61.004 - The Sociology of the Curriculum and Educational Policy: The Contributions of Geoff Whitty to Understanding the Current State of Educational Research — Memorial Service

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

For four decades, Geoff Whitty, CBE (31 December 1946 – 27 July 2018) made important contributions to the sociology of the curriculum and educational policy studies. Whitty succeeded Basil Bernstein as the Karl Mannheim Chair in the Sociology of Education (2000-2010) at the Institute of Education at the University of London where he served as the Director from 2000-2010.
Among his important works are Sociology and School Knowledge(1985), a classic sociological examination of school knowledge and the curriculum; Society, State and Schooling (with Michael F.D. Young, 1977), The State and Private Education (with Tony Edwards and John Fitz, 1989), Devolution and Choice in Education (with Sally Power and David Halpin, 1998), Making Sense of Education Policy (2002), and Education and the Middle Class (with Sally Power, Tony Edwards and Valerie Wigfall, 2003). Taken as a whole, Whitty’s work explored how curriculum and educational policy advantaged the advantaged and disadvantaged the disadvantaged, demonstrating how the schools and the state worked against the interests of the working class and poor and persons of color and ultimately reproduced educational and social inequalities. In addition to his scholarship, Whitty’s work as Director of the IOE was an important part of the globalization of educational research. As Director and after his retirement, he forged international partnerships with Teachers College, Columbia University and the University of Newcastle (Australia), among others. During the tenure of his directorship, he moved the IOE to the top of the British and international rankings of Schools of Education, based largely on the high quality and quantity of scholarship by IOE faculty.
This Memorial Presidential Session will examine Whitty’s work in relation to the meeting theme of “Leveraging Education Research in a “Post-Truth” Era: Multimodal Narratives to Democratize Evidence.” Given his argument that educational research in the sociology of knowledge was central to uncovering the “truths” about educational inequalities based on race, social class and gender, this session will use his work to examine the meeting theme and how his work helps us to understand the current state of educational research. This session will include scholars from a number of disciplines and areas (sociology of education, history of education, curriculum studies, educational policy and reform) who will use Whitty’s work as the foundation for analyzing the current state of educational research.

Sub Unit

• AERA Sessions

Chair

• Susan F. Semel, City College of New York - CUNY

Papers

• Geoff Whitty and Critical Sociology of Education - Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Geoff Whitty and the Politics of Educational Knowledge - Gary James McCulloch, Institute of Education - London

• What Works? Effectiveness, Academic Integrity, and the Research-Policy Relationship - Sharon J. Gewirtz, Centre for Public Policy Research

• From Basil Bernstein to Geoff Whitty: How the British Sociology of Education Is Relevant to Education Research Today - Alan R. Sadovnik, Rutgers University

• A Politics of Possibility: Geoff Whitty's Insights on Policy, Pedagogy, and Sociocultural Transformation of Educational Inequality - Terrenda Corisa White, University of Colorado-Boulder

Discussant

• Nancy L. Lesko, Teachers College, Columbia University