Ethnography’s capacity to contribute to the cumulation of theory: a case study of differentiation–polarisation theory

The paper sets out to examine the role that ethnographic work can and should play in the development of sociological theory, focusing on the case study of differentiation–polarisation theory. It provides a detailed discussion of the work of Hargreaves (1967 Hargreaves, D. 1967. Social relations in a secondary school, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Lacey (1970 Lacey, C. 1970. Hightown Grammar: the school as a social system, Manchester: Manchester University Press.  [Google Scholar]) and Ball (1981 Ball, S. 1981. Beachside Comprehensive. a case‐study of secondary schooling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  [Google Scholar]) and assesses the degree to which their work was ethnographic in contemporary terms. It argues that the model of theory development they offer does not need to be understood in the manner adopted by Hammersley in his account of their work as a model for theory development and testing in the sociology of education. Rather it requires the ethnographer to be more attuned towards setting and maintaining a theoretical agenda, by (a) being more preoccupied with refining existing or established theoretical ideas and concepts and (b) retaining the capacity for the fieldwork setting to inform and direct the study.     

Governmentality and the Sociology of Education: Media,educational policy and the politics of resentment

This paper argues that theorizations of the state which are sensitive to both its durability and its permeability, and theorizations which can account for the massive interconnections between local and global forces as well as different material and discursive sites are missing from contemporary work in the sociology of education. Drawing on Foucault's notion of 'governmentality' as a key resource for addressing this impasse, the authors highlight the constant fabrication of racial identity through the production of the pure space of racial origins or 'resentment'—the process of defining one's identity through the negation of the other. This dynamic, the article maintains, now informs key discourses both in popular culture and education. The authors conclude that these processes operate in tandem in the prosecution of the politics of racial exclusion in our times, informing key policy debates, including those around affirmative action and bilingual education.     

Planning Imperatives for the Next Century: A Guest Essay

Taking into consideration what has occurred with planning in American higher education over the past three decades and in light of the demands for institutional effectiveness, our planning efforts must be reinvigorated and recast. In the belief that different strategies are needed now, ten imperatives for planning are presented and explained so as to address this need.     

英国高等教育资格框架的特点与启示

高等教育资格框架作为各国高教质量保障的一环,在联系国际间学位文凭互认中是很必要的。英国的高等教育资格框架是一个授予不同类型高等教育学历、学位的学术资格框架。本文主要介绍英格兰、威尔士和北爱尔兰高等教育资格框架的形成机制与内容,然后举出其特点以期对中国在建立一个完善的高等教育框架时有所启示。     

Relative age and maturation selection biases in academy football

ABSTRACT

This study examined the simultaneous effects of relative age and biological maturity status upon player selection in an English professional soccer academy. A total of 202 players from the U9 to U16 age groups, over an eight-year period (total of 566 observations), had their relative age (birth quarter) and biological maturity (categorised as late, on-time or early maturing based upon the Khamis-Roche method of percentage of predicted adult height at time of observation) recorded. Players born in the first birth quarter of the year (54.8%) were over-represented across all age groups. A selection bias towards players advanced in maturity status for chronological age emerged in U12 players and increased with age; 0% of players in the U15 and U16 age group were categorised as late maturing. A clear maturity selection bias for early maturing players was, however, only apparent when the least conservative criterion for estimating maturity status was applied (53.8% early and 1.9% late maturing in the U16 age group). Professional football academies need to recognise relative age and maturation as independent constructs that exist and operate independently. Thus, separate strategies should perhaps be designed to address the respective selection biases, to better identify, retain and develop players.