Some things that must be changed in sociology, if they have not already been done

Abstract

The article suggests the revision of some implicit assumptions that have been governing the sociology of education during the last decades and that can constitute ballast for its ability of explaining and interpreting the present world, but also an obstacle for its future progress. It discusses, in particular, the idea that a social stratifi cation based on school excellence may result in a fairer way than the previous ones; we question the validation of a simplifi ed idea of social or educational equality in favor of a more complete and multifaceted view of social justice, as well as inside and outside school; we propose the overcoming of the methodological nationalism that characterizes both social sciences in general and the studies on education in particular, by replacing it for a global perspective; we suggest the substitution of the organizational (and, more importantly, the individual) paradigm that prevails in the analysis of school by a reticular paradigm, more appropriate with the characteristics and the evolutional processes of the late modernity; we propose, at last, that the criticism of educational politics renounces its obsession with the question whether school is treated, or not, as an enterprise, and its unconditional identifi cation of teachers as workers, by understanding that they are not part of such group, but they are professionals, members of a profession which situation, as the one of other professions, is largely permeated with privileges, no matter which rhetorical formula they employ in order to defend themselves.