Bristol School Research Articles

Examining Normative Sociology and Phronetic Social Science in the Light of Practical Reason

Normative sociology and phronetic social science are research programmes that aim to overcome the dead end of positivism and the obfuscating effects of cryptonormativity, promising renewed social science disciplines that engage normatively with the public. In this article, I aim to deepen our understanding of social science’s (re)turn to normativity by examining how the disciplinary aims of such programmes fare against their conception of practical reason. I consider Tariq Modood’s presentation of the Bristol School of Multiculturalism as a form of normative sociology and begin from its understanding of practical reason after Michael Oakeshott, before specifying Modood’s recommendations, also with reference to other prominent versions of normative sociology. I then show that Bent Flyvbjerg’s phronetic social science, an Aristotle-inspired programme that has received widespread attention, is a particularly useful object of comparison: it bears high proximity to the Bristol School of Multiculturalism by being contextualist, dialogical, and prising public engagement. Most importantly, it too espouses antirationalist arguments via the emphasis it places on the Aristotelian notion of phronesis (practical wisdom). I argue that Oakeshott’s and Aristotle’s insights on the character and growth of practical reason both clarify and problematize the disciplinary aims of normative sociology and phronetic social science. Thus, to develop and defend normative social science, it is necessary to address a host of resulting challenges, most centrally the following: phronesis as an intellectual virtue based on one’s disposition, character, and experience largely eludes disciplinary-level training of the kind that social scientists and political theorists have received, exercise, or provide to students.

Normative Sociology in the Bristol School of Multiculturalism: An Interview with Tariq Modood

In this interview, Elisabeth Becker interviews Tariq Modood about his understanding of and contribution to normative sociology. Professor Modood describes his personal and professional trajectory, culminating in his leadership of the Bristol School of Multiculturalism. This school unites sociology and political theory to ask pressing questions about British society (and beyond) regarding migration, diversity, and inclusion. In this interview, Professor Modood further draws attention to the need for an explicit “big N” Normative Sociology, where the scholar’s aims for the betterment of society are made explicit and argued for; where subjectivity is seen not as a weakness but as a component for both critiquing and transforming the societies in which we live.

Bristol School of Multiculturalism as Normative Sociology

The Bristol School of Multiculturalism is a political theory/sociology interdisciplinary approach to its subject matter, which has been described as a form of normative sociology. It is normative in the way that a lot of critical social theory (e.g., Foucauldian) is not and is not merely “deconstructive” but also a constructive engagement with the concerns of co-citizens. It, however, eschews the abstract, top-down universalism of Rawlsian liberal egalitarianism in favour of a context of national citizenship and pays particular attention to bottom-up political struggle. However, unlike some other activist-oriented perspectives or standpoints, it is neither antistate nor antinational but is guided by a sense of inclusive unity or the common good. Essential to this unity is “recognition” and institutional, not merely symbolic, accommodation of minorities and a perspective on the “multi” which goes beyond the black-white binary and a secularist exclusion of political claims-making by religious and ethnoreligious groups such as Muslims in western Europe. Critically, the Bristol School of Multiculturalism is not just normative in that it does normative sociology, but most importantly, it engages in political theory to justify its normative perspective against objections and rival normative positions. So, the Bristol School of Multiculturalism is perhaps not just a normative sociology but also a form of normative sociological theory.

The Single Motherhood Penalty as a Gender Penalty: Comment on Brady, Finnigan, and Hübgen

Previous articleNext article No AccessCommentary and DebateThe Single Motherhood Penalty as a Gender Penalty: Comment on Brady, Finnigan, and Hübgen1Sophie Moullin and Susan HarknessSophie MoullinPrinceton University Search for more articles by this author and Susan HarknessUniversity of Bristol and London School of Economics Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 127, Number 2September 2021 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/717886 Views: 507Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref © 2021 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Susan Harkness The Accumulation of Economic Disadvantage: The Influence of Childbirth and Divorce on the Income and Poverty Risk of Single Mothers, Demography 59, no.44 (Aug 2022): 1377–1402.https://doi.org/10.1215/00703370-10065784Susan Harkness Single Mothers’ Income in Twelve Rich Countries: Differences in Disadvantage across the Distribution, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 702, no.11 (Nov 2022): 164–187.https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221120758

Transformation of Sociocultural Integration Policy and Inherent Political Theories in the United Kingdom: A Way Forward

The contemporary integration policies (Community Cohesion Agenda [CCA]) of the United Kingdom have been criticized for their foundational weaknesses, conceptual inadequacies, myopic views with regard to the complexity of the issue, lack of evidence, and so on. Vast majority of the studies conducted to verify this discourse have been done in the line of theoretical arguments of diversity management rather than exploring their connections to a target community in reality. This study aims at establishing a linkage between the growing theoretical arguments of the integration discourse with empirical data in light of the policy framework of the CCA. We have selected the fastest growing Bangladeshi community of the CCA-adapted Aston City of Birmingham as the representative group of the ethnic minority communities of the United Kingdom. Qualitative data collection approach has been followed, where primary in-depth interviews were conducted on various policy actors, social workers, faith leaders, and Bangladeshi residents of Aston. The entire policy instrument, starting from its broad purposes to operational strategies, has been severely challenged by both residents of the community and relevant policy-implementing bodies in Aston. CCA policies appear to be largely inclined toward the interculturalism/communitarianism ideology rather than to multiculturalism. However, the empirical evidence shows that the need for multiculturalism, to be more specific—Bristol School of Multiculturalism, as a political theory remains in the integration discourse in the context of the United Kingdom. Findings are expected to have implications on practitioners and policy makers in designing diversity management policy instruments by having a wider synthesized view on both theoretical argument and empirical data.

Contextualist political theory about multiculturalism in a post-multiculturalist context

Many theorists of multiculturalism have proposed contextualism as an approach particularly suited for theorizing multiculturalism. The so-called Bristol School of Multiculturalism (BSM) is characterized by a ‘bottom up’ and claims-based approach eschewing appeal to abstract political principles. Tariq Modood has articulated this contextualist approach as a version of Michael Oakeshott’s idea of politics as ‘the pursuit of intimations’. The question is how such an approach fares when applied to the specific political and social context characteristic of, especially European, political reality of the last 10–15 years. Political opposition to multiculturalism at ideological and rhetorical levels has characterized this context. At the legal level, many of the laws and rules in place actually protecting minority groups have furthermore not had the form of group rights or policies of recognition proposed by multiculturalist theories. The question therefore arises whether a contextualist approach that takes its point of departure in the facts of such a context can deliver a justification of a recognizable multiculturalist political theory. This is a version of the general problem of critical distance facing contextualism. Modood’s version of the approach appeals to the internal diversity of traditions to answer this problem. However, this leads to additional questions about the nature of the theory and the way in which it is action-guiding. Consideration of these questions qualifies the understanding of in which sense the BSM approach is contextual.

The Bristol School of Multiculturalism

The Bristol School of Multiculturalism

Michael Arthur Stephens, 1927–2019

Michael Arthur Stephens, 1927–2019

John King, the Bristol surgeon and friend of artists and poets.

The Bristol School of Artists developed between 1800 and 1840 and was a collaboration between professional and amateur artists, one of whom was Dr John King. King started his professional life in Bristol as assistant to Thomas Beddoes where one of his colleagues was Humphry Davy and the three of them worked in the Pneumatic Institute, attempting to cure tuberculosis with gases. King subsequently became a popular general practitioner in Clifton and his correspondence with patrons of art, romantic poets and his friends gives much information about the social life in Bristol in the early part of the 19th century.

An Unfinished Critical Ethnographic Journey: Collaborative Reframing and Repositioning of Relationships in the Field

This paper explores my on-going collaborative research journey that began in 2009 with a critical ethnographic investigation into the ways one early years school in Bristol was working to advance a pedagogy of respect that drew on the multilingual and multiliterate out of school practices of children and their parents in order to open possibilities for in-school learning. The project was framed within a critical ethnographic approach that is underpinned by a philosophy of democratic and collaborative ways of working within the field; acknowledging identities, positionalities and relations of power as constructed within and across institutional settings. In this paper, I present the collaborative learning trajectories and relationships between myself, as researcher, and Lara, the Head Teacher, a key participant within this project. I situate this within a critical reading of researcher identities, collaboration and research-community partnerships within a scholarship that draws on arguments for the democratizing of knowledge production, the re-evaluation and transformation of field relationships through reflexive practice (Byrd-Clark & Dervin, 2014; Facer & Enright, 2016; Giampapa, 2011) and the intellectual and emotional commitment involved in shaping them. What evolved through this unfinished critical ethnographic journey is an understanding of the underlying «practical, personal and symbolic» reasons (Facer & Enright, 2016, p. 59) for field relationships as a starting point in order to build deeper forms of engagement. These deeper forms of engagement generate different ways of knowing that are co-created, ethically grounded, socially responsible and action oriented (Campbell & Lassiter, 2010). I stress the transformative power of these field conversations that were able to evolve and shape new ways of understanding as a result of the longevity of being in the field and working beyond it.

Hit or miss?

Removing toys from a nursery school in Bristol for a month resulted in the two-year-olds not wanting them back. Nicole Weinstein reports

The Bristol School of Multiculturalism, and the political sociology of identity

The Bristol School of Multiculturalism, and the political sociology of identity

The emergence of the Bristol School of Multiculturalism

Geoffrey Brahm Levey plausibly describes how a group of scholars who he calls the ‘Bristol School of Multiculturalism’ (BSM) differ from scholars who are often called Liberal Multiculturalists (LMs). We expand Levey's analysis by showing what in the history of the BSM's thought made the liberalism and the multiculturalism of LMs unconvincing for BSM scholars. Hence, we show how certain thinkers influenced BSM scholars in ways that made them unwilling to offer liberal theories and how BSM scholars began their work with multiculturalist ideas that differ from the multiculturalist ideas of LMs.

The Bristol school of multiculturalism

Tariq Modood, Bhikhu Parekh, Nasar Meer and Varun Uberoi are well known for their defence of multiculturalism in Britain and beyond. The article contends that the collective oeuvre of these and other scholars associated with the University of Bristol’s Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship represents a distinctive and important school of multicultural political thought, a ‘Bristol school of multiculturalism’. The school challenges the liberal biases of much of the corpus of multicultural political thinking and the nostrums of British and other western democracies regarding the status of the majority culture as well as of cultural minorities. It is an identarian and assertive multiculturalism that, above all, seeks inclusion and a sense of belonging in the national community. The article situates the Bristol school in the British context in which it arose, outlines its distinctive approach and principles and critically assesses its positions on liberalism and national identity. It also raises the question of the political acceptability of the Bristol school’s ‘muscular multiculturalism’.

On the Matter of the Concept

Rebecca Kosick (rk15030{at}bristol.ac.uk) University of Bristol School of Modern Languages, 17 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TE, United Kingdom

Nancy Rushton Brueton

Nancy Rushton was born in 1919 in Wood Green, north London, and lived there until 1930, when her father, Oswald Rushton Baldwin, became headmaster of St George’s Grammar School in...

G161(P) Creating a mental health workshop for secondary school children

BackgroundIn the UK 1 in 10 children aged 5–16 has a mental health disorder, and 80,000 young children and adolescents are living with severe depression. Despite published evidence highlighting the...

The guitar and the Bristol school of artists

This article examines the special relationship that developed between guitarists and artists in Bristol in the first decades of the 19th century, an event previously known of only from the pages of local newspapers, diaries and obscure literary writings. It was the confluence of two disparate events which enabled this to happen: the emergence around 1810 of the Bristol School of Artists, and a concurrent European-wide surge of interest in the guitar, generally referred to as la guitaromanie (‘guitar frenzy’), which reached its peak in England in the early 1830s. Bristol, neighbouring Clifton, and Bath were at this time fashionable destinations for the leisured rich, and their less competitive atmosphere also proved attractive to many professional musicians working in London. Among those who travelled to the West Country to give concerts and teach were some of the greatest contemporary guitar virtuosos, including Fernando Sor, Trinitario Huerta, Giuseppe Anelli, Andreas Schulz and Karl (or Charles) Eulenstein. These players found favour not only with the concert-going public but also with the local artistic fraternity, some of whom were inspired by their playing to take up the guitar, in particular genre artist Edward Villiers Rippingille (1789–1859). An enduring bond developed between the two groups, which resulted in much socializing and creative collaboration. In addition, a strange and poetic cult of the guitar derived from their activities, documented in a series of whimsical yet erudite articles by the amateur artist and poet John Eagles. This forgotten episode represents a small but vital chapter in English Romanticism, and is important also for the light it sheds on the guitar’s role in English provincial life in the 19th century.

Testing a self-determination theory model of children’s physical activity motivation: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundUnderstanding children’s physical activity motivation, its antecedents and associations with behavior is important and can be advanced by using self-determination theory. However, research among youth is largely restricted to adolescents and studies of motivation within certain contexts (e.g., physical education). There are no measures of self-determination theory constructs (physical activity motivation or psychological need satisfaction) for use among children and no previous studies have tested a self-determination theory-based model of children’s physical activity motivation. The purpose of this study was to test the reliability and validity of scores derived from scales adapted to measure self-determination theory constructs among children and test a motivational model predicting accelerometer-derived physical activity.MethodsCross-sectional data from 462 children aged 7 to 11 years from 20 primary schools in Bristol, UK were analysed. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the construct validity of adapted behavioral regulation and psychological need satisfaction scales. Structural equation modelling was used to test cross-sectional associations between psychological need satisfaction, motivation types and physical activity assessed by accelerometer.ResultsThe construct validity and reliability of the motivation and psychological need satisfaction measures were supported. Structural equation modelling provided evidence for a motivational model in which psychological need satisfaction was positively associated with intrinsic and identified motivation types and intrinsic motivation was positively associated with children’s minutes in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.ConclusionsThe study provides evidence for the psychometric properties of measures of motivation aligned with self-determination theory among children. Children’s motivation that is based on enjoyment and inherent satisfaction of physical activity is associated with their objectively-assessed physical activity and such motivation is positively associated with perceptions of psychological need satisfaction. These psychological factors represent potential malleable targets for interventions to increase children’s physical activity.

Visual attention to health warnings on plain tobacco packaging in adolescent smokers and non‐smokers

Previous research with adults indicates that plain packaging increases visual attention to health warnings in adult non-smokers and weekly smokers, but not daily smokers. The present research extends this study to adolescents aged 14-19 years. Mixed-model experimental design, with smoking status as a between-subjects factor and pack type (branded or plain pack) and eye gaze location (health warning or branding) as within-subjects factors. Three secondary schools in Bristol, UK. A convenience sample of adolescents comprising never-smokers (n = 26), experimenters (n = 34), weekly smokers (n = 13) and daily smokers (n = 14). Number of eye movements to health warnings and branding on plain and branded packs. Analysis of variance, irrespective of smoking status revealed more eye movements to health warnings than branding on plain packs, but an equal number of eye movements to both regions on branded packs (P = 0.033). This was observed among experimenters (P < 0.001) and weekly smokers (P = 0.047), but not among never-smokers or daily smokers. Among experimenters and weekly smokers, plain packaging increases visual attention to health warnings and away from branding. Daily smokers, even relatively early in their smoking careers, seem to avoid the health warnings on cigarette packs. Adolescent never-smokers attend the health warnings preferentially on both types of packs, a finding which may reflect their decision not to smoke.