In defence of sociology – spiked

Sociology, as both a discipline and a subject, has long been questioned and ridiculed by sections of academia and the media. ‘It isn’t a real science’ is the common response when I tell people I am a sociologist.

So during what are already horrendous times for those working in higher education, the last thing sociologists needed – a month before term starts and, more importantly, before clearing – was a scandal that undermines higher education and helps delegitimise the whole subject of sociology. Unfortunately, that is precisely what has happened in the shape of the Jason Arday affair.

The now ex-sociology professor has been the star of Britain’s so-called silly season, when parliament closes and news reporters look elsewhere for stories. As many will now know, Arday has been accused of plagiarism, fabricating data and creating a seemingly Walter Mitty-esque backstory – one featuring incredible feats and jaw-dropping triumphs over adversity. And up until this week, he was the professor of sociology of education at the University of Cambridge – a prestigious position at one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

The Arday fiasco has unfortunately fuelled the widespread mockery of the discipline in which he found it all too easy to ‘excel’. So, as a sociologist with an undergraduate degree, a master’s in social-science research methods and a PhD in sociology, I feel the need to defend the subject I love and reclaim respect for the sociologist.

I want to reassure students currently preparing to start, or re-start, their studies in September that sociology is far from a ‘Mickey Mouse’ subject – this despite the damage done by university HR departments forcing through dense, complicated yet inane statements about equality, diversity and inclusion, and by some social scientists themselves.

Sociology matters because it reveals how power works and moves through society. It questions what appears to be ‘normal’, especially when the practices, views and activities ‘normalised’ cause harm. Social scientists have changed and challenged the worldviews of millions of people – their work has done a tremendous amount of good.

If we go back to British sociology in the 1950s and 1960s, we find Family and Kinship in East London, a research project by Peter Willmott and Michael Young, the father of Toby Young of the Free Speech Union. Fondly called ‘FAKINEL’ by the working-class East Enders whose lives it examined, the study followed families from bombed-out post-war Bethnal Green as they embarked on their new lives on council estates in Essex.

The research was groundbreaking because it showed that family ties and networks were crucial to working-class people. It argued powerfully that a sense of community needed to be built into the modern council estates appearing across the country during the mass council-house-building programmes of the mid 20th century. It is a message and a sentiment we still need to remember today.

Another important contribution came in the form of the Affluent Worker studies, carried out in Luton in the 1960s and undertaken by academics concerned with class in Britain. Their research in Luton’s car-manufacturing plants showed that some working-class people held relatively well-paid and skilled jobs. This made them ‘affluent’, insofar as they could buy homes, cars and consumer goods, a marked difference from other sections of the working class and from earlier generations.

Why was this important? Because it told the story of how work can offer working-class people dignity and a real chance to escape poverty. Although the study is almost 60 years old, I believe its message about the importance of work remains vital.

Then there is Paul Willis’s 1977 study, Learning to Labour. It used ethnography, another research method now being lambasted because of the ridiculous rise of Arday, some of whose papers are based on something called ‘auto-ethnography’ – which boils down to writing from one’s own experience.

Nevertheless, Willis’s research still resonates today. He found that working-class lads in schools in working-class areas were being taught and trained specifically for manual work. The academic side of education was denied to them because it was (wrongly) assumed that it would be wasted on them. This work seems particularly resonant right now given our new Labour prime minister and education secretary recently floated the idea that it would be better for working-class sections of society to focus on a more practical, less academic education leading to apprenticeships. Willis’s work shows how easily we can step back into the old class tropes – that some of us are not suited to academia, and that education is therefore wasted on us.

I know this to be untrue from first-hand experience. I am a working-class woman. I worked for many years in factories, grew up and lived on council estates, and I can also read and critique high academic theory.

So, in light of the Jason Arday affair, I ask the public to look beyond the stupidity and Marie Antoinette-like practices of elite universities, and remember what the discipline of sociology can achieve when practised properly.

I also make a plea to my fellow academics: stop allowing this to happen. Stop allowing academic institutions to make appointments and pursue policies that denigrate everything we do. We need to go back to first principles. We need to forget the identity politics, the DEI quotas and the tick-boxes, and support and fund what we do best – deepening knowledge of what is really happening in society and arguing why that matters.

Lisa McKenzie is a working-class academic.