Why Nick Clegg needs a degree in sociology by Les Back
14 January 2011 18 Comments
Looking back over the past months one of the enduring images in my mind is the sense of hurt displayed in the body language of Nick Clegg, and even David Cameron, at the level of anger that has been directed at them over tuition fees and the education cuts. ‘We’re nice guys after all, we don’t really have a choice’ you can almost hear them thinking. They seemed personally shocked by the suggestion that they are implicated in a grave injustice, almost as if the outcry is incomprehensible. Perhaps, this is because, speaking sociologically, the public anger is incomprehensible to them.
In a way, their inability to have anticipated the furore and anger over tuition fees is an argument for sociology itself. The filters that class privilege places on their ability to make sense of the social world explain this incompre-hension. For the Liberal Democrat there is something desperate and pathetic in their empty gestures at radicalism. Simon Hughes, Deputy Leader, stated recently that Oxbridge and elite Russell Group Universities should restrict the proportion of applicants from private schools. At the same time, these changes and differential fees will undoubtedly reinforce the class divided nature of education. The private secondary school close to where I live charges £12,000 a year to educate a child. They pride themselves on their ‘excellent record of gaining places at Oxford and Cambridge’. So, for those families paying £9,000 a year for University fees this is a 25% reduction in their annual investment on their children’s future. Equally, Norman Lamb’s ‘outrage’ at the racism and ubiquitous whiteness of Oxbridge colleges on Question Time is another example of desperate attempts to strike a radical pose.
The situation in HE now is so profoundly different from anything we have seen before that we just cannot know what is ahead. Whatever that future might be, a sociological imagination will be an increasingly valuable resource to try and make sense of what is unfolding. Claire Callender warned a decade ago that the fear of student debt inhibits widening access to university. As she herself has noted despite this there has been a measure of success in widening student participation and the changes to student fees that were implemented in 2004 did not halt this. Last year HEFC reported “young people living in the most disadvantaged areas who enter higher education has increased by around +30 per cent over the past five years.” However, according to Sir Martin Harris, Director of Fair Access, for the top third selective universities, the proportion of disadvantaged students “remained almost flat.” There may be an increased measure of access to higher education but there has been little change with regard to where the most advantaged students go to university. The choices students make according to Claire Callender and Jonathan Jackson: “reflect their material constraints as well as their cultural and social capital, social perceptions and distinctions, and forms of self-exclusion – all of which are class bound”.
There is something very Victorian about the way Liberal Democrat politicians refer to the image of the clever but excluded poor students of Bermondsey and elsewhere. It is precisely the politician’s privilege that makes them unable to face up with sober senses to what they are doing. Maybe it would be worth the money for Nick Clegg and Simon Hughes to apply for a place on a degree programme in sociology? There might be some intense staff competition to have those courses added to their teaching loads.
Les Back, Goldsmiths University of London
I couldn’t agree more with this. I think a dose of sociology together with a lived ethnographic experience might just give the ConDems a little ‘snapshot’, albeit fleeting, of the realities many prospective HE candidates are facing. Cultural, social and economic capital have never been so important.
Sociology should also be used to help solve problems -an alternative solution -
For home students instead of raising fees there should be some agreement which means that when the student has completed their degree they work in a particular sector – education perhaps for a minimum of 3 years. This would mean that the educated would be the educators – so that 15 years later the students have the capacities to at least compete on a like for like basis academically.
Overall as sociologist must provide workable solutions and armchair theorists may be isolated from reality but they underpin what is going on in that society. Horses for courses spring to mind – just because I am a sociologist doesn’t mean that I will actually do what needs to be done- a heirachy is in place wherby the idea is formulated and then needs to be moulded to fit a scheme and passed through in order to be accepted. Sociology can provide great insight into the workings of a structure but this alone cannot provide us with the will to change it – that requires empathy and in our current drive to adopt a corporate approach to all we do in the workplace I fear that empathy has been excluded
Work in a particular sector? Education? Oh dear, we’re not talking about Teach First, are we? Getting bright graduates to do 1930s-style ‘philanthropy’ in inner city schools, funded by large international businesses, so they can get the edges knocked off them working with other people’s children for a couple of years? Before drifting into something more personally profitable, like acting as a consultant for companies selling services to education? (Which incidentally has always seemed to me about as ethical as big pharma companies training our nurses, letting them do a short stint in hospitals to develop them on the cheap, and then hiring them back for ‘Proper Jobs’).
Google Teach First and you will rapidly get a sense of how tightly controlled the Teach First publicity machine is, not least because in official evaluations the scheme is reported to be problematic on a number of levels (dropout rates, inability of trainees to discipline classes, unclear educational benefits for pupils), yet it is pushed at every opportunity to and by politicians as some sort of magic educational bullet.
I’m not sure that’s any kind of solution. The issue here is that we haven’t adequately defined the problem. In the 11 years of supposed plenty we were fed a line about why student fees needed to be introduced, why lecturer salaries needed to be constrained, why we collectively needed to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear in terms of increases in student numbers and reduced time for research, and so on. The reality is that global financial difficulties are merely acting as a useful device for politicans and senior civil servants to conflate a number of issues such as general suspicion of the sector, a view that anyone involved in education or indeed social research is something of a subversive 1970s pinko, a desire to give the impression of university expansion through the rebranding of polytechnics rather than introducing proper parity of funding and sustainable investment … I could go on. It has all provided a wonderful excuse to dismantle a social institution that proved to be highly politically inconvenient at times, and re-engineer the sector into something more malleable and conformist. All whilst protecting the status of the ruling elite. Let’s face it, colleagues, they have out-manoeuvred us. The only remaining question is, if we are so clever, how do we regain our position?
I agree, too, but think that it isn’t only an issue of excluded poor students. The expansion of higher education has coincided with a transformation of the occupational order from a preponderance of manual jobs to a preponderance of white collar jobs. This has meant that relatively high rates of ‘structural mobility’ can be achieved, while the relative chances of someone from a poor social background achieving ‘service class’ occupation, have remained stable, despite the expansion of higher education. In this context, the Conservative-Liberal Coalition has sought to emphasise “fairness’’ and have criticised the ‘sharp elbows’ of the middle class that have denied equal opportunities, a refrain that is widely endorsed.
What is less noticed is that the rise of a larger, more credentialed middle class has threatened the privileges of the upper middle class in their access to service class jobs. What we are witnessing is their ‘fight back’ in terms of an overhaul of the University system to align it with the system of private education. Education in England has always been anomalous with an elitist private school system (which about 7.2% of all pupils attends) exists alongside a system of state-funded education. Previously, the anomaly was that privately educated school students ‘finished’ with free, public higher education. Now the anomaly is that state-educated students will finish with costly, private education.
The privatisation of Universities, with premium fees for some institutions, will begin to align universities with the fee structure of private schools. Compensating bursaries will be introduced to support the aim of encouraging children from poor social backgrounds into higher education, just as they are argued for private education more generally. One consequence, however, is to drive a wedge between the private school using upper middle class and that part of the middle class previously dependent on state education, and that is the intention. Paradoxically, in the name of ‘equal opportunities’, we are also being subject to class(room) warfare on behalf of the privileged. The consequences will be to restore the competitive advantage of the upper middle class within the professional labour market, something that all previous education reforms since the1960s had sought to redress.
As always, John, you make me think harder. The fracturing of class interest that you describe is really important and in a way surprising. It just really struck me – was my daughter who pointed it – that actually for the very rich University is going to be a cheaper option compared to what they have paid to opt out of the state system! While for those who have been state educated (middle-class and working-class) they will be disadvantaged by ending their studies in costly privatised Universities.
What I find distressing about what is currently going on is the apparent disregard for the need for innovation and critical nouse. Focusing on education as an instrumental means to an end encourages blinkered thinking, a lack of engagement with core values such as democracy and egalitarianism and reduces those involved in teaching bright young minds to drones.
I do not for one minute think that those who work in STEM subjects have it ‘easy’ as they too will be encountering these sizemic shifts in turning education into a commodity. But removing all support for social science specifically, including sociology, is short sighted, ill informed and gives the impression that creative thinking, decision making, autonomy, independent thought and everything else that is so positive and constructive in the subjects that come under this disciplinary banner are not worth it. Or rather, not worth the financial burden.
To reduce opportunities for engagement, broadening horizons and maturing as adults to such a degree will have a profound effect on the future of this country.
Going back to the original post, I have been quite astonished by the response of the political elite in their surprise at the unrest and resentment the withdrawal of their support has generated.
However, I have been even more surprised by the deafening silence from our academic powerhouses. Why have VCs rolled over and accepted this? Self interest in keeping their empires going. What has happened to an academic community when it cannot stand up for the values that it preaches? Fear for jobs and future job security, to my mind, is limiting those who wish to speak out.
I welcome this blog but would also like to see more sociologists out there in the media talking about their work, reminding the general public why they are needed, why this subject is needed, what it can offer students, indeed, what it can offer society. I fear that unless we get our act together very quickly then we may be held responsible in the future for the destruction of UK Sociology.
I agree with you, Kate. Timidity and conservatism inside the academy is driven by selff-interest. I know that some people inside the institutions are doing what they can to ensure that the institutions survive. To be honest with you I have felt for a long time that it is important to make a case for the value of sociology not just as a set of credentials but as a resource for living and holding to the world or what you call ‘critical nouse’.
I agree with the main post. Although interestingly I believe Nick Clegg does have a degree in anthropology, but that’s opening a can of worms. What I would say though is that whilst a sociology degree can certainly help to encourage a nascent class consciousness, it can only do so in those with the capacity for it, and I think that capacity has far more to do with one’s actual class situation and class background than with education per se. By and large by the time students get to university the fundamentals of their social class worldview are already very well formed. It’s those who teach sociology in schools and colleges (for much less money and status) who make the difference here.
Kate – “I have been even more surprised by the deafening silence from our academic powerhouses. Why have VCs rolled over and accepted this? What has happened to an academic community when it cannot stand up for the values that it preaches?”
The deafening silence is not at all surprising. VC’s at the ‘elite’ universities have not merely rolled over and accepted this, they have for some time been vocal advocates of the power to raise fees. Of course it would have been ideal for them if they had also been able to keep the state funding, but that was never realistic. And if £9000 is only just enough to cover the shortfall from public funds, they’ll already have calculated that this cap will inevitably at some point in the not-too-distant future be raised again. Indeed they will make sure of it by continually complaining that they can’t ‘compete globally’ in the international market without higher fees. The logic of the system now is such that the only way for fees is up, which in the long term is a win win for the corporate university. In this sense, the leaders of the ‘academic powerhouses’ are predictably sanguine, as they’ve essentially got what they wanted. As for educational values, I think it’s quite clear that in the management of higher education where the key decisions are made these values are merely paid lip service to, whilst what really rules is business values dressed up as educational values – entrepreneurialism and competitiveness have beaten critical pedagogy into almost total submission.
On the important point about fear and insecurity keeping people quiescent I think you’re spot on. Note for example that most of the main regular contributors to this blog are very well-established high-status sociologists, rather than say early career academics on the increasingly ubiquitous fixed-term contracts. In my experience fear and insecurity are endemic amongst early career academics, contributing to a culture in which keeping your head down and pursuing purely individualist strategies of self-preservation are the established commonsense: ignore the politics, which is beyond your control, and just focus all energies on getting published in high-ranking journals, in the hope that you will thereby escape the coming cull and be one of the lucky few to get tenure. But what response could be les sociological?
Government by fear and insecurity is of course a key strategy of neo-liberalism. It was used to great effect by the Thatcher government in the 80’s against the organised working class, and it’s being used again now against what remains of this group together with much of the lower middle class as well. And no wonder when it works so well: create a milieu in which enough people feel personally vulnerable and you have a recipe for collective resignation and passivity. In my experience it’s a rare person indeed who will put their (abstract) political principles above their (concrete) job security and financial self-interest when it really comes down to it, and such ‘mavericks’ don’t fare well in professional organisational cultures because their values are regarded as irresponsible if not incomprehensible. Instrumentality and rational self-interest are so deeply ingrained. But that’s exactly what is needed to beat the ceaseless encroachment of neo-liberalism into all areas of life – more people who are willing to be reckless and irresponsible with regards to their own individual interests, and thus responsible with regards to their collective interests. I believe that’s the meaning of solidarity.
Hi,
As an early career sociologist at a not so prestigious university on a 2 year full-time contract (which seems like a miracle given earlier 1 year part-time posts!), working to gain funding so our new Research Institute won’t flounder and I might get an extension on my contract I do have fears about being unemployed in 2012 and not being able to afford to pay the rent on my partner’s (lower than mine) salary alone. However I am concerned about what is happening in the world, very concerned indeed. I am willing to fight and I know others are too – we (ECF, PGF, John Holmwood and anyone else who is interested) are going to be working on resources to help other postgrads and early career sociologists to find their way at this confusing and frightening time. I am applying for funding to work on issues like bullying in schools and young trans people’s experiences in Higher Education and I do want to ‘make a difference’ – not so easy when so much early career/small grant funding is taken away and you’re left with plenty of ideas but no money to get them off the ground.
It’s a daunting time but yes, we do need to pull together – early caeer academics and those at the top of the ladder alike. It is harder when you’re starting out to rock the boat but we have no choice. It would be nice if those in more privileged positions who are earning a lot more money and have much more life security would join in to help protect the future of coming generations as well as encouraging research that might just help those who are being pushed to breaking point by ‘the cuts’.
Tam
Thanks Richie. I didn’t know that Nick Clegg had studied anthropology. Something to ponder. I do think though that at the end of the day instrumentality and rational self-interest is corrosisve not only for the university but also in relation to what is valuable about thinking and what is alive in the classroom. As Avery Gordon writes we have to make “our minds unavailable to servitude” even when it is self-serving.
Good stuff here – thanks everyone! Small point on Les’s original post about Nick n Dave thinking of themselves as nice guys. The one thing I liked about Thatcher and Tebbitt was that they never bothered to pretend to be nice. They fought the class war old style – with sharp tongues, sharp elbows, and the police force well-paid to back them up (remember the Miners’ Strike?). Nick n Dave have grown up in families which taught ‘niceness’ as a class virtue: the mellow voices, the assured smiles, the jokes, the endless politesse (Oliver Letwin really is the Daddy when it comes to this stuff.)
But I don’t think for a minute they were surprised when the fighting started; their hurt expressions were merely another niceness device. They want an HE system which meets the needs of capital as they define those needs: for a much more carefully structured workforce than it is currently producing. To deliver this, HE must be fiercely competitive (within each institution and between institutions), partially privatised and organised in a many-tiered hierarchy. The children of Nick n Dave will attend the universities (probably completely private by the time they get there) at the top of the hierarchy – and they may actually bump into the occasional state-educated young person who has won in the competition for a scholarship.
The contrast between the former Polytechnics and the rest will become more and more stark, and all sorts of finer divisions will emerge. The fact that lots of students are revolting against these changes indicates that their real meaning is widely understood. Nick n Dave know that parents will dob in (thanks to the digital Panoptican) some revolting students when they go ‘too far’, but they will probably support them when they demonstrate peacefully. And they must know that the TUC, behemoth and sluggard that it is, will mobilise very large numbers too. Nick n Dave will smile, and remain polite, but they are ready for a very big fight.
And how long do you think these toffs will stay ‘nice guys’? Not very long to my mind. One problem is that most sociologists (and anthropologists) are still observing everyday life as if it were life on Mars. Wake up! The people who provide us with a living are real people, facing real problems, experiencing new losses and using their own limited reserves to find new ways to live.
This is not about tuition fees or the survival of Social Sciences in Universities . The self proclaimed ‘world class’ sociology departments will still be able to kick around for a few years, charging studentds and their families £9,000+ a year. Don’t worry you are are all safe!
But what about those kids who didn’t get 3 A’s at school, who don’t make it into the Oxbridge and Bloomsbury factory farms? The universities they get in to are the ones that will collapse under all of this very thinly disguised elitism.
So is sociology just about observing and writing papers? isn’t it time we started training (and becoming) activist sociologists? People who care about who we study not just whether we can get funding, publish peer reviewed papers , keep our jobs, etc,.
I like what you have said Les, It’s refreshing to see that someone is thinking – I’ve been to BSA conferences that are positively damaging to the spirit. But who said a university education ever made a difference? Generations of politicians, university professors and leaders of all descriptions have failed to provide any evidence that going to a ‘good university’ will make you any smarter than anyone else. Going to university, being exposed to different world views and thinking hard (now and again) can make a difference. Unfortunately we have a government who can think but they think is that it’s better for the rich to get the opportunities so that our top universities can competes at a world class level.
You people in the ‘world class’ universities, what have you got to say? If you care about anything other than yourselves when will you start to raise your voices?
Somehow i Don’t think you will be doing that any day soon. this is not about young academic being afraid to lose the next short term contract. It;’s about the the professors, the heads of department, the Deans and Pro Vice Chancellors who don’t and never really did give a shit for anything but their own kind.
So Les, nothing has changed, just the Government.
I agree with you Vincent about the self-interest and quietism. I do think though that however uneven and incomplete it might have been there has been change over the last 20 years in some institutions. I see it in my own college where I was a student myself over 30 years ago. In 1981 there were a handful of working-class students and only one black student in my entire year across all departments. It’s a different place now and I think education has made a difference but I guess Goldsmiths students aren’t going to be members of the Lib Dem Coalition! You are right to say this isn’t just about a change of government – it’s a much longer trend but I think the government is accelerating that trend.
Yes, Max. Perhaps I give them too much credit – but there is something quite strange at the desperate attempts at radical rhetoric. Maybe it applies less to Clegg than people like Norman Lamb. Perhaps it is all a ‘niceness device’ as you say.
hello Les . . . now we meet on a blog! The wonders of the Age of Digitation! There’s lots to be said about ‘niceness’. It is a prerequisite for listening properly, so when deployed for that purpose it is a virtue. But it can also be a device for deflecting/blocking critique. On radicalism: the interesting thing about the LibDems, for me, is their split between Thatcherite radicalism (ie for radically free markets) and classical Liberal radicalism (which at its best is a strong critique of State power and of authoritarianism – a critique I share). Clearly Nick is in the former camp, some of his MPs in the latter, with Simon Hughes and Vince Cable utterly confused!
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To illustrate just how ‘in it together’ we are in academia, here’s an ‘interesting’ article about the trends in VC’s pay at this time of cuts, redundancies, trebled fees and attacks on pensions:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/23/university-pay-rises-funding-cuts
No doubt they’d argue that they deserve it because they’re ‘the best’. And apparently if you want to attract ‘the best’ then you have to pay them enough for 5 families to live on (at least that’s the justification I remember from the New Right Perspectives’ section of my old Sociology of Stratification textbook). I never understood why ‘the best’ in academia should be motivated so narrowly by money, but there it is.