholarship tend to avoid synthesis and do not succeed in accumulating knowledge (as a social fund) as rapidly relative to the natural sciences. In such an environment, these fields sometimes adopt positions resembling the prison analogy noted above, in which discussions occur within but do not translate beyond disciplinary boundaries. There are a range of historical reasons why these ‘problem-oriented’ groups were established as such (Rojas 2007). Many universities wished to avoid confrontation with disciplines and established, for example, African American studies separately from disciplines for this reason. It is, thus, by no means my intention to suggest the following critique is somehow the ‘fault’ of these interdisciplines. Institutionally, though, each interdiscipline is organized around a different problem, each of which is a different object. Unlike in the natural sciences – where multi-perspectival engagement with problems produces synthetic knowledge about a given object, which, in turn, results in technical innovation (in other words, use), which, in turn, reaffirms the value of multiple disciplinary knowledges – within humanistic interdisciplinarity, multiple disciplinary actors converge to elaborate critique of a single dimension of society and culture. Interdisciplinary humanistic scholarship is, thus, oriented towards objects which encourage solidification of the subjective boundaries of that which is deemed socially and culturally important. For women’s studies, this implies patriarchy; for African American studies, this implies racism; for LGBTQ studies, this implies heteronormativity. But how are these critical insights translated into professional practice? Beyond the socialization of students, this amounts to academics’ re-engagement with their disciplinary fields of origin:  sociology, history, English, political science, psychology and so on. On the one hand, these disciplines are inevitably deemed ‘inadequate’ in their engagement with the dimension at hand, and, hence, in need of substantial revision. Often, this involves some reconfiguration of the ‘canon’ to be more inclusive and representative. On the other hand, multiple re-engagements from several interdisciplines at once results in competition among each interest group to determine which dimension is, in fact, most important: race, class, gender, sexuality, disability and so on. In general, each body of disciplinary critics avoids full dismissal of its competitors; in other words, rarely does the LGBTQ scholar deny the problem of white supremacy or capitalism. Rather, each agrees to recognize the ‘intersectionality’ of these various forms of domination (Mitchell, Simmons and Greyerbiehl 2014), in effect, retaining pluralism by avoiding the objective



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question:  Which is more damaging in America today, white supremacy or patriarchy? The result of these re-engagements within a problem-portable discipline, like sociology, is consolidation around the common denominator, namely, the disciplinary silo which is the mutual object of each interdiscipline’s critique. The discipline, and by extension academia, in general, becomes defined as ‘heteronormative’, ‘patriarchal’, ‘white supremacist’, ‘Eurocentric’, ‘masculine’, ‘ableist’ and so on. Indeed, it becomes all of these things at once. This not only sidesteps the question of which form of domination is most salient within a particular historical context but further justifies why it is essential that interdisciplinarity persist insofar as disciplines appear to be the bastions of middle-class white men. Further, the primary function of these disciplines comes to be defined as the reinforcement of this dominant groups’ ideology rather than as an object-oriented body of scholarship. Thus, the greater penetration and reintegration of interdisciplinary critique within the established disciplines results in delegitimization of these very disciplines and their intellectual authority within a field of professions and power. This is not because the critiques are too penetrating or harsh but, rather, because they, often implicitly, deny the possibility these disciplines could be, or have been, anything more than the subjective biases of dominant white men. Elias’s analysis of Marx and the so-called vulgar sociologization of knowledge levelled against him comes in handy at this point. First, we can use the tools of these critical theories to determine which are the subjective or involved elements of a given thinker’s thought, those that were problematic in their day and those which contain elements of truth or usefulness from a more object-oriented and detached point of view. As in his criticism of Marcuse, we can agree with Elias that, just as it is unlikely that society is all bad or all good, it is doubtful that any one thinker can be entirely dismissed due to their social background, just as we should not blindly accept their positions based on their authority, family or even educational history – if, say, they studied under a famous professor, for example. Ultimately, even though knowledge will be inevitably infected and shaped by its unpleasant and often violent histories, it would be foolish, and likely impossible, to abandon all hitherto existing knowledge. Certainly, the present division of university disciplines into a range of differentiated fields would make this possibility unlikely, due to the uneven progress of this scale of change. We could further understand the impulse to decolonize the curriculum, however, as a form of representation on the third tier. In the previous chapter we discussed the ways in which knowledge of society became a new means of

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orienting towards power, both political representation on the second tier and the populace on the first tier. We might also track the efforts to be more inclusive in education, particularly through mechanisms of widening participation as discussed in Chapter 7. But, from a more detached view, we should also recognize that this change may be a means through which the elite and professional classes become more diverse themselves, doing little to adjust the lingering inequalities on the first and second tiers. Further, we must acknowledge that due to pressures of intellectual attention space (Collins 1998), teaching schedules and simply time and mental energy, there will always be a zero-sum logic to such projects. To add one figure into the curriculum or canon likely means removing another. This may be a good move to make, but it should be considered not just from the vantage of which type of person we want to see in our canons. How does such inclusion or exclusion change the social fund of knowledge in directions we want? Indeed, as the decolonizing and related agendas are so good at reminding us, we must ask ourselves, ‘Who is “we”?’

4.  Still a monopoly on knowledge The efforts by critical scholars across a range of fields has widened our understandings of a range of inequalities, identities and injustices. However, adopting a more detached view, can we assess whether this is improving the cultural and political dynamics of the present? As scholars move further into their problem areas, the public seems to be moving further and further to the right. As professionals and universities become more and more inclusive of a range of hitherto discriminated against groups, resentment builds among those who feel themselves left out this progressive narrative: the former establishment feels themselves to be outsiders. Adopting an Eliasian approach to the sociology of education provides an opportunity to see this from the outside, or at least in relation to other macrosociological factors developing concurrently. Specifically, we can see the ways in which universities, disciplines and modern forms of knowledge, especially science, emerged due to contingent but reinforcing processes. This has positioned the new middle classes identified by Gouldner very well, classes Elias might have tracked as having lineages from the noblesse de robe in France: experts advising rulers on how best to manage their monopolies of violence and taxation.



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But, in this instance, we can interpret the gradual rise in the New Class of professionals, academics, consultants, engineers, tech workers and so on as knowledge workers, who capitalize and act powerfully by drawing on credentials from university. Thus, academics are situated within a particular and special place within the academic profession insofar as we monopolize the (valid) means of orientation. Regardless of what dispute we might have within and across disciplines about what truth is or is not, compared to others beyond the walls of the academy, professional associations and related boundary-making bodies, we get to decide what is ‘objectively’ true versus ‘subjectively’ true. What this recognition provides is a way in which we can interpret not just university education, but education, in general  – feeding up, ultimately into the academy and the professions beyond – as a means of restricting access to participation in an elite or a restricted sphere. Paradoxically, the expansion of students without expansion of professional careers or mitigation of the institutional hierarchies that pervade higher education has resulted in even more bifurcated cultural, social and economic patterns, in which those who do not make it into university can be substantially left behind. These become the poor ‘barbarians’ noted in Chapter  7  – framed in terms of their deficits and incorrect evaluations of issues like immigration, economics or, indeed, climate change. We need to then doubly reflect on the way we are then seen from this other vantage point  – from what it must look like on the ‘outside’  – wherein an increasingly diverse elite gains access to powerful knowledge moving on to powerful positions. In which certain discourses and assumptions are taken for granted (because we delve deep into our specialist and arcane topic areas), and yet the work and knowledge produced seems to have little relevance to the problems ‘ordinary folks’ are facing. On the first tier, it can begin to feel as though one is not represented within either politics on the second tier or what is consider objective knowledge on the third tier. If we consider what the reaction was to this feeling of a lack of representation in the era prior to the French Revolution, we should become increasingly aware of what the possibilities are: there is no guarantee that the public or politicians will support our third tier of autonomous, innovative knowledge if it fails to represent itself as working on behalf of everyone. One might say, this is precisely the point: a diversity of backgrounds rather than a monoculture of white, middle-class men, as was the case in the bourgeois era until the 1960s and 1970s, is a good thing. However, here we are still trading

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on discrete identities whose representation is foregrounded, rather than core ideas, which might transcend those boundaries. Perhaps, we might reconsider Steinmetz’s suggestion that we act like travellers criss-crossing borders to develop transdisciplinary knowledge, learning how to orient to a range of problems from a range of perspectives. Perhaps we might consider doing this through multiple identities, including those who now feel ‘left-behind’  – undoubtedly their feelings of being now an outsider can be related to the scores of groups who, objectively, not subjectively, were excluded from participation in social life and education. And, again, we should think of such forms of inclusion as related to the overall social fund of knowledge, not just what adds to our own field and our own minds. If we are decolonizing the curriculum, how do we then reconstruct it again together? Will this be a project just for those of us working on the ‘third tier’ of academia? Or will we re-engage with actors and populations on all levels to move society in more progressive, intentional and humane directions?

10

The Globalization of Education

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, much social scientific discussion has revolved around the impact of globalization on advanced and developing nations. The original debate within social science surrounded three camps, known as ‘hyperglobalists’, ‘skeptics’ and ‘transformationalist’ (Held et al. 1999). The first group argued globalization was entirely new, so that all bets were off and history was bunk. A famous version of this idea was expressed by Francis Fukuyama (1992) who declared ‘the end of history’. The sceptics were rooted in the neoMarxist tradition that saw continuities between the evolution of globalization and the long-standing trend of capitalism. These critics saw nothing new under the sun. The last group, soon represented by the majority of social scientists it seems, took a middle path between those suggesting global processes were neither entirely new nor predictable and typical of modern history hitherto. Though he did not comment on the globalization debate in the modern sense, there is little doubt Elias would have been a transformationalist. Indeed, his processual approach to long-term social change was designed precisely to determine which elements of a social figuration were ‘new’ and which were characteristic of process universals. We can therefore apply some of the concepts and analytic approaches noted in previous chapters to the globalization of education. In doing so, we can further connect insights within education and social scientific studies tracking the influence and impact of education and educated professionals to position education at the centre of our understanding of modern, globalizing societies.

1.  Globalization, marketization and world society In the field of education studies, one of the effective applications of globalization analysis is the understanding of ways in which globalization and marketization

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go hand in hand. Brown and Lauder (1996), for example, connect the open competition unleashed by globalization with the ‘left modernization’ of education, typical of the ‘third way’ in the UK, America, Australia and beyond. The authors note, The increasing importance attached to education in the global economy is not misplaced in the sense that nations will increasingly have to define the wealth of nations in terms of the quality of human resources among the population. The creation of a post-Fordist economy will depend upon an active state involved in investment, regulation and strategic planning in the economic infrastructure alongside a commitment to skill formation through education and training. (Brown and Lauder 1996: 22)

Thus, competition within the global economy reinforces the need to produce ‘knowledge workers’ such that we increasingly hear more and more about the ‘knowledge economy’ and somewhat less about globalization, compared to, say, the 1990s. This context remains a background assumption, however. Workers, particularly knowledge workers, must be educated in order for them as individuals, and by extension the entire national economy, to compete on the global marketplace. This makes education, and particularly higher and professional education more and more important for national governments. We can see the way this manifests itself in global rankings of which universities are the ‘top’ in x, y or z metric, or simply overall (Lim 2017). Universities increasingly evaluate themselves according to perceived competitors overseas rather than nationally  – and graduates rely on high reputations from their institutions to obtain high-paying, high-status jobs. As we will discuss in the next chapter, Bourdieu (1986) explained this as a form of ‘institutionalised capital’, in which through more or less magical processes, the status of the institution gets conferred on the graduate, thereby positioning them on the global stage. Thinking about the tiers discussed in Chapter  8, we might begin to think of the global tier as others have begun to think about a ‘global field’ or ‘world society’, which is beyond the limits of (and yet dependent upon) national states (Go 2008; Meyer et  al. 1997). And, we might further note that not everyone participates at the level, which is ‘supervenient’ upon existing national political, cultural and economic organization. Still, as Meyer and others in the world society tradition have argued, this nonetheless imposes a certain similarity upon nation states, such that they and other organizations begin to resemble one another precisely because of these globalizing processes. The technical term



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for this is ‘institutional isomorphism’ as articulated by the ‘new institutionalists’ (Dimaggio and Powell 1983). In an interesting criticism of the world society point of view, Michael Mann – an otherwise quite ‘processual’ historical sociologist of long-term trends  – suggested that the new institutionalist scholars had an interesting thesis:  that the ideal forms produced through comparison within and across fields produces homology across the world and, indeed, the recognizable discursive category of the ‘world’, ‘globe’, ‘global’ and so on; but Mann suggests they do not explain where these ideas come from (Mann 2012: 7). Yet, in several articles and books, Meyer particularly credits the expansion of mass education as being the driving source of this homology across the global (Frank and Meyer 2007; Meyer 1977, 1999; Meyer et al. 2007). The huge expansions in the university’s student enrollments and academic contents do not principally reflect a rise in society’s operational complexity. Rather, they exhibit the intensifying interpenetration of the global and universal with the local and particular. The Modern globalized knowledge system increasingly extends into the furthest reaches of daily life, spreading universalized understandings of all aspects of nature and every social institution worldwide. At the same time, a great many young locals are now seen to be capable and fit for university studies, and these persons, in becoming schooled, exchange the distinguishing marks of locale for the discipline of universalized global life. In the university, in short, the local particularities both of that which is known and those who know are increasingly reconstituted in global and universal terms. (Frank and Meyer 2007: 289)

Thus, just as Gouldner identified the university as the centre of a broader educational system in which the culture of critical discourse was institutionalized and socialized, here Meyer and his colleagues are suggesting that it is through schools and universities that the global dimension and global identities are developed. The result is that for individuals who have gone through this process, a more cosmopolitan worldview develops, one that is more detached from the particularities of place and more integrated with broader, more diverse, more global cultures (Inglis and Delanty 2011). Still, we might follow Calhoun (2002) in recalling that successful navigation of this socialization regime is done by particular classes of students  – either middle class before education or middle class after education, or both. Elias would similarly flag that this is a particular figuration of a range of cohorts, who are competing with one another and yet motivated towards various

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competitive dynamics – particularly those relating to monopoly mechanisms, establishment–outsider relations, game models and so forth. Insofar as these students obtain awareness of the way these fields work, such that, as individuals they can make their way in life, they begin to operate on new tiers, second or third or multiple. It can become very easy to forget about those other parts of the population who are not operating on such a level and to feel as though the solution their problems must be rooted in their lack of education – the so-called deficit identified by de Swaan and others. This may or may not be the case  – that is, whether powerless people identified as being ‘ignorant’ should become less ignorant – but, as Luhmann (1998) noted, there is plenty ignorance occurring within the complex systems and environments of the knowledge economy. After all, these are precisely the dimensions of ‘risk’ that increasingly concern major, global corporations, states and scientific establishments. While ‘risk society’ theorists including Beck (1992) highlight the ‘recursive’ and ‘reflexive’ nature of these risks – in which humans are forced to mitigate against damage caused by our own activities – it is less often the case that such analysis names the social cohort responsible for producing and mitigating these potential damages: namely, the new middle classes. Again, Meyer is not so neglectful, and quite explicitly positions ‘schooled individuals’ as being the ultimate source of ‘cultural rationalisation’ (Bromley and Meyer 2015; Meyer and Bromley 2013). With Patricia Bromley, Meyer notes that the unprecedented expansion of higher education has produced discourses of ‘scientization’ and human rights and empowerment discourses (Meyer 1977; Meyer et  al. 2007). This amounts to an overall increase in organization, in general, and occurs when the individualized professionals  – ‘schooled individuals’  – enter organizations and try to rationalize them according to model expectations they have been given during the course of their studies. This changes the nature of organizations which begin to adopt new features, including increased ‘professionalization’ – that is, the increase of managerial authority around abstract ideas and accounting procedures; also, law-like arrangements begin to emerge, where managers and employees want to see predictable behaviour, they look for this order, exclude contingency and add more and more internal regulation to ensure organizations do function according to law-like expectations. Interestingly, Meyer and Bromley do not see the increased participation of schooled individuals in organizations as resulting in actual rationalization  – they only note that the widespread cultural rationalization of the post-war



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and globalizing era encourages greater interpenetration of scientization and empowerment discourses. Indeed, what the authors observe is increased disorder and non-rational processes unleashed by the multiple instrumentalities at work that schooled individuals are not trained to expect or deal with. This results in and reinforces the projection of a ‘bounded autonomy’ around organizations, in which the particular organization is assumed to occupy a stable position vis-à-vis its external environment, despite the multiple interpenetrations of a range of external forces constantly transforming, challenging and bifurcating the internal logics within. Thus, in a way, schooled individuals project their own self-conceptions on the organization as a whole. This involves a projection of sovereignty and decision-making often onto the ‘leadership’ of the organization, regardless of how unconstrained such figures actually are within increasingly complex webs of relations.

2.  Figurational interpretations and thinking of schools as organizations Connections can be made between Elias’s historical sociology and Meyer and Bromley’s analysis of the increasing role of ‘organization’ and ‘cultural rationalization’ in today’s society – carried by ‘schooled individuals’. In particular, the analysis of unplanned processes, the outcomes of various game models and transitions between different power actors trying to move in relation to others internally and externally can be drawn into studies considering the non-rational organization of organizations. Indeed, we might consider whether the neglect of such processes within the minds of schooled individuals indicates that many have become oblivious to the fields and organizations they are expected to work within. And yet, because these professionals have been socialized, not only within tertiary and professional education, but indeed back since secondary and even primary school, to see the world in these orderly ways, we can understand the way an older form of social control has become embodied as self-control. We can see that the dual understandings of autonomy as rooted in scientization (accounting, law-like arrangements) and human rights and empowerment (diversity, equalization of genders, inclusion) as being a kind of two-stage socialization regime on top of one another within the social process. What do we mean here? Think about Elias’s processual approach as well as Durkheim’s example discussed in Chapter 3: different generations are schooled

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in relation to the way society is/was/wants to be at a given point in history. In the post-war era, we can think of the positivism of the 1950s and 1960s, which thought rationality and science could lead us towards predictable, cumulative social progress. Then, this was challenged by the following generation, who highlighted the populations left out – women, minorities, gay and lesbian folk, and so on – highlighting that the former paradigm left little room for the agency or expressive side of individuals. The contemporary dual model of cultural rationalization appears to be an incoherent synthesis of the two – indicative of the bifurcation processes identified by Meyer and Bromley: ‘An assembly line cannot usefully, by external fiat, be forced to split in the middle. But a human resource requirement can, and it is easy for structuration to mean that a person is subject to one set of rights from one authority and radically different ones from another’ (Meyer and Bromley 2013:  381). Thus, it is perfectly plausible that within modern organizations there are rationalistic sections disciplining, surveilling and punishing according to the logic of an accountant. And, in other departments, we see well-being, advice on self-caring and empowerment for women employees to become ‘leaders’, for example. Thus, one hand of the organization might lift workers up, while the other hand removes and subverts progress. The individual socialization and knowledge of the participants in each subfield can inform one’s relationship to such actions, policies and practices. Indeed, as Elias’s insights can explain – the prior socialization into differentiated fields of knowledge can produce different means of orientation to the same problems. But only if we can see these differences from a detached point of view – from the overall vantage of the organization as a whole or, indeed, the entire global process towards cultural rationalization encouraged by the mass expansion of education  – can we see why certain behaviours, policies and practices are ascending, descending and/or synthesizing with one another within and beyond a particular organization. This is worth considering, therefore, for researchers interested in the effects of education on societies, particularly within globalizing societies. However, equally we must consider these processes as influencing schools themselves, insofar as these are organizations. We can thus begin to understand auditing mechanisms such as those imposed by OFSTED and other ratings agencies, governmental and non-governmental, which seek to gain control of teaching and learning by measuring it. Again, these agents are seeking law-like arrangements, in which X causes Y regardless of whether such a law-like pattern is actually characteristic of the activity being measured.



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Similarly, we can observe many empowerment agendas being institutionalized  – ironically, often through measurement and data-driven programmes as well  – such as within the Athena Swan accreditation process within UK higher education measuring universities’ improvements towards gender equality. Indeed, we increasingly find governments using this form of bounded autonomy compelled by measurement as a mechanism of governance, as in the Research Excellence Framework or Teaching Excellence Framework, also in the UK. By setting the targets and criteria through which an organization will be measured  – in which the measured outcome on a league table then determines funding levels  – the government can compel behaviour without mandating the means through which the ends are obtained. Indeed, individual academics in this case, and teachers in other instances of government creation of competitive target-driven performance, can point to a range of irrationalities, perverse incentives and wasted resources (especially time) that results from these processes. And yet we do them anyway. This is ultimately a space in which Elias’s insights, not only in terms of the particular concepts but also in terms of his overall understanding of court society and civilizing processes as a whole, can be so useful. For, recall his analysis of the courtiers who might not want to participate in the elaborate rituals of consumption, style and supplication before the monarch. They could not do so, for to reveal the absurdity of the rituals would mean certain expulsion from the court and, further, would undermine the very principles upon which one’s status and power rested. Now replace the courtier with the professional and managerial classes implementing rather absurd forms of measurement, auditing and data collection – often in full awareness of the inadequacies of these measures, and even sometimes aware of the perverse outcomes, intended and unintended. What would happen if a professional declared these absurd and refused to participate? They would lose their job and be replaced. The figuration goes on, like a dance, regardless of the individual’s behaviour – the process has a life of its own. And, yet we are schooled in accordance with assumptions of insitutionalized individualism: we are taught that we are autonomous, empowered subjects who are free to think and do and say what we want. That we can be who we want to be. And yet, of course, this is objectively untrue. We might become more aware of who social figurations work and gain power and insights facilitating our move-making in an increasingly complex game. But there is no scenario in which our actions are not related to others and are not constrained by power relations within institutions and organizations that are not also constrained.

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This might be where the image of the heroic CEO or head teacher or vice chancellor comes from – just as the idea and identity of the absolute monarch allowed the irrational system of the court to function in a highly orderly, predictable way (until the French Revolution cut off their heads!). For these individuals appear to be unrestrained by internal power relations; they seem to represent, channel and transcend the constraints imposed upon them. Yet, in many ways, although powerful vis-à-vis their staff, many of these leaders are entirely constrained by the dynamics of the wider field – by the expectations of their competitor institutions around the world. Especially as rankings establish narrow fields of action (again through auditing and counting practices), institutions and their leaders have little space to innovate beyond a relatively conservative, predictable field of action. This is, thus, precisely the same as the dynamics at work within the early modern era during which centripetal forces encouraged the homology of states that were externally belligerent and internally pacified. Those that did not conform were selected out – by being conquered and thus pacified (becoming internal to the nation or empire). We can see similar dynamics at the level of the global field of higher education:  universities are competitive with one another and expect ever greater levels of compliance within. Any suggestion in which alternative practices might be possible are discouraged, producing a very conservative pattern of behaviour by academics, which is then socialized further into students, especially graduate students seeking to enter the academic profession. Through these arrangements, these patterns of social control become embodied as self-control and are then fed into the psychic, bodily and social figurations of the expanding number of schooled individuals that are quite literally colonizing the world. Whether running a non-governmental agency delivering clean water in Sudan, or a church and homeless shelter, or a multiacademy trust managing underperforming schools in East London, we can see the same professional classes shaping all these types of organizations in the same directions. And yet, as we have seen in recent political events, there is a large range of populations who are dissatisfied with this form of rule. For these practices are rarely as empowering as they claim – with organizations taking with their right hand what they gave with their left. These interventions are developed on a third tier in which entry to decision-making and the competitive game requires years of advanced study. These games become so complex it can be difficult to recall any relation between the other levels, and thus criticism is framed in terms



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of representativeness:  we need the professional classes to ‘look’ more like the other tiers (public and politics), regardless of whether this actually improves the functions of state, economy, culture or society. Finally, we might therefore suggest that we need Elias’s method of seeing these trends from a ‘detached’ perspective more than ever. For we have been socialized and remain embedded within these environments. We must see this from the outside as the result of a long-term trend that began to emerge especially within the nineteenth century when certain classes  – metropolitan, middle-classes  – began to introduce mass education as a means of integrating society in the same communication system. We do not need to demonize this process in full, but neither should we view the expansion of education as a necessarily positive development insofar as, within this configuration, we leave many members of the population out, suggesting they are deficient, thereby justifying the unequal political power which is characteristic of the national societies that emerged after the bourgeois classes seized control of the monopoly of taxation from the old regime. One might say, the process is unfinished, incomplete, but this too might be disingenuous. For within a truly processual sociology of education, there is no beginning and no end. And, in the case of knowledge, we can recall that knowledge remains a central source of power as a ‘means of orientation’. If our goal is empowerment, we must continue to extend knowledge – provided that we are fully aware of our own biases, blind spots and ignorance produced through too much involvement in the globalizing processes we are living within and creating day by day.

Part Three

Norbert Elias in Dialogue

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Why Elias? Figurational Sociology of Education in Dialogue with Bourdieu and Foucault

Sociologists of education are no doubt familiar with the work of Pierre Bourdieu and are most likely familiar with Michel Foucault and the poststructuralist perspective on educational discourse. The same cannot be said of Norbert Elias, understandably since he did not develop a concise view on education within his wider sociological project. This book has sought to remedy this neglect by consolidating in one place an introduction to his work overall, which points to certain topic areas where his concepts would lend new perspectives to past and future educational research. We are now in a position to relate this nascent figurational sociology of education to the more familiar theories of Bourdieu and Foucault, particularly with an emphasis on the former. This discussion should aid those sociologists of education interested in applying Elias either instead of, or more likely, in addition to these well-known approaches. We shall see that there are several places in which Elias’s work is entirely compatible with the central thrusts of Bourdieu’s and Foucault’s work, as part of a broader relational approach to the sociology of education. Yet in particular areas, we will argue that Elias can help transcend certain limitations with the more familiar theorists’ frameworks, including particularly the problems of the ‘cultural arbitrary’, subjectification and the need for more historical specificity in understanding the unplanned outcomes of long-term social processes.

1.  A unified relational theory of education? The good news for researchers interested in combining Elias and Bourdieu and/ or Foucault is that scholars have already done much of the work at a general

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theory level for us. Árpád Szakolczai, for example, developed a general view of what he call ‘reflexive historical sociology’ which see Elias, Foucault and others including Max Weber and Lewis Mumford as part of a broader tradition interested in the historical development of knowledge and society (Szakolczai 1998, 2000). Other social theorists have integrated Elias into a broader social theory that transcends the binaries between ‘modernist’ and ‘postmodernist’ social theorizing (Mouzelis 2008). In my own work, co-editing a volume on ‘sociological amnesia’ with Alexander Law, we put all three social theorists together into a single ‘figurational’ approach to the sociology of sociological knowledge that was attentive to (a) the overall trajectory of the discipline, (b)  the internal elements and relations between theories and statements, and (c) the canonization projects during and after an individual scholar’s career (Law and Lybeck 2015: 7). This enabled us to connect both sociological and institutional processes with individual biographies and ideas. As we summarized the approach: Here we are interested in the entry of individuals into the disciplinary field at a certain stage in its institutional development. Specific dates and geographical locations are established in relation to the epistemological structure of the discipline at that time and place. We must further evaluate the relationship of individual ‘habitus’ to the content of theories and the trajectory of the disciplinary field, past, present and future. Finally, institutional support, including material resources, student acolytes and peer recognition are significant factors for plotting the direction of the sociologist’s trajectory. (Law and Lybeck 2015: 7)

By situating individual trajectories in relation to historically specific times, space and positions in the institutional field, we were connecting our research interests with the broader ‘turn to practice’ in the sociology of knowledge much of which draws inspiration from Bourdieu and others working in science and technology studies (STS) (Camic and Gross 2004; Knorr-Cetina, Schatzki and Savigny 2000). Yet, by drawing Elias into the conversation we could bring more historical references into the picture, thereby grounding some of Foucault’s more abstract analyses of the role of discourse and power. Ultimately, what all three theorists share is a commitment to what is called ‘relational sociology’. As articulated in his manifesto, Mustafa Emirbayer draws on pragmatism to contrast relational thinking with the view of ‘substances’ or ‘things’ – that social entities are simply there, interacting with one another, rather than being co-constituted by dynamic relations between such objects (which are thus not clearly discrete objects at all!). He writes:



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Relational theorists reject the notion that one can posit discrete, pregiven units such as the individual or society as ultimate starting points of sociological analysis (as in the self-actional perspective). Individual persons, whether strategic or norm following, are inseparable from the transactional contexts within which they are embedded . . . By the same token, structures are empty abstractions apart from the several elements of which they are composed. (Emirbayer 1997: 287–8)

Drawing explicitly on several quotations from Bourdieu and Foucault, Emirbayer argues that relational sociology leads to new articulations of central concepts, including power, equality, freedom and agency. This view has increasingly become fundamental within a range of sociological research approaches including network analysis, pragmatist-inspired qualitative work, critical gender and race studies, and cultural sociology (Donati 2010; Vandenberghe 1999). Isaac Reed, for example, recasts the sociological understanding of power in relational terms in his discussion of three dimensions of power (Reed 2013). Relational power refers to the degree to which the structure of relations or ties between actors . . . determines the ability of some actors to control or limit the actions of others, achieve their intentions over against the will of others, and generally possess the ability to direct social life, often to their advantage. Power, insofar as it is relational, derives from positionality in a structure of social relations. This positionality can be dynamic, and some forms of relational power involve social mechanisms. (Reed 2013: 203)

Indeed, Emirbayer extends this interest in relational views of power in his essay with Bowen Paulle and Bart van Heerikhuizen to explicitly synthesize the general theories of Elias and Bourdieu (Paulle, van Heerikhuizen and Emirbayer 2012). The authors note that the core concepts in each’s research map onto one another:  capital-field-habitus can be translated as power-figurationhabitus. Certainly, the mutual use of the core concept of habitus is worth noting immediately. For Bourdieu, ‘habitus’ refers to a set of tastes and dispositions learned through socialization according to class backgrounds. These make various forms of subjective orientation unconscious and contribute to the overall reproduction of unequal social structures. Elias, too, used the term in parallel to highlight the manner in which social control becomes embodied as self-control. As Paulle, van Heerikhuizen and Emirbayer note, As terms like ‘second nature’ make plain, Elias and Bourdieu sought to emphasize the importance of taken-for-granted ways of perceiving, thinking, and acting on the part of (more or less) competent actors immersed in their everyday practices.

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Both focused on practical action and knowledge because they understood that, in real time and space, human conduct tends to be orchestrated from ‘within’ by dispositions functioning primarily beneath the level of discursive consciousness. (Paulle, van Heerikhuizen and Emirbayer 2012: 71)

This prediscursive situatedness of habitus connects both Bourdieu and Elias to the insights of Martin Heidegger as discussed in Chapter 2 above and argued for by Kilminster (2007), who suggested Elias’s sociology represented a postphilosophical approach to the knowing-individual. This further corresponds with Bourdieu’s project to demonstrate the social structuring of taste, which undermined Kant’s arguments within his third critique relating to ‘judgment’ of taste. If tastes, dispositions – that is, habitus – are distributed socially according to one’s family, class, ethnic and gender backgrounds, this suggests there is no ‘view from nowhere’ in which tastes could be objectively established as categorically good or bad. Paulle, van Heerikhuizen and Emirbayer also note that both Elias and Bourdieu took the sociology of sport very seriously, seeing the evolution of organized games as reflective of wider changes in society; also, connected to differences in status, culture and social structure. For example, tennis, golf and sailing are understood by Bourdieu as indicative of upper classes’ means of deploying time for such leisure (Bourdieu 1984:  208–25). And, Elias saw the increased quantification of competitive sports as part of a wider rationalization and professionalization process characteristic of the emergence of modern societies (Elias and Dunning 2008). The article authors suggest that the commonalities underneath Elias and Bourdieu’s sociological terminologies far outweigh the differences and point to the broader synthesis of relational sociology which would have a wide range of significance across many topic areas. In particular, they see each as contributing to modes of analysis which would connect quantitative and qualitative studies in ways that would not engage in what Elias called ‘process-reduction’  – that is, turning relational, dynamic social entities into static ‘things’. This would have wide significance within network analysis, for example, but equally within studies of social stratification as argued by educationalists, for example, seeking to combine the political arithmetic tradition of Goldthorpe et  al. with the Bourdieusian relational approach (Glaesser and Cooper 2013). However, although many sociologists of education refer to the notion of ‘social relations’ and ‘relational’ power in their work, there remains a particular blockage to full incorporation of the view articulated by Emirbayer and others



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at present. This is due to a prior notion of the idea of ‘relational’ power as articulated within the ‘new sociology of education’, for example, that of Apple (2004), Giroux (1983) and others. From this angle, many sociologists of education referring to ‘relational power’ simply mean unequal or hierarchical relations (of domination) and, thus, one who is attentive to ‘relations’ is, in a sense, attentive to social inequalities. These are important studies, generally inspired by Marxian ideas relating to ‘relations of production’, but this is not the same thing as what is being suggested by Emirbayer et al. (2012) who are also drawing on insights from pragmatism, network analysis, critical realism, cultural sociology, systems theory and a range of other approaches that do not mean simply ‘inequalities’ when speaking about ‘relations’. Further, it could be argued, this was not what Elias, Bourdieu or Foucault were after either. Below we will unpack these ideas to see that a relational sociology of education would have more dynamic interpretations of power and inequality – for example, by recognizing that class structures are changing dynamically, we should avoid reifying these as static inequalities reproducing themselves in the same way in all times and places. Ultimately, this recognition should recommend Elias as an ideal theorist for pushing these relational ideas forward within the sociology of education.

2.  Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical approach to power/knowledge We can begin by reviewing Foucault’s research into discourse and the relationship between these semiotic structures and the distribution of power. Within the field of educational research there is a long tradition of employing Foucaultian perspectives as we have already encountered in Chapter 8 exploring the role of policy and ‘governmentality’. As the contributors to an edited volume by Ball (1990) demonstrate, there are a range of research topics that can be interpreted in novel ways using an archaeological or genealogical approach:  from the emergence of the idea of the ‘schoolteacher’ to the disciplining of ‘docile bodies’. One can immediately see resonances with Elias’s research into the civilizing process and the embodiment of social control as self-control as discussed in Chapter 4. If we delve deeper into what Foucault meant by archaeology, we can discover even more similarities, particularly within the sociology of knowledge. He wrote,

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The great problem presented by [analysis of the history of ideas] is not how continuities are established, how a single pattern is formed and preserved . . . the problem is no longer one of tradition, of tracing a line, but one of division, of limits; it is no longer one of lasting foundations, but one of transformations that serve as new foundations, the rebuilding of foundations. (Foucault 2002: 6)

The dissolution of the static view of ideas as objective and timeless, replacing this with a historical, dynamic and processual view of the transformation of ideas, is remarkably similar to Elias’s idea of the ‘social fund of knowledge’. Indeed, this processual dimension to knowledge is even more pronounced in Foucault’s later genealogical approach, which connects more direction with issues of power (Foucault 2000). Rather than thinking about knowledge as the product of a given subject, we should think about the broader collective system of symbols, practices and institutional structures which amount to a ‘discourse’. Once these are seen to be moving through time – that is, history – we lose the grounding of objectivity as was established with the Enlightenment era, and we begin to see ‘truth’ as something which is conditional upon particular contexts, which are themselves constituted by those discourses. Indeed, Foucault’s challenge to the Enlightenment ideal of the knowing subject goes so far as to suggest that the discourses create the subjects rather than the other way around. As Pitsoe and Letseka explain, ‘discourse ultimately serves to control not just what but how subjects are constructed. Language, thought, and desire are regulated, policed, and managed through discourse’ (Pitsoe and Letseka 2013:  24). Foucault further captured the way subjects entering discourse  – with greater or lesser thresholds of solidity/ insitutionality  – are compelled into ‘games’ which become necessary to play, further compelling subjects to adopt the discipline of the rules of the game: ‘Discourses are tactical elements or blocks operating in the field of force relations’ (Foucault 1976: 21). As these become embedded within institutions and ‘capillary’ networks of power, this process is further embodied through what Foucault later called ‘biopower’ (Foucault, Davidson and Burchell 2008) that James Marshall summarizes, the outcome for the ‘self ’:  ‘disciplinary insititutions . . . determine not only whether a person is governable – that is, likely to lead a docile, useful, and practical life – but also because it identifies to the individual the “true” self, whereby (s)he becomes classified as an object in various ways for others and is tied to the “true” self as a subjected or politically dominated being’ (Ball 1990: 16). We again confront issues of identity as well as the relationship between knowledge and wider structures of power. However, we have already interrogated



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problematic outcomes of certain styles of Foucaultian analysis within educational research, as discussed in Chapter  8. This is based on an assumption that discourses produce subjects, leading to hasty generalizations and conclusions based on the analysis of, for example, published policy documents. Foucault’s own research, on the other hand, involved extensive archival evidence linking dots across a range of fields to demonstrate that the discourses were producing the subjective effects. Further, his own use of concepts, such as ‘governmentality’ and ‘biopower’, were meant as sensitizing concepts to understand particular epochs and practices, not transhistorical concepts applicable in all times as places. We should therefore resist the temptation to interpret Foucault’s methodological approaches, studying the emergence, consolidation and articulation of discursive formations across dynamic fields of power and institutions, as implying discourses always produce subjects in a particular way. Again, this is not something Foucault would himself recommend – yet, there is a tendency within educational research to move directly from discourse to explanation at the level of subjectivity. This might sometimes be due to practical limitations of research scope or resources or access, but it is inconsistent with both the theory and the nature of social reality to assume a unilinear relationship between discourses and power. This becomes all the more important when such assumptions are drawn into research in the Bourdieusian tradition interested in social reproduction through education.

3.  Bourdieu’s model of social reproduction Like Foucault, Bourdieu’s understanding of the social effects of dominant culture, including knowledge, captures the relationships between powerful structure, institutions, states, classes and the way we ‘see’ the world. Bourdieu was therefore tackling a similar problematic of ‘idealism’ versus ‘materialism’ Elias encountered during the interwar period in Germany, but within a different (French) context where issues were framed as a binary between ‘subjectivism’ and ‘objectivism’. The former view, articulated by Sartre and others in the phenomenological tradition, saw subjectivity as an irreducibly individualistic and creative disposition to the world. One could never eliminate the scope of freedom, which was an ontological and existential basis of the human person. As Sartre famously expressed it, ‘existence precedes essence, or, if you prefer, subjectivity must be the starting point’ (Sartre and Mairet 1948). In other

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words, the nature of a thing is dependent on its existence. In the field of human consciousness, this implied that one’s self was not a set of values which preceded one’s experience of the world. Rather, through one’s choices – which existentialists asserted were inherently ‘free’ – one creates their values and mind. Yet, within the 1960s and 1970s context Bourdieu was writing in, another ‘objectivist’ position was articulated by Claude Lévi-Strauss and the Marxists associated with Louis Althusser and others. Lévi-Strauss drew from linguistics the notion that certain structures were universal within the human experience. These could be traced across cultures, which shared central distinctions between, for example, raw versus cooked food (Lévi-Strauss 1994). Louis Althusser recommended a Marxian ‘science’ of society, which could map the totalizing influence of the capitalist mode of production on economic, political and cultural institutions. The theses of materialism . . . do no more than articulate and consciously draw out the implications of the ‘spontaneous practice’ of the sciences, itself a particular instance of human practice. This practice involves confronting two terms joined in a profound unity: the ideas (or the consciousness) of scientists (of men) – and external reality. This confrontation entails recognition of the primacy of external reality over ideas or consciousness, which, in this practice, models itself on reality; and the recognition of the objectivity of the laws established, in this practice, by science. (Althusser 2014: 273)

Althusser, thus, argued that within the idealism/materialism debate, objective reality had more importance, since – as Foucault also argued in more complex ways, as discussed above  – subjectivities were created and conditioned by objective social structures. Subjects emerged from within fields of power. Althusser further added into this discussion the role of ‘ideological state apparatuses’, especially schools, which were among the central institutional structures through which the ideological subjectivities necessary for reproducing capitalism were produced. It is worth recalling that Bourdieu’s sociology sought to overcome and transcend this dualism by avoiding the objectivist position that subjects were merely ‘cultural dupes’ as Garfinkel and Giddens charged was the case within the similarly systemic theory of Parsons (Giddens 1979; Garfinkel 1991). Equally, it was naive and incorrect to adopt the subjectivist position insofar as no individual emerges from nowhere without social conditioning. Among the central elements in Bourdieu’s solution to this problem was the notion of ‘habitus’ which he described as ‘structuring structures’.



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The structures constitutive of a particular type of environment (e.g. the material conditions of existence characteristic of a class condition) produce habitus, systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles of the generation and structuring of practices and representations which can be objectively ‘regulated’ and ‘regular’. (Bourdieu 1977: 72)

Habitus provides a conceptual means of relating the ways in which objective structures produced human actors, who then went on to (re)structure society through their action. Habitus is consolidated around (a) a set of classifications; (b)  a set of dispositions, or behaviour; and (c)  a set of tastes or preferences. Whereas each of us experiences these as our own subjectivity, in fact, these are class-specific. If we are born into a wealthy family we will obtain one type of habitus, whereas if we are born into a working-class family we will exhibit different tastes, behaviours and mental classifications. Importantly, habitus is necessary to both produce as well as consume the signals and meanings shared between actors across a variety of fields. As Bourdieu notes, ‘Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier’ (1984: 6). Because habitus is transferable, it can migrate across fields. Fields, the second element of Bourdieu’s theory, is a hierarchical socio-spatial setting through which strategic action takes place. Actors within a given field seek to maximize their position and capital within the field, which are relatively ‘autonomous’ or ‘heteronomous’ from other fields. For example, a field of cultural production, say, ‘art’ may be relatively autonomous from the economic field (Bourdieu 1983). This allows artists to compete over status according to the logic of the art world rather than simple economic reward. Indeed, in many instances, if an artist gains too much monetarily this can contribute to a disavowal of them in the art world. They are accused of ‘selling out’ relative to the starving artists who retain the purity of their artistic practice (Bourdieu 2018). Fields are thus fundamentally ‘relational’, as we discussed above: fields are constituted in relation to other fields. Positions within the field are also relative to one another – it is not simply that one has a lot of resources, or capital – one must have more relative to another agent in the field. The French word, ‘champ’, shares with the English word, ‘field’, several meanings which are reflected in Bourdieu’s usage:  (a) as a cultivated patch of earth, (b) as a site of battle or parade ground, (c) as a sporting pitch, (d) as a magnetic or electrical field. Of particular relevance, the notion of field as a site of competition or sport, highlights the significance of the ‘rules of the game’. On the one hand, everyone within a field is free to engage in strategic competition, but an extra level of dominance can be associated with those who

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can determine the rules of the game. Indeed, power resides in those who both make and are allowed to break the rules of a given field. Bourdieu’s practice theory provided a means of understanding the linkage between what Giddens would call ‘structure and agency’, or objective structures and subjective experience. Bourdieu does this dialectically by retaining the positive elements of each. He notes, ‘questioning of objectivism is liable to be understood at first as a rehabilitation of subjectivism’ (1977: 3). Only by retaining the opposition does one have to choose one over the other. Bourdieu seeks to transcend the divide and in doing so, overcome and supersede the false aspects of both: on the one hand, we are not wholly determined by pre-existing social structures; on the other hand, we are not entirely free. In fact, often without recognizing it, we reproduce social structures ourselves through our practices. Critics have charged Bourdieu with being too ‘deterministic’ in his solution to this problem – in a sense this argument sees him ultimately falling on the side of the objectivists. If habitus is determined by objective structures, producing unconsciously internalized dispositions and categories, then social change becomes an impossibility insofar as individual agents will not be able to shift the dynamics of the fields in which they are operating (King 2000). But perhaps this is not a problem of Bourdieu’s theory and rather captures an actual condition of social reality? Undoubtedly, Bourdieu’s own activism, especially late in life, suggests he was hopeful that societies could change through powerful public action, including changes in discourse. However, in recognizing the incredibly conservative operations of the way habitus produced structuring subjects, Bourdieu may have merely identified the sheer scale of the project involved in changing large-scale field dynamics. Further, he highlighted the inadequacies of individualist/subjectivist valorizations of individual agency insofar as these acts of ‘freedom’ may very well accomplish little in terms of genuine structural change. Still, we must recall the same problematic noted in our discussion of Foucault above, which makes a similar suggestion vis-à-vis discourses: the subject should be understood as being a product of social structures as much as being the producer or knower of knowledge or society. As in our consideration of Foucault, whether or not objective structures produce complicit subjects is an empirical question – not to be taken for granted or assumed. And yet, within many studies of educational sociology, Bourdieu’s reproductive model is precisely what is assumed. This is perhaps due to limitations in the framing Bourdieu himself made, as well as the way his studies have been taken up, especially in other national contexts.



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We can review Bourdieu’s understanding of social reproduction, especially within education, as he first introduced the idea with Jean Claude Passeron in 1964. Insofar as it is a prolonged process of inculcation producing internalization of the principles of a cultural arbitrary in the form of a durable, transposable habitus, capable of generating practices conforming with those principles outside of and beyond any express regulation or any explicit reminding of the rule, pedagogic work enables the group or class which delegates its authority to pedagogic action to produce and reproduce its intellectual and moral integration without resorting to external repression or, in particular, physical coercion. (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990: 36)

Education, represented here within the neologisms ‘pedagogic action’ and ‘pedagogic work’, provides the mechanisms through which socialization occurs on behalf of the dominant classes, producing a certain habitus without recourse to actual violence. Rather, this power is termed ‘symbolic violence’. In ‘The Forms of Capital’, Bourdieu further explained the ways in which cultural capital is reproduced in different modes, resulting in the hidden process through which dominant culture and positions are transferred from one generation to another (Bourdieu 1986). As Bourdieu and Passeron described it, the transmission of cultural capital ‘is the equivalent, in the cultural order, of the transmission of genetic capital in the biological order’ (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990:  32). Extending beyond the traditional economic conceptualization of capital, Bourdieu highlighted the multiplicity of forms of capital, which vary across differentiated fields without necessarily being reducible to these fields. Species of capital are forms of resources or assets which can be obtained and put to productive use within a field. Among the most important forms of capital for Bourdieu are the following: economic, symbolic, cultural and social. Symbolic capital derives from and reinforces positions of prestige, honour and attention, which through the bearer’s dominant position  – that is, symbolic violence  – imposes classificatory schemas and categories of thought upon dominated members of society. The dominated, thus, conceive of their society, and their social location, as just. The category of cultural capital reflects the ‘objectified’, ‘embodied’ and ‘institutionalised’ cultural assets agents obtain, which are by their nature deemed separate from economic assets like money, property or occupation. Objectified cultural capital includes media objects, like books, films, artworks, theatre tickets and so on, which can be obtained like other material objects. However,

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to consume certain forms of cultural capital, the bearer requires the necessary habitus and recognition of, for example, the difference between high and low art, that which is vulgar and that which is refined. Thus cultural capital must also be embodied in the human subject. This occurs through socialization and schooling, which encourages recognition of good versus bad forms of culture. Because these preferences are embodied within the individual  – in other words, made unconscious in the form of tastes and lifestyles – it becomes nearly impossible for anyone who has not been socialized in this way to relate to cultural capital in a similar way. This becomes a means of exclusion as Bourdieu noted in Distinction: ‘the denial of lower, coarse, vulgar, venal, servile  – in a word, natural  – enjoyment, which constitutes the sacred sphere of culture, implies an affirmation of the superiority of those who can be satisfied with the sublimated, refined, disinterested, gratuitous, distinguished pleasures forever closed to the profane’ (Bourdieu 1984: 7). In this way, cultural capital fulfils as social function to legitimate social differences. The challenge resulting from this means of distributing social position in relation to essentially invisible cultural capital is that one cannot resolve the inherent subjectivity of aesthetic taste  – that is, the appearance of subjective preferences. Here the role of institutionalized cultural capital, typically in the forms of academic degrees, plays an important role. Educational credentials mystifies the social position which precedes the acquisition of cultural capital by clouding the difference between natural competence in a given subject and social advantage. Cultural capital can thus be measured according to the length of time spent in school. Bourdieu writes, ‘with the academic qualification, a certificate of cultural competence which confers on its holder a conventional, constant, legally guaranteed value with respect to culture, social alchemy produces a form of cultural capital which has relative autonomy . . . it institutes cultural capital by collective magic’ (Bourdieu 1986). Education, thus, figures for Bourdieu as one of the central mechanisms through which (modern) societies reproduce their patterns of domination, particularly with respect to class inequalities. Bourdieu thereby positioned the sociology of education at the centre of any sociology of modern society: ‘Far from being the kind of applied, and hence inferior, science (only suitable for educationalists) that has ordinarily been the view of it, the sociology of education lies at the foundation of a general anthropology of power and legitimacy’ (Bourdieu 1996: 5). For this reason alone, our discussion regarding Elias’s relationship to the sociology of education should take full account of the differences between his approach and that of Bourdieu. As we shall see, many points of overlap exist, and



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yet particularly in relation to the notion of the ‘cultural arbitrary’ – a significant concept in Bourdieu’s model of social reproduction  – we can draw on Elias’s insights to begin to sketch an even more sociological, relational and processual account of the role of education in the emergence and further development of modern societies.

4.  The cultural arbitrary versus means of orientation By drawing the sociology of education to the centre of our understandings of society, knowledge and power, Bourdieu challenges us to reconsider the social construction of such knowledge. After all, as students are educated, the premise is that a process of learning and knowledge acquisition is taking place – generally, on the principle that the longer one attends school and/or university, and the harder one works, the more knowledge one obtains. However, as the discussion of institutionalized cultural capital captures, these assumptions may simply be a means of disguising the social reproduction functions of education, which confer upon graduates the designation of status based on meritocratic achievements in school/university/examinations. In order for this premise to hold, Bourdieu must posit the condition he calls the ‘cultural arbitrary’. The selection of meanings which objectively defines a group’s or a class’s culture as a symbolic system is arbitrary insofar as the structure and functions of that culture cannot be deduced from any universal principle, whether physical, biological or spiritual, not being linked by any sort of internal relation to ‘the nature of things’ or any ‘human nature’. (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990: 8)

In this sense, Bourdieu and Passeron are merely highlighting the social construction of reality, but they take this two steps further to suggest the following:  (a) there is no universal principle deducible from reality which can legitimate the dominant culture and (b) this makes the dominant culture arbitrary as such. Thus, education, which is conducted in the interest of the dominant classes is ultimately the imposition of an arbitrary culture, which could just as easily be otherwise. The culture that is taught through pedagogic action, therefore, is a form of symbolic violence through which students are socialized to accept, within their habitus and through conferral of cultural capital, the arbitrary dominant culture as legitimate. The notion of the cultural arbitrary is not always referenced within Bourdieusian studies of education; however, the concept is central to many

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applications of this approach (Borg and Mayo 2001; Gripsrud, Hovden and Moe 2011; Lareau and Weininger 2003; Reay 2004). The reason arbitrariness is so important within Bourdieu’s approach to the sociology of education is that by positing a cultural field which is purely constituted out of the arbitrary symbols imposed by an arbitrary dominant group, this creates the conditions in which the social structure can explain the observed educational and social outcomes. In other words, the cultural content becomes less significant, and one can then look at the social inequalities before and after education to see how the institutional structures – in this case, education – are involved in reproducing the conditions at the ‘start’ of the process up to the ‘end’ of the process where similar inequalities exist. To be sure, Bourdieu did not invent the notion of the cultural arbitrary – it was developed in the nineteenth century as part of structuralist linguistics: there is no reason that the ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’ have to go together; as such, the relationship between the things we refer to and the words we use to refer to them is arbitrary. Further, the principles of anthropology suggest that cultures organize themselves in different ways in different contexts, and those relations between signs are conditional upon the overall system of which they are a part. Again, this suggests an arbitrariness both synchronically, in terms of comparing across present groups, as well as diachronically, when comparing the present with earlier historical iterations of the same – for example, ‘Western’ – culture. Lastly, it is worth reiterating that the ‘new sociology of education’ approach attentive to the ‘hidden curriculum’ and ‘ideology’ will have also argued that the social construction of the curriculum makes it a site of contestation:  the imposed curriculum could be something else, and thus the present iteration is arbitrary (Apple 2004; Young 1971). However, the premise that education does not (a)  provide objective knowledge and (b)  merely reproduces social inequalities can prove untenable for some, and belies the critical educationalists’ interest in equalizing access to good education  – to say nothing of the fact that these critics are arguing for ideas they think are true. After all, if knowledge was arbitrary, why would we bother going to school at all? Quantitative sociologists working using Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital have found similar issues when trying to measure the effects of cultural capital. Sullivan, for example, notes: [Bourdieu] does not make a clear enough distinction between those parts of the dominant culture which are in some way snobbish (i.e. exclusive for exclusivity’s sake) and arbitrary, and those which are universally valuable but not universally



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accessible. Such a distinction is essential if we are to distinguish between those elements of the dominant culture which should be taught in schools, and those which should be removed from the curriculum. (Sullivan 2002: 149)

There seems to be ‘something’ which education provides which should be widely distributed across society, and yet, there is ‘something else’ which is arbitrary, unnecessary and elitist: that which other social scientists might call ‘soft skills’ (which are nonetheless recognized as very important for succeeding within socially mobile environments and jobs). Still, even Sullivan and others drawing on the quantitative applications of Bourdieu’s sociology of education appear hesitant to consider whether the content of ‘arbitrary’ cultural content might be genuinely productive and generative. In a study of the role of parental background versus ‘school effects’ in the attainment of state-school-educated students, Sullivan learned that the former, family background, had a more significant influence on attainment; yet she noted, ‘ideally, one would collect a larger sample including different types of schools, as it is possible that school type might affect pupils’ cultural capital. For instance, it is possible that private schools may instil cultural capital in pupils’ (Sullivan 2001: 909). Indeed, it is precisely this capacity to educate students in many areas – as a full person, competent in a range of skills, including soft skills, languages, arts, and more – that warrants the high fees parents pay independent schools. While many wealthy families use these institutions to more or less launder their wealth in the class reproduction of their children, this does not mean that the students do not also learn something(s)  – and many of these things are precisely what advocates of education equality want to distribute more widely. We might consider here that Sullivan follows Bourdieu in using language study as an independent, rather than dependent, variable:  in other words, treating competence in language as an indicator of cultural capital and class background rather than as a competence which is itself generative of successful outcomes. The significance of language is important, as the work of Bernstein (1973) and others adds to our understanding of ‘elaborated’ versus ‘restricted’ codes, the former being more typical of middle-class students and the latter being more frequent among students from working-class backgrounds. Elaborated codes are ‘context-free’ and tend towards more complex syntax and meanings, whereas restricted codes require locally specific understanding of words and dialect, making interactions with ‘outsiders’ more difficult. Bernstein’s understanding of linguistic class differences also informed Gouldner’s concept

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of the ‘culture of critical discourse’, in which academics, professionals and technocratic bureaucrats encourage discussions that are ‘self-grounded’ and justified according to general and public principles, rather than the status of the speaker (Gouldner 1979). In this sense, elaborated codes can be interpreted as the linguistic expression of the Parsonian modernization process through which ascription shifts towards achievement and particularism shifts towards universalism (Parsons and Shils 2001). However, in Gouldner’s analysis this transition was rightly rooted in the dynamics of a particular class: the universityeducated, new middle classes. Bernstein and Bourdieu are observing similar relationships between class power and the particular forms of language and cultures these classes prefer. Indeed, we discussed in Chapter  5 Gellner’s (1983) discussion of the emergence of modern nationalism as rooted in the differentiation of ‘high’ and ‘low’ national culture, particularly connected with formal, nationally accredited grammar and pronunciation, which then distinguished the establishment from provincials, through dialect (in which ‘received pronunciation’ ‘English’ or ‘high German’ were the only dialectic which could be treated as though they were not dialect). Then, of course, as Gellner and de Swaan (1988) following Elias, observed, once the educated national establishment asserted its cultural dominance through certain linguistic patterns and other forms of knowledge, they began to offer mass education to treat the perceived ‘deficit’ nonestablishment groups exhibited. But does this mean language and culture is then, simply, ‘arbitrary’? Are there not potentially some objective advantages provided by context-free discourses, hermeneutic translation and the capacity to elevate discussions into abstract and more complex terrains of meaning? Such is the view, not only of Elias, as we will argue below, but which has also been promoted even by scholars instrumental in establishing the ‘new sociology of education’. Michael Young, for example, argues that sociologists of education have been focused for too long on the ‘knowledge of the powerful’ and not as interested in defining what is ‘powerful knowledge’ – that which we should be encouraging within education. ‘Powerful knowledge refers to the knowledge not the knowers. It is not concerned with who defines or creates the knowledge. Knowledge is “powerful” if it predicts, if it explains, if it enables you to envisage alternatives’ (Young et al. 2014). Young’s conversion to discussion of knowledge rather than just power follows on the heels of a long-standing debate between himself, Moore, Muller and what these scholars call ‘poststructuralist’ or ‘constructivist’ views of knowledge (Moore 2007; Moore and Muller 1999; Moore and Young 2001; Young and Muller



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2013). The problem these ‘realist’ scholars observed after engaging for decades with the constructivist position was that certain critical discourses organized to ‘debunk’ various forms of knowledge, generally by giving ‘voice’ to one or another oppressed group, can result in an over-sociologization of knowledge. The knowledge is not evaluated on its own terms but rather is debunked and dismissed merely in terms of the ethnic, class or gender background of the speaker. In many ways, this is precisely the opposite of the universalistic standards of critical discourse identified by Gouldner – in some ways, a regression back to an ascriptive logic if one is judged based on who one is rather than what one does or says. But, recall our discussion in Chapter  3, for this is precisely the problem Elias’s sociology of knowledge is set up to correct: when criticizing Marx, Elias observed the many ways in which Marx was embedded within the particular political and contextual struggles of his day and age. From Marx’s ‘involved’ position, he misrecognized the patterns and trends in capitalism as though these were universal laws of history rather than process universals (context-specific in the nineteenth century). From the more ‘detached’ position available to the sociologist of knowledge today, we can see Marx’s observations were just one of many positions from which more than one processual trend could be observed to have developed during the nineteenth century. We can therefore see, from this view, which elements of Marx are worth keeping: for example, the relationship between knowledge and social position; without keeping those elements which were faulty because of his social position: for example, the only social position that matters is one’s relationship to the economic means of production. We can, thus, preserve the tremendous insights of the sociology of knowledge – including those of Foucault and Bourdieu – without reducing every form of knowledge to the role those ideas play in the reproduction of class, gender, racial or other hierarchies. Further, we can see the way these critical discourses are themselves related to other positions by detaching ourselves from our involved commitments towards the social justice ends of these ‘voice’ discourses. Recall as well that Elias distinguished ‘object-oriented’ knowledge from ‘subject-oriented’ knowledge and suggested that sociology, in particular, suffered from paying too much attention to the latter  – seeking to represent the experiences of particular groups  – without obtaining more object-oriented (not necessarily objective) knowledge of, say, the changing dynamics of the class system or the interactions between individuals’ mental constitution and the broader macrosociological changes as he tried to achieve within the civilizing process.

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But surely this was Bourdieu’s project? – ‘habitus’ provides the mechanism through which objective structures were reproduced within individuals who had embodied the dominant culture or their relevant subjectivity according to the overall field of symbolic violence. Yes  – but it is precisely the fact that this dynamic from A (structure) to B (subject) is presupposed, just as we argued earlier is the case in Foucualt’s analysis of subjectivity produced by discourses, that makes this unilinear model of reproduction an untenable assumption. To be sure, Bourdieu spent much of his career empirically verifying these relationships, which were by no means oversimplified in his own work, but too often the same cannot be said of those following in his theoretical and scholarly footsteps. Bourdieu himself even acknowledged in his preface to the English edition of Distinction that those relationships he observed might very well be specific to France (Bourdieu 1984). He even cited his recent reading of Elias’s Court Society as the inspiration for making this statement at that time! With the aid of Norbert Elias’s analyses, I do indeed emphasize the particularity of the French tradition, namely, the persistence, through different epochs and political regimes, of the aristocratic model of ‘court society’, personified by a Parisian haute bourgeoisie which, combining all forms of prestige and all the titles of economic and cultural nobility, has no counterpart elsewhere, at least for the arrogance of its cultural judgements. (Bourdieu 1984: xi)

Thus, whereas Bourdieu himself noted the difference between possible universal characteristics of his notions of cultural power and class reproduction versus those aspects which were specific to French society, many sociologists conflate these. The resulting analyses either suggest (a)  cultural and educational reproduction occurs the same way it does in France in, say, England or America, or, as often, (b) the fact that these forms of reproduction are different implies a substantive improvement to Bourdieu’s theory rather than being a mere comparative case (cf. Besbris and Khan 2017). Thus, sociologists of education are often faced with a transposition of particular observations about the way the field of cultural production and educational inequalities were produced in a particular national context (France) at a particular time (generally around 1965–95), which have become generalized theories of how cultural hierarchies are maintained universally. Instead, we should note that both Foucault and Bourdieu were engaging with their problematiques within a very particular intellectual, cultural and political context, which informs their social thought – just as Marx’s nineteenth-century situatedness informed his. Among the central problems facing younger generations, then, was the



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quest for autonomy, especially from large-scale bureaucratic and anonymous powers. Both Foucault and Bourdieu were, in part, ‘of ’ this generation, while at the same time each sought to transcend some of the naivety around their central preoccupations:  autonomy and individualism. Both Bourdieu and Foucault effectively demonstrated such autonomy was largely a myth at the societal level, since everyone’s subjectivity had been shaped by dominant discourses and fields. Yet, perhaps in obtaining more reflexive awareness, one could become that much more autonomous and capable of strategic action. Indeed, this is precisely what Elias would suggest constitutes ‘powerful knowledge’ if we recall his concept of the multi-tiered games discussed in Chapter 8. As games become more and more complex, and especially as power begins to equalize between multiple groups, it becomes impossible for dominant groups to control the course of the game; it can even become too difficult to strategically make sensible ‘moves’ without knowledge of the overall field. This leads to the emergence of new tiers of play, and reflexive or ‘syntagmatic’ knowledge of the field, as Mouzelis (2008) would call it, drawing on Elias to distinguish this ‘second-order’ form of knowledge from the ‘paradigmatic’ or practical knowledge accessible only within embedded forms of experience. In this sense, we can articulate a basis upon which better, or more powerful forms of knowledge, might be articulated and defined: detached knowledge can be strategically and practically advantageous compared to involved knowledge. These more powerful forms of knowledge are not simply the ‘specialized’ forms identified by Young, apparently modelling the usefulness of knowledge on a Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine (STEM) basis that then is applied to arts and humanities specialisms in an ad hoc way (Young and Muller 2013). Rather, as we have seen, knowledge such as language can be both practically effective within socially constructed contexts of high and low culture  – for example, it would be better to know both forms and thereby translate across fields and levels; further, context-free, syntagmatic knowledge can provide agents and organizations with better awareness of the field, especially if this knowledge tends towards more detached, object-oriented forms. In addition, these forms of knowledge can be integrated and can accumulate socially. Elias is clear that specialist ‘scientific establishments’ can do much to limit the potentials of adequately developing a collective ‘social fund of knowledge’ which is fit for purpose in modern societies. Elias therefore provided what scholars have called a ‘central theory’, which has the potential to integrate the social sciences and natural sciences into a diverse yet coordinated body of powerful knowledge (Quilley and Loyal 2005).

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In Elias’s work, the role of historical sociology is significant in developing a form of ‘detached’ knowledge which is nonetheless rooted in ‘real types’ rather than abstraction. Further, this work becomes cumulative insofar as various studies in different realms of modern society become integrated into a growing social fund of knowledge. This knowledge becomes both object-oriented as well as being attentive to those subject-oriented aspects which are important to track and empirically verify. The historical dimension, in particular, provides Elias with an advantage over Bourdieu – who is not ignorant of history but does not regularly incorporate historical forms of explanation in his more synchronic explorations of particular societies in particular times and places (general France and/or North Africa). This argument has been tackled by scholars seeking to ‘bring history back in’ to Bourdieu’s work, as in Gorski (2013), a book that provides further support for pushing towards a synthesis between Bourdieu and Elias, who drew on similar framings related to power, figurations and habitus. We might further note many of the same critics also ponder which elements of psychoanalysis were deployed in Bourdieu’s work, since these were not made explicit (Steinmetz 2006). Recall that Elias’s major intervention vis-à-vis Freud was the historicization of the super-ego: the mechanisms through which the social order becomes embodied within individuals’ habitus might be very similar to those suggested by Bourdieu  – but the changing content of those cultural forms and the relational structures transforming over the long-term can substantially affect these outcomes. We might therefore concur with Gorski that Bourdieu can be read as both a theorists of reproduction and transformation, but we should make these historical trends specific – as Elias has more or less done for much of modern history as we summarized in Chapter 4. Below we shall explore the way Elias’s more detailed study of long-term historical change can be used to fill in certain gaps within Bourdieu’s reproductive sociology, ultimately providing us with a (non-teleological) trend line that can be projected beyond the 1970s into the present.

5.  Reconstructing the history of the emergence of education: The State Nobility revisited Bourdieu’s sociology of education is scattered across a range of writings, and as noted above, education remains central to his overall sociology of power. In his work with Passeron, his survey analyses of activists and professors from the 1968



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protests, and more, Bourdieu regularly interested himself in the role of education in reproducing social inequalities (Bourdieu 1988, 2004; Bourdieu and Passeron 1990). In many ways, the culmination of this work was published as The State Nobility in 1989 (Bourdieu 1996), a year which also saw Bourdieu give a number of lectures at the Collège de France recently translated as On the State (Bourdieu 2015). Especially significant for our purposes are the connections made between schools and state power – as we have seen, Elias also tracked the developments after the French Revolution, noting the changes to the authority of the bourgeois middle-classes who assumed governmental control of the ‘monopoly of taxation’. And yet, by making claims on behalf of the ‘public’ at large, against the ‘elite’ and ‘privileged’ aristocracy, middle-class political actors trapped themselves, in a sense. For, they now needed to explain why some other folks did not get the right to vote. Education provided one such explanation  – that one could not vote right away, but might in future once one was educated. This then, however, reintroduced the hierarchies of society into the educational system, which became the kind of clearing house Bourdieu noted in his discussions of ‘The Forms of Capital’: When the subversive critique which aims to weaken the dominant class through the principle of its perpetuation by bringing to light the arbitrariness of the entitlements transmitted and of their transmission (such as the critique which the Enlightenment philosophes directed, in the name of nature, against the arbitrariness of birth) is incorporated in institutionalized mechanisms (for example, laws of inheritance) aimed at controlling the official, direct transmission of power and privileges, the holders of capital have an ever greater interest in resorting to reproduction strategies capable of ensuring betterdisguised transmission . . . Thus the more the official transmission of capital is prevented or hindered, the more the effects of the clandestine circulation of capital in the form of cultural capital become determinant in the reproduction of the social structure. (Bourdieu 1986: 26)

Bourdieu therefore concluded that the rise of education became significant at precisely this point because the middle-class elite needs to disguise its mechanism of inheritance: ‘As an instrument of reproduction capable of disguising its own function, the scope of the educational system tends to increase, and together with this increase is the unification of the market in social qualifications which gives rights to occupy rare positions’ (Bourdieu 1986: 26). Within The State Nobility, Bourdieu refined this thesis, drawing on a range of statistical and survey data, including a ‘historical’ analysis of similar cohorts

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at different dates:  1967 and 1987. He manages to capture the myriad ways in which elite boarding schools, and then grande écoles, produce the contemporary ‘nobility’, through processes of separation and aggregation – in which those who are not deemed good enough are sorted out and those who remain engage in further ‘rites’ that consecrate them as most worthy of the positions of power they eventually occupy. Interestingly, and where we can rejoin the history Elias’s recounted in The Civilizing Process and elsewhere  – Bourdieu noted the academic classes and their elite graduates are the inheritors of the position initially represented by the noblesse de robe. The noblesse de robe, of which contemporary technocrats are the structural heirs (and sometimes the descendants), is a body that created itself by creating the state, a body that, in order to build itself, had to build the state, that is among other things, an entire political philosophy of ‘public service’ as service to the state, or to the ‘public’ – and not simply to the king, as with the former nobility – and of this service as a ‘disinterested’ activity, directed toward universal ends. (Bourdieu 1996: 379)

This interpretation suggests that the linguistic demand to reference the ‘universal’ and to be self-grounded as Gouldner argued in terms of the culture of critical discourse, is a means through which this particular educated class maintains its domination by neutralizing and universalizing its interests as the interests of the public and the state at large. However, we should recall from Elias’s analysis that this class was not merely the forerunner of the modern civil service but represented the bourgeois middle-classes both before and after the French Revolution. One might be tempted to argue, as Bourdieu did, that the inheritors of the noblesse de robe were responsible for the growth of the state as such – fulfilling this work on behalf of the dominant economic classes and themselves: providing legitimation and neutralizing the language away from less disguisable forms of self-interest. But this is all a bit too simplistic insofar as a range of competing groups are involved in the emergence of the modern state, which was significant not least in terms of its structural differentiations. Does it not seem insufficient to suggest there was one pyramidal, hierarchical society: aristocratic/monarchical and elitist, which then became another pyramidal state full of educated elites and technocratic professionals? Does this not amount to not very much change of things at all – as Bourdieu’s critics suggest, indicating he did not provide an adequate account of historical transformations?



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Let us, instead, review Elias’s account of the ancient regime in more depth – noting as he did that we make an error by projecting back out contemporary society onto the past – especially since it was the noblesse de robe who were the first middle classes to emerge with power and dynamism in the old regime (Elias 2000:  324–6). These higher civic officials were precisely the linkages between the various sectors of absolutist society – entering the court but also working within the provinces and with the nascent mercantile economies of the free cities and ports. The main institution these officials found themselves in tension with was, therefore, the other institution cutting across all society: the Church. For religious orders provided similar integration functions between sectors of society and controlled the main organs of knowledge production, including universities, schools and monasteries. This makes sense if we think of knowledge as providing the ‘means of orientation’ or what Parsons called ‘ideological services’:  ‘the general cultural definition of the situation’ (Parsons and Platt 1974: 6). The interest of the noblesse de robe was not just power and autonomy but also monopoly over what counted as ‘Truth’. This could be distinguishable from the monarchy, military and police, which, in Elias’s framework, maintained the monopoly of violence; as well as distinguishable from the merchants, bankers and managers who maintained control of the monopoly of taxation. Each of these was related to one another but was not identical to one another. Most importantly, each was engaged in competition with one another as often they worked in concert with one another. Thus, if we are to interpret the homology between the structure of the Ancien Régime and the contemporary state nobility, we must avoid the temptation to leap from one era to the present, noting that each involves hierarchical relations of power. We must go through the work of tracking the evolving and developing historical relationships between these groups in a range of societies across a range of differentiated fields, and notably across a divided set of multiple scientific establishments. If education and science provided a legitimating function for the upper and middle classes, this may be due to a historical function that this new class of academics and professionals provided at one point in time, but is not necessarily the same then as now, or even necessarily the same as was the case thirty or sixty years ago in one national context: France. Indeed, we might compare Elias’s own account to the dynamics within a different national context – the UK – from those he so carefully uncovered within the French court society. Notably, like Bourdieu, Elias attended to the competitive and strategic dynamics of fields:  indeed, he captured this best in his sociology of modern sport (Elias and Dunning 1993). However, in Britain,

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he uncovered a different logic  – a different set of rules  – which suggests that the hierarchical dynamics identified within the French context might be fundamentally different in other contexts, within the English setting in particular. Elias began by noting that the conditions for English upper-class society were set during the seventeenth century following the Civil War (1642–51) and the Glorious Revolution (1688). As in France, the political divisions were between two upper-class fractions, in this case, the Whigs and Tories, who were divided not just in terms of economic interests (town/city) but also in lifestyle, social aims and religion. However, whereas in France an intermediary position between competing classes was occupied by the noblesse de robe, in England, the gentry fulfilled this role: ‘an intermediary group between the urban craftsmen, traders and merchants on the one hand and the landed aristocracy on the other . . . it was a unique social formation, as characteristic of the development and structure of English society’ (Elias and Dunning 1993:  29). Significantly, the gentry could own property, and their social position was not conditional upon military service. The gentry, therefore occupied an important structural and relational position which contributed to the English solution to political conflict according to a different form of ‘gentlemanly conduct’, which pacified the upper classes, but in ways that retained a very visible competitiveness: that is, sport. The upper classes collectively cared most about avoiding the violence of the religious wars and accordingly agreed to a kind of ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to restrain direct combat with one another, and instead retained exclusion of the lower and working classes, while encouraging give and take in relation to one another’s elite interests. The result was the ‘emergence of a non-violent type of contest in Parliament’ (Elias and Dunning 1993: 31). Though not recounted with the same detail as provided in the French civilizing process, Elias nonetheless described the way the character of the English landowning classes changed as this pacification took place. A  prime example was the case of fox hunting, which many today would consider a cruel form of sport; yet, when set against the contemporary customs of aristocracies on continental Europe at the time, in which literal tonnes of big game would be brought in regularly to provide game for the hunt, followed by feasts (which, of course, also had different forms of etiquette attached to them), what Elias observed was that, because foxes were not to be consumed, the hunt could be enjoyable to participants on a pure level of excitement – and was thus a forerunner of modern sports including soccer. The ways in which the sport sought to both induce, extend and climax a simulated experience of tensions, fore-pleasure and release was typical, not only of sport but also of the change in the personality structure of human beings.



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If we then follow Elias’s analysis into the modern era, we can see the English developing many, perhaps the majority of, organized sports, especially following the introduction of the railroad and the networked connections between public schools across the country. These sports were introduced as part of the ‘muscular Christianity’ introduced by Thomas Arnold and others following in the new Rugby tradition – organizing boys into groups with esprit de corps. These sports channelled the aggressive instincts of the boys while, at the same time, becoming more and more regulated in terms of the violence that was allowed:  you can think of the introduction of yellow and red cards, penalties and so forth. These became regulated by associations, which began organizing local, amateur clubs beginning around the 1860s. On the one hand, sport became sites in which the emerging working classes could interact with the more elite segments of society (who would have been more familiar with the rules, and perhaps more able, having practiced from young ages at boarding schools). At the same time, these games will have displaced local forms of similar ball games, some of which, like the ‘hurl’ in St Columb, Cornwall (still played annually today), were very violent indeed. Elias and his co-author, Dunning, interpret the emergence of modern sporting associations and rules in Britain as being involved in a broader social process, just as the emergence of court society in France was part of a wider set of civilizing process and changing macrosociological balances of power. But, consider that Elias’s analysis of the civilizing process more or less ends at the French Revolution: highlighting where certain forms of ‘culture’ come from and remain with us, embedded in aspects of our habitus and tastes. On the other hand, his analysis of English sport positions a different process of pacification and a different dynamic through which binding rules and non-violence were developed in both the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. These were not simply the same content and relations evident in France, now within a different national context. This was a very different system of relations in which power, competition, sport and, ultimately, schooling were organized within England and those countries interacting with this tradition  – which is considerable if one thinks of the scope of the British Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries or, indeed, the popularity of modern sports around the world organized according to this logic. Unfortunately, in the case of education and the sociology of education, Elias did not make the corresponding analysis for us  – but this only points to an opportunity for an interested researcher! One can think through how the logic of such a competitive figuration would be different than those Bourdieu saw in

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France. For example, in Bourdieu’s France, education remains oriented towards the reproduction of a clear hierarchy:  a state nobility. There are competitive dynamics, but these are largely to develop legitimized mechanisms for exclusion of outsiders and the sanctification of insider elites. Undoubtedly these features are present in many elite schools, whether French or not. However, we might also consider the rules and rituals to be genuine competitive dynamics which work to provide the conflicting upper classes with some set of rules that they understand but which outsiders cannot grasp. From this view, we are no longer interested in the unilinear reproduction of single cultures but a series of figurational mechanisms through which a range of competing groups can be kept in competition with one another and yet ultimately constrained by certain boundaries. What might those boundaries be? When put in the context of the longterm rise of the middle classes, we can recall the two-tiered game developed in the course of democratization: the initial monarchical monopoly of violence and taxation split to allow the bourgeois merchants control of public finances. New roles emerged for the educated, civil service and professional classes via the noblesse de robe who increasingly gained monopolization of the means of cultural orientation – that is, knowledge. This process was, however, different in England, where the church was more secular and retained greater control of establishment religion, yet was under competitive strain; at the same time, an independent gentry could side with Tory landowners, resulting in an unusual set of quite aggressive yet gentlemanly conflict. This elite consensus (with considerable public conflict) often resulted in neglect of working and rural classes despite their considerable growth during the Industrial Revolution. Here, mass education arrived very late, indeed. Both political parties could claim to represent these lower classes’ interests, either through social liberalism or Tory socialism, but, in general, the main element of society which was valorized above others was competition itself. The researcher at present can accordingly consider educational policy in Britain from a much different lens than that provided by Bourdieu. Rather than seeing the introduction of competition under neoliberalism as an imposition by a late capitalist upper class seeking to justify their elite positions, we might see competition as something rooted much more deeply in English history. Further, seeing this as rooted in not just discourse but also long-term structural relations would have us looking for, for example, the cultural composition of the gentry versus that of the cosmopolitan middle classes in cities. Cultural sociologists are often attentive to the cultural capital of the former: highlighting red corduroy



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trousers, days at the races, public schools and so forth. They are far less effective at tracking the cultural codes of state-school students who go on to university, get involved in progressive politics and relish in Guardian articles critiquing those public school boys. Yet, are these not the other side of the elite in competition with the another? One reason the other, urbane groups tend to be neglected is an insufficiently detached point of view from which we might begin to observe: if such a thing as the ‘cultural arbitrary’ exists – undoubtedly for a large number of elite students, the content of this consists of hyperawareness of Bourdieusian and other critical points of view. For well over forty years, Foucault, Bourdieu, the Frankfurt School, critical race, gender, postcolonial and other theories have been taught to large numbers of the elite classes of global society. We have encountered some of this in Chapters  6 and 7 above when looking at the new patterns of establishment–outsider relations as well as issues of identity and diversity. These new ideas have become elements within a new set of standards of what ‘civilized’ society consists of, and these then enter into organizations around the world through these ‘schooled individuals’ as we discussed in Chapter 10. This undoubtedly makes a difference not just in terms of content but also, ultimately, in the forms of behaviour and types of habitus created. And, we need to adopt a detached perspective to see the effects of this both within education and as a result of education which has prioritized these sorts of values since, at the least, the days of the ‘new sociology of education’. Even if the conservative pushback against such ideas has seemed ascendant – for example, in the 1980s or under Michael Gove in the 2010s – the ultimate structure is the result of the overall process, which included the critical educationalists as an active cohort, representing not just themselves but also large, progressive political blocks within wider society. We cannot observe the effect of ourselves if we retain an ‘involved’ view in which the struggle for further social justice always necessitates a debunking of what exists. What about the objective power critical educationalists have, for example, in defining what educational research should look like? For is educational research not a scientific establishment itself? Did this not emerge in particular contexts in which education became part of the management of modern national societies, in which the function of teaching was assumed by professionals, drawing on expertise which required legitimation within the university? To see these dynamics clearly we need to consider the significance of educational research, and indeed academic research in general, as taking place upon a third tier. This history should be positioned in a history of wider

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developments across a range of processes, including the civilizing process, the emergence of competitive sport, imperialism and a number of long-term trends. From this view, we not only observe changes to things like the constitution of the modern self as social control is embodied as self-control; we can begin to imagine ways of seeing ourselves from a more detached position  – we begin to see ourselves as part of the objective process. We might finally begin to see ourselves as having also been subjectively constituted as part of our own role in this process. In other words, we come full circle to the interests of Bourdieu and Foucault in reflexive sociology. Yet, we do not simply see things in ‘good’ and ‘bad’ terms, in which social inequalities are the result discourses, in which subjects are produced as cultural dupes. Rather, we see social structures as being the result of ‘unplanned processes’, in which multiple games are being played by multiple actors for different reasons but in relation to one another. We – and those we study – are ultimately embedded within these processes. We can begin to see how these processes condition us and have come to shape what we think and perhaps even what we like and find disgusting. However, recognizing this does not mean that everything we have learned is arbitrary; rather, we might begin to parse that which is more powerful and useful knowledge, because it provides an overview of the way things work. We might further see the limitations of Bourdieu, Foucault and other critical theories of education as being – to some extent – the expression of a particular group interest: that of critical students from the 1960s and 1970s interested in autonomy and critical of big state bureaucracies. Thus, unlike these scholars we can more explicitly state we wish to preserve those aspects of historic theories, which are more useful and apparently true, from the standpoint of process universals. In other words, we do not want to replace these thinkers in toto with Elias; rather, we want to use Elias to move further our historical understandings and to create forms of knowledge which are not absolutely critical from the outset, ultimately contributing to a more collective and cumulative research agenda that should result in a robust yet reflexive social fund of knowledge.

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Our analysis thus far has demonstrated some reasons why a more historical, or processual, approach can improve our research in the sociology of education. This chapter will further connect the figurational approach to wider developments in this direction within sociology, recommending especially connection with the work of Andrew Abbott, Mitchell Stevens and others. As we know, the sociology of Norbert Elias provides a robust framework for the study of education, although he did not focus directly on the topic himself in his studies of civilizing processes, sport, community relations and a range of other topics. However, we have seen that through his sociology of knowledge, in particular, we can gather a range of concepts and orientations that can facilitate our understanding of the relationship between education and society. We have also seen that Elias’s interpretation of the history of modern societies, including the emergence and transformation of capitalist states can provide a broad grounding for reconceptualizations of the relationships between power, knowledge and education. Finally, by recognizing the significance of long-term, historical processes, figurational sociology pushes us towards less static views of the way education and societies relate. Instead of thinking only about social inequalities and education today, we can understand where these inequalities came from, including sublimated ideas, which we ourselves can be just as susceptible to as educational researchers. Thus, the introduction to Eliasian social research in educational studies amounts to not just a recovery of an interesting scholar but also an encouragement to draw the insights of historical sociology, in general, into our understandings of education and society. As Inglis (2014) recently noted, the problem of ‘presentism’ is a feature of contemporary social science: [British sociology today] operates with radically curtailed understandings of the historical forces which made the social conditions it purports to analyse. A  sophisticated understanding of the contemporary world is made possible

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only by an equally sophisticated understanding of long-term historical processes . . . Without a profound sense of the complexities of human history underpinning it, sociology is compelled to repeat endlessly in its concepts and claims the self-understandings of the social order within which it is located. (Inglis 2014: 100)

We see the very concerns Elias was preoccupied with in regretting sociologists’ ‘retreat into the present’  – in which an insufficiently detached perspective (gained through historical awareness) would lead to its opposite:  an overly involved perspective that merely reproduced the self-conception and interests of the present society. In Chapter 6, we explored one way of thinking about identity from this lens  – noting that the interest in the topic area is important in one regard:  because this is an actually emergent trend within politics, culture, society and schools; however, equally, we could reflect on the way in which social scientific discourse and professional practices framing this concern must also by now have had some role to play within the social process. Children are today being schooled in these new norms, while those of previous generations may begin to feel alienated from this new way of viewing social identities. This new pattern of socialization becomes that much more important to understand in relation to the expansion of professionals, organization and cultural rationalization as discussed in Meyer and Bromley (2013) and Chapter 10. As the authors noted, ‘schooled individuals’ embed principles of scientization and human empowerment discourses into organizations (including schools, universities, government agencies, philanthropies, etc.). If we merely add our ‘critical’ scholarship in support of these agendas we may think we are doing good and just work. But from an object-oriented point of view, the picture is woefully incomplete. Rather, we need to begin to see ourselves as academics and educational researchers positioned within a field of power that has developed over a very long-term. We cannot merely take for granted that our most ‘valueneutral’ scholarship is, in fact, as neutral as it seems.

1.  Processual sociology: Andrew Abbott’s professions and disciplines In Chapter 11, we explored ways in which figurational sociology could connect with the more familiar research programmes of Bourdieu, Foucault and others. However, it was precisely these limitations in terms of historical trends and the



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changing constitutions of power relations and habitus that Elias could potentially repair. It might, therefore, be even more fruitful to connect the insights of Elias’s ‘process sociology’ – as he considered calling ‘figurational sociology’ at one time  – with the emerging ‘process sociology’ associated particularly with Andrew Abbott (2016). Abbott’s work draws inspiration from the Chicago School tradition of social research that emphasized an ‘ecological’ orientation to, especially, urban issues (Abbott 1999). Abbott further drew upon the early Chicagoans’ interests in professions, culminating in his major treatise on The System of Professions (Abbott 1988). In his ethnographic studies of mental hospitals, Abbott noted that professions, such as psychiatry, tend to go through a process called ‘professional regression’  – in which the more practical wings of the profession obtain less prestige vis-à-vis the more abstract and aloof segments of the profession (Abbott 1981). This is a pattern Elias might recognize in his studies of professions, such as the naval profession, which he saw as emerging out of power relations between by and large working-class sailors and aristocratic and educated gentry officers (Elias 1950). Abbott’s analysis of professions is of further interest insofar as he challenges the overly linear idea of ‘professionalization’, replacing this with a more competitive ‘ecological’ model of different professions competing for jurisdiction over particular tasks. Some of these have objective dimensions, whereas other boundaries are subjective and thus the site of struggle. Because of the role of academic knowledge in justifying these jurisdictional boundaries, these conflicts very often make their way into the academic environment. And yet, as I have argued drawing on Abbott’s theory, the academy is itself a profession monopolizing abstract knowledge (Lybeck 2019). This is a position Elias also articulated in his analysis of scientific establishments (Elias, Martins and Whitley 1982). Such an analysis would provide an opportunity to combine Abbott’s work on professions with his study of the Chaos of Disciplines (Abbott 2001a). Observing a ‘fractal structure’ of disciplinary knowledge, in which certain distinctions are reproduced both inside and within academic disciplines, Abbott sees a process of ‘cycling’ in which certain topic areas are displaced by critics, who then assimilate certain knowledge from their deposed opponents’ turf, while losing other insights, opening themselves up to attack from subsequent generations of scholars. This produces a kind of dynamism and retains some connection with ‘reality’ without losing the social construction of reality thesis. Yet there is no teleology to this process beyond the structure of incentives within

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the university and academic profession  – which Abbott argues has remained remarkably stable for well over 100 years. Elias shared these interests in the non-teleological, socially constructed yet realist model of processual sociology  – and would have remained attentive to the sociogenesis of these professions, including the university and overall professional system. This is something Abbott has been interested in, although largely for the American case – where the structure was, in fact, imported from Germany in the nineteenth century (Lybeck 2016). Accordingly, there remains more work in this area to be done for historical sociologists. Abbott’s further refinement of his model of ‘linked ecologies’ – in which states, professions and universities interact over certain issues without necessarily doing so for the same reasons – provides useful framings through which such analyses can be done. Ecological thinking involves considerations of three components: actors, locations and ‘ligations’ – that is, relations between actors and locations. As in relational sociology, in general, there is no reason to put one of these before the other – it is not that professions come ‘first’, followed by particular work they claim jurisdiction over (i.e. location). Each develops together processually in relation to one another – thus requiring the tripartite consideration of each, as well as the overall relation. Indeed, Abbott’s approach is increasingly being recognized as a relational alternative to the Bourdieusian concept of ‘fields’ – encouraging a more complex and differentiated understanding of the way power operates in different contexts. As he explains in a now well-known, excised footnote originally part of his linked ecologies article: A first difference is that the root metaphor of Bourdieu’s field concept, despite many protestations on his part, is in fact economic . . . Capital, inheritance, the ‘economy of symbolic goods’, and so on are among the core concepts of Bourdieu’s analysis. By contrast, the ecology concept mixes the biological notions of the competition and coexistence of organisms in spaces with more strategic conceptions drawing on legal and political language (jurisdiction, settlement, etc.), although I have never shied away from the economic language of demand and supply. My metaphoric universe is much broader than Bourdieu’s, and I have not allowed any single metaphor to take a central position in my thinking. (Abbott 2005a)

This would position Abbott in the same arena as Elias interpreting Marx (Elias 1971a):  there is obviously much that Marxian analysis contributes to our understanding of the rise and reproduction of capitalism; but over-involvement



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in the era when the bourgeois professionals took over the monopoly of taxation could occlude other dynamics and processes. Similarly, Abbott’s recommendation that we expand our interpretations of culture beyond the core economic metaphor underpinning Bourdieusian analysis could reveal other matters of social significance. The overemphasis on relations of domination – as noted in Chapter 11, too often assumed in advance of research by the analyst – is problematic, as Abbott found in his studies of professions. ‘In fact, I  have emphasized the empirical fact that dominant professions often destroy themselves by a ruinous exercise of domination, so restricting demand as to drive clients to expedients that proves deadly to that very dominance’ (Abbott 2005a). In fact, ironically, the Bourdieusian perspective emphasizing domination results in occlusion of competition – because the latter is always framed as oppositional, rather than being sometimes so, sometimes not. This results in the very staticness identified by critics, in which the reproductive model operates as a kind of infernal machine, which can sometimes be empirically verified but also need not be (as it can be assumed). In the field of educational attainment, for example, we know social inequalities both precede schooling and are reflected in outcomes. The theory provides an explanation for why this occurs – for example, demonstrating why this could be misrecognized even by progressives thinking they are helping the disadvantaged, when, in fact, they are reproducing children’s social advantage. But, is this really the only process going on within the field of education (cf. Guhin and Klett 2018)? Is it really sensible to reduce the range of activities in schools, universities, professions, art and culture to reproduction of essentially economic class positions? What if, just as often, outcomes are the result of unplanned processes  – the misrecognized activities of players involved in strategic competition more like Elias’s game models  – in which participants are partially aware of the field but unaware of the totality and other positions, making moves based on limited, involved and, thus, partial information? And, what if the overall relational structure is changing under foot? How would we capture these changes within the broader social figuration if we presumed in advance that one process is and always has been the central dynamic pushing things one way or another? Surely it would be naive to discount economic processes entirely, but equally, as we have seen in the analysis of civilizing processes or Abbott’s studies of professions, there are other cultural, political, legal and associational dynamics also interacting with an overall unplanned, nonteleological process.

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2.  Some general principles of social processes As a new and emerging body of research, processual sociology can provide a number of ways of encountering research topics in education in different ways. Historical analysis is not simply studying the past for its own sake or the history of education as such. Rather, recognition of the temporal and sequential dynamics at work within any social phenomenon demands particular forms of analysis that processual sociology seeks to capture and provide. Recognition that social events and observations are the result of multiple interacting processes recommends a more multidimensional model of social entities. As Elias noted, ‘the process of humanity’s relationship to nature, the process of coexistence within a single survival unit such as a tribe or a state, and the process of coexistence in the form of a plurality of survival units are absolutely inseparable from one another’ (Elias 2008: 37). If we add into this the matter of the analyst ourselves being involved in the processes we are trying to grasp, we have at least a four-level model. With this recognition we can begin to analytically unpick aspects of processes we previously could not understand as elements which were otherwise ‘unplanned’ because these were occurring across the long-term. Ultimately, as Elias noted in The Court Society (1983), natural time, social time and individual time occur at different timescales and durations, meaning particular events are the outcomes of all these different temporal activities interacting. We might connect this to a broader metaphysic being reintroduced to sociology, drawing on the insights of A.  N. Whitehead, Henri Bergson and others (Halewood 2011; Whitehead 1930). Drawing on Einstein’s relativity theory, Whitehead asserted that reality consists of ‘organisms’ at all levels of reality from the quantum level to the level of the universe as a whole. ‘Biology is the study of the larger organisms; whereas physics is the study of the smaller organisms’ (Whitehead 1925:  156). Such an approach shifted the focus away from the nineteenth-century dilemma over mechanical versus vital processes, to see nature instead as really composed of organisms interacting at different levels of analysis. ‘In surveying nature, we must remember that there are not only basic organisms whose ingredients are merely aspects of eternal objects. There are also organisms of organisms’ (Whitehead 1925: 156). Accordingly, a non-materialistic philosophy of nature will identify a primary organism as being the emergence of some particular pattern as grasped in the unity of a real event. Such a pattern will also include the aspects of the event in question as grasped in other events, whereby those other events receive a modification, or partial determination. There is thus an intrinsic and an extrinsic



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reality of an event, namely the event as in its own prehension, and the event as in the prehension of other events. The concept of an organism includes, therefore, the concept of the interaction of organisms. (Whitehead 1925: 146)

Whitehead’s metaphysics remains realist insofar as reality must be structured in a particular way so that the insights of the mechanists and the vitalists could be partially valid at the same time. According to Whitehead, our access to reality, therefore, always necessitates an interactive mediation between three levels: ●●

●●

●●

concrete particulars categories abstraction.

Reality does not exist ‘in itself ’ within the concrete particulars any more than it exists within categories or abstractions. Theory is required to avoid ‘the fallacy of misplaced concreteness’ (see also Parsons 1937). Theory enables the gradual elaboration of categorial schemes definitely stated at each stage of progress. These aspects of process, in general, and within social processes, in particular, have been explored by both Elias and Abbott, who drew on Whitehead, Bergson and G. H. Mead to develop a much more comprehensive theory of time than is available to sociologists working within presentist and static frameworks (Abbott 2001b). Indeed, drawing on Mead’s less well-known text ‘The Philosophy of the Present’ (1932), Abbott suggests that the only time that really exists is the present – which is ‘encoded’ with the past and future: ‘In short, the “size” of the present is something encoded at any given time into the social structure. As such, a present is open to freedom and innovation, just as it exercises, in its own way, the forces of determinism, both immediate and “at a distance” through the larger network of prehensions’ (Abbott 2001b: 235). Thus, what really needs to be explained is not change – which is the natural condition of reality as such – but rather stability itself. How do social structures retain their encoding such that, for example, Bourdieusian scholars can rightly observe processes of social reproduction through schools? In the next section, we will explore one possibility for interpreting the stability of social reproduction patterns using a processual approach.

3.  Historical individuals as bearers of stability Many of Elias’s theoretical and historical concerns can point to mechanisms – such as monopoly mechanisms – which do work to explain why political stabilities

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emerged historically due to unplanned processes at the macrosociological level; then, in turn, how these stabilities were reinforced through socialization processes as social control becomes self-control:  through pacification and manners (which are, in fact, still changing, just over a longer term). Interestingly, such a view corresponds with Abbott’s otherwise differing view regarding the pace of social change, which appears more rapid than the long-term processes Elias is interested in and deemed to be the proper stuff of sociological analysis. Abbott’s notion of encoding suggests, in fact, that social change occurs much more rapidly than individuals, who are themselves the carriers of encoding historicality. ‘In a world of which it can be said that social change is happening faster and faster, it must be the historical continuity of individuals that provides the sinew linking past and present. It is the historicality of individuals that enable us – even forces us – to know social change’ (Abbott 2016: 5). Accordingly, the most dramatic social change in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been the considerable extension of life expectancy, meaning individuals have lived through change after change after change. But drawing on Elias’s interest in long-term processes, extending across multiple generations, could we not still trace these dynamics:  such as the emergence of mass schooling, as an unplanned process encouraging certain iterations of cultural change, such as increasing inclusion within multi-tiered games? But then we might also see these cultural changes interacting with other processes occurring on different time scales  – such as certain jurisdictional gains, losses and reconfigurations within a relatively stable environment of linked ecologies between state, universities and professions. Finally, it is worth considering: if individuals are, indeed, the continuity linked past, present and future, where do these psychic structural continuities come from? Here is where the biggest differences between Abbott and Elias likely lie, because for the former, the ‘self ’ is ultimately rooted in a Meadian concept relating to symbolic interactions between the ‘I’, ‘me’ and generalized other (Joas and Huebner 2016). For Elias, of course, the model of individual psychology is ultimately Freudian, involving the socialization of social control as self-control stabilized within a super-ego. Still, for Elias, the super-ego is changing persistently over time, and thus the contents of these socialized forms will be dependent on the overall figurations and cultural dynamics, including the means of orientation provided by the social fund of knowledge. Perhaps we can begin to think about whether these changes are occurring more frequently than might have been the case within the eighteenth century – which would have involved a much smaller, elite fraction



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of European societies. Further, once we identified the institutionalized functions provided by a mass education system, the transmission of new ideas could translate into social change more quickly, especially when carried by ‘schooled individuals’ and professionals as described by Bromley and Meyer (2015). Finally, we might also consider that the emergence of scientific establishments and the ‘chaos of disciplines’ has led to more and more ideas developing and changing faster than would have been the case, certainly during the eras in which the Church controlled the means of orientation. We are, thus, talking about several long-term changes (including capitalist industrialization, of course), which has increased the speed of short- to mediumterm changes. This observation also figures within neo-Marxist analyses of postmodernism as having captured a very real ‘time-space compression’ as globalized capitalism makes things appear disorienting especially in terms of identity (Harvey 1989). However, if human individuals remain the bearers of stability – through socialization obtained at school – we must begin to think of these as not just being distributed across classes but also across generations. Here we arrive full circle at many of the interests that preoccupied Elias’s mentor, Karl Mannheim (Aboim and Vasconcelos 2014). As Mannheim put it, [B]‌elonging to the same generation or age group . . . endow[s] the individuals sharing in them with a common location in the social and historical process, and thereby limits them to a specific range of potential experience, predisposing them for a certain characteristic mode of thought and experience, and a characteristic type of historical relevant action. (Mannheim 1952: 291)

The historical sociology of education, in this view, would become all the more important, since we would need to know not only the class background, or region of an individual survey respondent, but also their age. And, further, what actual curriculum this person studied at different points in their educational career. Did they attend a selective grammar school or a technical school? Did they obtain a different perspective on the overall ‘means of orientation’ in terms of how globalization, diversity and the knowledge economy works? If we began to follow these threads, we would begin to unpick a range of insights into contemporary differences which are major elements within the entire structure of society. And, we do, indeed, miss these understandings if we only consider the sociology of education to be relevant to the outcomes of a reproductive class system, or only as an analysis of discourses embedded in relations of power and knowledge. We need to recover an historical, processual sociology of education, of the kind Durkheim developed in his Evolution of

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Educational Thought (Durkheim 2013). Elias, Abbott and others working in a processual tradition provide us with the theoretical frameworks, examples and emerging fund of historical knowledge to carry this work forward into the future. To do so we must recognize the issues of temporality and process. And we must avoid return to the binaries between society and individuals Elias worked hard to displace (Elias 1991a). Rather, we must remain attentive to the interdependencies and ecologies that are moving through time – shifting and changing – even as we try to get an analytical grip on them. Historical analysis not only facilitates our understanding of the interactions between discourses and power but also aids in our analyses of particular educational institutions, including schools and universities. A historical sociology of education helps us understand the particular mechanisms and processual dynamics at play within any case study, while connecting such studies to a broader understanding of wider contexts. We must further recall that we are embedded within these processes, which not only makes observation difficult but also contributes to a range of moral and ethical concerns that are often side-stepped by both positivists and critical scholars as Abbott notes (Abbott 2016: 253–76, 2018). Even the central object of so much social analysis, including education – namely, inequality – becomes far more complex when treated from a processual point of view. This presents the social researcher with both challenges and opportunities, opening new fields of enquiry that have either laid dormant, due to the most recent fad within our scientific establishment, or reflects genuinely novel and unprecedented territory. However, there is no shortcut to know which is which, since only a historically informed awareness of the past, present and future can sort this out and ultimately provide us with the best means of orientation for our own aspirations as researchers, activists, professionals and human beings.

References Abbott, Andrew. 1981. ‘Status and Status Strain in the Professions’. American Journal of Sociology 86(4): 819–35. Abbott, Andrew. 1988. The System of Professions: Essay on the Division of Expert Labour. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Abbott, Andrew. 1999. Department and Discipline: Chicago Sociology at One Hundred. 1st edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Abbott, Andrew. 2001a. Chaos of Disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Abbott, Andrew. 2001b. Time Matters: On Theory and Method. 1st edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Abbott, Andrew. 2005a. ‘Ecologies and Fields’. Unpublished footnote, http://home. uchicago.edu/aabbott/Papers/BOURD.pdf. Abbott, Andrew. 2005b. ‘Linked Ecologies: States and Universities as Environments for Professions’. Sociological Theory 23(3): 245–74. Abbott, Andrew. 2016. Processual Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Abbott, Andrew. 2018. ‘Varieties of Normative Inquiry: Moral Alternatives to Politicization in Sociology’. The American Sociologist 49: 158–80. Abercrombie, Nicholas, and Bryan S. Turner. 1978. ‘The Dominant Ideology Thesis’. British Journal of Sociology 29(2): 149–70. Aboim, Sofia, and Pedro Vasconcelos. 2014. ‘From Political to Social Generations: A Critical Reappraisal of Mannheim’s Classical Approach’. European Journal of Social Theory 17(2): 165–83. Abromeit, John. 2011. Max Horkheimer and the Foundations of the Frankfurt School. 1st edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Adorno, Theodor W. 2001. The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. Edited by J. M. Bernstein. London: Routledge. Adorno, Theodor W., E. Frenkel-Brunswik, D. Levinson and R. Sanford. 1950. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper. Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2003. The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2008. The Civil Sphere. New York: Oxford University Press. Alikhani, Behrouz. 2017. ‘Difficulties of the EU as a Common Object for Identification’. Human Figurations 6(2). Althusser, Louis. 1971. Lenin and Philosophy, and Other Essays. London: New Left Books.

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Index Abbott, Andrew 112, 183 analysis of professions 185 Abercrombie, Nicholas 88 ableist disciplines 139 abstraction 50, 54, 134, 189 Adorno, Theodor 14 African American studies 138 Alexander, Jeffrey 107 Althusser, Louis 32, 111 American Revolution 48 ‘anti-civil’ motives 107, 108 anti-Semitism 31, 85, 108 Archer, Margaret 85 aristocracy 46, 75, 102, 103 Arnold, Thomas 179 Athena Swan accreditation process 149 austerity 50 authoritarian 14, 30, 69, 87, 127 axes of cohesion 137 Axial Age 13 Ball, Stephen J. 114 Beck, Ulrich 146 Bellah, Robert 91 Bergson, Henri 188 Bhabha, Homi 103 biologism 65 biopower 114, 160 Blair, Tony 113 Bourdieu, Pierre 1, 7, 8, 11, 22, 59, 144, 155–83 bourgeoisie 41, 48–9, 124, 136 civilization 91 industrialism 93 middle-class men 141 revolution 49 Brexit 92, 107, 125–6 Bronfenbrenner, Urie 42 bureaucratic capitalism 14, 26 Burke, Peter 64 Butler, Judith 85

Calhoun, Craig 145 cameralism 47 Campbell, Colin 68 canonization projects 156 capital-field-habitus 157 capitalism 25, 123 as process 19–23, 29 social relationships 24 capitalists 20, 24 double-entry accounting 47 capitalization of agriculture 75 ceilidh 42 centralization of absolutist courts 44 of social power 41 central theory 65, 173 Chamberlain, Houston 16 Christian iconography 67 Civilising Process, The 63, 83 civilization 5, 16, 28, 39, 49, 51–3, 52, 61, 67, 111, 122 civilizing missions 51–3 courtly manners and etiquette 39–44 monopolization of violence and taxation 44–51 ‘The Civilizing of Parents’ 66 civil motives 107 cognitive rationality 88 Cold War 22, 32 collectivization 76, 79 Collins, Randall 113 color-blindness 100 communication codes 77 constraint 41 courtly manners and etiquette 39–44 Court Society 40, 50, 66 critical discourse analysis 114 critical educationalists 168 critical realism 85, 159 ‘critical theory’ of modern societies 30

212 cultural arbitrary 167–74, 168, 181 subjectification 155 cultural capital 165, 166, 168 cultural distinctions 59 cultural dupes 32, 115 cultural rationalization 136, 148 cultural sociology 11, 21, 159, 180 cultural studies approach 85 culture industry 31 culture of poverty 100 decivilization 58 decolonizing the curriculum 6, 139 democracy 123 dependence’ ratio 87 ‘desublimation’ agenda 31 de Swaan, Abram 1, 95 disillusioned realism 26 diversity 100 and widening participation 98–101 divide-and-rule tactics 122 Dopson, Sue 128–9 Dunning, Eric 58, 61 Durkheim, Émile 4, 19, 34, 36 The Evolution of Educational Thought 5 dynamicity 51 ecological thinking 186 economic class-conflict 20, 26 Economy and Society 24 education 99 extensions 79 policies 99, 112, 116 policy in Britain 180 policymakers 113 process 37, 42 reformers 130 systems 70–1 theory 91 elective affinities 24, 25 Elias, Norbert 1, 155 civilizing process 25, 133 constraint 41 early life 11–12 education, analyses to 39 intellectual development 12 involvement and detachment 17 process sociology 185 scholarship 74

Index socialization, processual view of 88–94 social theory 11 sociology 42, 137, 140 truism 19 Weimar intellectual environment 12–13 elimination contests 45 Emirbayer, Mustafa 156 empiricist surveys 33 Enlightenment 84 Eros and Civilization 31 establishment–outsider relations 5, 53–4, 69, 86, 92, 101, 117, 137 establishments 101–9 ethnic minorities 97 etiquette and ceremony 41 Eurocentric discipline 139 evangelism 79 families 20, 41, 48 aristocratic class 75 middle-class 69 wealthy 169 working-class 69 fascism 14 fetishization of commodities 21 feudalism 44 figurational sociology 42, 61, 115–16 cultural arbitrary versus means of orientation 167–74 Dutch scholars 63–4 of education 5, 83, 155 childhood 64–71 relational theory 155–9 welfare states 71–80 institutionalization of 62 interlocution (Mennell) 61–3 state nobility 174–82 Foucault, Michel 1, 88, 155–84 archaeological and genealogical approach 159–61 governmentality 114 France 46 Frankfurt School of critical theory 14 free-riderism 74 French civilizing process 178 French Revolution 41, 48–9 Freud, Sigmund 4, 19, 27–30, 65, 88 psychoanalysis 31 psychology 90

Index transhistorical psyche 28 Fromm, Erich 14 Fukuyama, Francis 143 functionalist theories 33 Gabriel, Norman 1 gambling 50 game models 6, 116–23, 128 game-theory inspired analyses of welfare states 74 Gebre-Medhin, Ben 111 Gellner, Ernest 72, 73 globalization of education 6, 123, 143 figurational interpretations 147–51 marketization and world society 143–7 Goldthorpe, John 99, 102, 113, 158 gossip 54 Goudsblom, Johan 63 Gouldner, Alvin 16, 22, 88, 94, 105, 124, 140, 145, 171, 176 Gove, Michael 181 governmentality 115, 161 Gramsci, Antonio 32 Griffiths Report 128–9 guilt and denial 29 habitus 39 Hall, Stuart 84, 85 haute cuisine 63 HEI see higher educational institutions (HEIs) Heidegger, Martin 13 Heilbron, Johan 63, 64 heteronormative discipline 139 heteronormativity 138 higher education curriculum, decolonizing 136–40 disciplines as states 134–5 historical sociology 112, 133–4 monopoly on knowledge 140–2 science in university 135–6 higher educational institutions (HEIs) 100 historical sociology 183 homines aperti 4 homo clausus 4 Human Figurations 62 humanistic interdisciplinarity 138 hybridity 51 hyperglobalists 143

213

idealism 4, 12, 22, 59, 161 versus materialism 13–14 model of social reproduction 161–7 identities 84–6, 140 construction 84 ideological services 93, 104, 177 ideological state apparatuses 20, 111 inclusion and exclusion in education 95–8 inclusive education 96 Indian Brahmins 78 individualism 72 socialization 148 industrial capitalism 20 industrial firms 111 industrialism 72 industrial revolution 35, 50 inequalities 140 injustices 140 institutionalization capital 144 of figurational sociology 62 isomorphism 145 intellectual celebrity 62 interdisciplinary critique 139 interdisciplinary humanistic scholarship 138 internalization of social control 40, 115 International Sociological Association Congress 63 interpellation 32 interpretivists 104 intersectionality 97, 138 involvement and detachment 16, 54–7, 67 Jaspers, Karl 13, 19 Khan, Shamus 101 Kilminster, Richard 13 knight’s academies 47 Kshatriyas 78 lack of education 96 Lammy, David 98, 103 language 160 Law, Alexander 156 leisure 50 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 162 LGBT colleagues 127 LGBTQ+ 97

214 LGBTQ studies 138 liberal bubble 126 liberal ideology 21–2 Luhmann, Niklas 79, 80, 146 Lukács, György 14 luxuries 40–1 macrosociological transformation 43, 116 Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy 2 Mannheim, Karl 4, 14, 15, 19, 26, 191 sociology of knowledge 14–16 Marcuse, Herbert 14, 31, 33 marketization 111, 114 Marshall, T. H. 72 Marx, Karl 4, 19–23, 88 Elias’s analysis of 139 normative evaluation of economics 22 political economy and sociology 23 Marxism 14, 112, 162, 171 see also neo-Marxism; Western Marxism masculine discipline 139 mass education 95, 98, 111 mass journalism 73 mass media 20 mass society 31 materialism 4, 12, 161 McIntosh, Peggy 97 Mead, G. H. 84 meaning-making activities 84 means of orientation 57 medieval universities 37 Mennell, Stephen 61–3 merchant classes 46 metaphysical abstractions 134 Meyer, John W. 77, 95 middle-class materialism 51 misrecognitions of reality 134 modern factory system 76 ‘modernising’ taxation systems 47 modernization theory 88 monarchical mechanism 46 monopolization of violence and taxation 44–51 monopoly mechanisms 6, 39, 133, 146 monopoly of taxation 49 multicultural society 106 see also ‘critical theory’ of modern societies multiple disciplinary knowledges 138 multi-tiered games 123–7 Mumford, Lewis 156

Index national curriculum 78 National Health Service (NHS) 128 nationalism 73 Nazism 16 neo-Kantian idealists 13, 18 neoliberalization 111, 114 neo-Marxism 3, 23, 143 see also Marxism network analysis 159 NHS see National Health Service (NHS) noblesse de robe 47, 48 non-literate populations 103 non-rational processes 147 Norbert Elias Foundation 62 normal students 96 objectivism 161 object-oriented knowledge 137, 171 OFSTED 148 operational complexity 145 outsiders and anti-establishment-ism 101–9 oversocialization 31 Oxford movement in Britain 136 Parsons, Talcott 69, 86–7, 105 participation scholarship 112 Passeron, Jean Claude 165 patriarchal discipline 139 patriarchy 123 pedagogic work 165 performance management 114 permissive society 58 philistinism 51 Poe, Edgar Allen 55 ‘political arithmetic’ tradition 99 political education 15 politics of cultural despair 16 positivists 104 postmodern identity 84 power analysis 100 power-figuration-habitus 157 pragmatism 159 primal contest 117 private philanthropies 111 privatization 130 ‘problem-oriented’ groups 138 process-reduction 158 processual sociology 3, 7, 188

Index professionalization 146, 185 professional regression 185 Protestant Ethic thesis 25 protestants 24 psychogenesis 16, 40 public education 105 Quesnay, Francois 21 Quest for Excitement 53, 57–9, 58 ‘race frames’ students 100 racism 138 Raeff, Mark 47 Reed, Isaac 157 reflexive historical sociology 156 regular school 96 rehabilitation of subjectivism 164 relational sociology 1, 156 relationism 64 relative autonomy 12, 21, 112 religion and schools 20 religious denominations 111 renaissance and reformation 135 renaissance classicism 37 Research Excellence Framework 149 respectability 54 restraint 50 retreat of sociologists into the present 3 revolutionary consciousness 30 Ricardo, David 21 Ritterakademie 47 romantic ethics 68 Romantic nationalism in Germany 136 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 67 ruling class 133 Sartre, Jean-Paul 85 schooled individuals 146, 181 science and technology studies (STS) 156 scientific associations 111 scientific establishments 6, 55, 123 Scotson, John 53, 61 Scottish Enlightenment 64 selection mechanism 45 self-actualization 93 self-congratulatory conviction 104 self-constraints 27, 41, 92, 105 self-control 39, 40, 93, 112, 125 of pre-existing social figurations 39

215

self-identity 91 self-punishment 29 self-restraint 28 sexuality 50 skeptics 143 Slee, Roger 96 SMCPC see Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission (SMCPC) Smith, Adam 21 social constraints 27, 105 social constructivism 65 social control 90, 150a social identity 1, 84 social inequalities of education 1, 99 socialization processual view 88–94 and schooling 166 and selection 86–8 social liberalism 14 social mobility 113 Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission (SMCPC) 98 social processes 3 social science 34 society, formal structure of 59 The Society of Individuals 26 sociogenesis 16, 28, 40, 186 socio-historical transformation 26 sociological amnesia 62, 156 sociological identity 84 sociologists Durkheim, Émile 4, 19 Freud, Sigmund 4, 27–30 Marx, Karl 4, 19–23 Weber, Max 4, 13, 23–7 sociology of education 70, 183–4 bearers of stability 189–92 critical scholarship 3 ‘post-critical’ sociology 1–4 principles 188–9 processual sociology 184–7 special education 96 specialist professionals 121 state-formation 1 state-insurance schemes for unemployment 76 state school-educated students 169 Steinmetz, George 134 Stevens, Mitchell L. 111, 183 structural functionalism 86, 118

216 STS see science and technology studies (STS) students’ actualizations of self 93 subjectivism 23, 161, 162 ‘subject-oriented’ fields 137, 171 super-ego formation 91 survival unit 45 The Symbol Theory 12 systems theory 159 Szakolczai, Árpád 156 taxation 74, 136 Teaching Excellence Framework 149 Thatcher, Margaret 114 Thompson, E. P. 35 transdisciplinarity 134 transformationalist 143 Treaty of Versailles 12 Trump, Donald 125 Turner, Bryan S. 88 unplanned educational policy processes 111–12 education as third tier 123–7 game models 116–23, 127–31 governmentality and the performativity 112–16 upper-caste elites in India 124 usefulness 50 utility 50

Index valorizations of scientific knowledge 56 ‘value-free’ social science 22 value-neutrality 15–16, 88 vulgar functionalism 115 vulgar sociology of knowledge 22–3, 139 Warikoo, Natasha 100 Weber, Alfred 12–13, 19, 88 cultural sociology 21 Weber, Eugen 74 Weber, Max 4, 13, 19, 23–7, 72, 156 spirit of capitalism 26 ‘Verstehen’ approach 13 Weimar government 12 Western Marxism 32 white-collar worker 29 Whitehead, A. N. 188 white supremacist discipline 139 Winston Parva 53, 54 working-class emancipation 22 families 69 groups 102 Young, Michael 93, 170, 173, 179 zero power 169 zero-sum logic 140