John Abraham’s research in sociology of education examines how processes of social differentiation in school organization can accentuate social-class inequality, particularly via sub-cultural polarization within the student population. In Britain, due to concerns about how selective differentiation of students at age 11 into the hierarchy of grammar schools and secondary modern schools increased social-class inequality, widespread comprehensivization was introduced during the 1970s. Previous ground-breaking ethnographic research by the eminent late Professor Colin Lacey into streaming students into a hierarchy of forms in grammar schools during the 1960s led him to develop his landmark differentiation-polarisation theory because such streaming was found to promote social-class polarization and inequality. Subsequent research during the 1970s found that streaming by banding/forms within comprehensive schools also produced social class polarization and inequality. In response, from the 1980s, secondary education policy across Britain and beyond embraced streaming by sets within comprehensive schools, that is, dividing students into ‘ability’ hierarchies within each subject. John’s main ethnographic research in sociology of education has been to investigate whether or not streaming by setting within comprehensive schools also produces social class polarisation and inequality. His book, Divide and School, was the first ethnographic investigation of setting in a comprehensive school. He found that social differentiation by setting did indeed produce social class polarization, and that Lacey’s differentiation-polarisation theory continued to hold and have relevance to setted comprehensive schools in the 1990s and to the present day. In addition, John’s ethnographic research was the first in sociology of education to apply the differentiation-polarisation theory to gender and the knowledge-content of the curriculum.
John is well-known for his methodological approach to ethnography as a social science involving: hypothesis-testing as well as exploration; quantitative as well as qualitative; and documentary as well as observational. This is in opposition to a common, perhaps even widespread, view within anthropology and sociology that ethnography must be only exploratory, observational and/or qualitative. More broadly, his research interests in sociology of education include models of ethnography, conceptualizations of social class, and ideologies of ‘intelligence’. Meta-theoretically, John has argued for a realist sociology of education, rather than a positivist or constructivist orientation. He has also advocated that reflexivity in sociology of education should be minimal. John’s work in the field of Sociology of Education is exemplified by the following publications:
John Abraham Divide and School: Gender and Class Dynamics in Comprehensive Education, 176pp, Taylor & Francis, 1995.
John Abraham (2008) ‘Back to the Future on Gender and Anti-School Boys’ Gender & Education 20: 89-94.
John Abraham (2008) ‘Politics, knowledge and objectivity in sociology of education’ British Journal of Sociology of Education 29 (5): 537-48.
John Abraham (2008) ‘Pupils’ perceptions of setting and beyond’ British Educational Research Journal 34 (6): 855-65.
John Abraham (2007) ‘Differentiating between and synthesizing quantitative, qualitative, and longitudinal research on polarized school cultures’ Journal of Curriculum Studies 39: 597-602.
John Abraham (1996) ‘Positivism, Prejudice and Progress in Sociology of Education’ British Journal of Sociology of Education 17: 81-87.
John Abraham (1994) ‘Positivism, Structurationism and the Differentiation-Polarisation Theory’ British Journal of the Sociology of Education 15: 231-41.
John Abraham (1989) ‘Testing Hargreaves’ and Lacey’s differentiation-polarisation theory in a setted comprehensive’ British Journal of Sociology 40: 46-81.
John Abraham (1989) ‘Gender differences and anti-school boys’ Sociological Review 37: 65-88.
John Abraham (1989) ‘Teacher Ideology and sex roles in curriculum texts’ British Journal of the Sociology of Education 10: 33-51.