John Holmwood
University of Nottingham, Sociology & Social Policy, Faculty Member
- John Holmwood joined the School of Sociology and Social Policy as Professor in Sociology in October 2009 from the Uni... moreJohn Holmwood joined the School of Sociology and Social Policy as Professor in Sociology in October 2009 from the University of Birmingham, where he was Professor of Sociology and Head of Department. He has previously held positions at the Universities of Tasmania, Edinburgh and Sussex
He is a former President of the British Sociological Association and Chair of the Council of UK Heads and Professors of Sociology. He is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
He is a co-founder of the Campaign for the Public University. He is editor of A Manifesto for the Public University (Bloomsbury 2011) and blogs regularly on higher education issues for the Campaign for the Public University, Research Blogs, Open Democracy, Sociology and the Cuts, and Universities in Crisis.edit
This article discusses issues of public communication. It does so in terms of the ethics of verbatim theatre and public sociology. The issues raised are exemplified through the ‘Birmingham Trojan Horse affair’ which has been subject to... more
This article discusses issues of public communication. It does so in terms of the ethics of verbatim theatre and public sociology. The issues raised are exemplified through the ‘Birmingham Trojan Horse affair’ which has been subject to extensive media reporting, public inquiries of various kinds as well as legal processes. In that sense, there have been various ‘courts of public opinion’ where the affair has been ‘staged’. In this article it is understood as an injustice visited upon a community of British Muslims and the teachers and governors responsible for their schools, an injustice that was largely a consequence of provocative media reporting and peremptory government action. The article addresses the role of verbatim theatre in staging the injustice for public reflection and the role of public sociology as a project of writing for justice.
Research Interests:
The Browne report advocates, in effect, the privatisation of higher education in England. With the proposed removal of the current cap on student fees and the removal of state funding from most undergraduate degree programmes,... more
The Browne report advocates, in effect, the privatisation of higher education in England. With the proposed removal of the current cap on student fees and the removal of state funding from most undergraduate degree programmes, universities are set for a period of major reorganisation not seen since the higher education reforms in the 1960s.
This book brings together some of the leading figures in Higher Education in the UK to set out what they see as the role of the university in public life. The book argues for a more balanced understanding of the value of universities than that outlined in the Browne Report. It advocates that they should not purely be seen in terms of their contribution to economic growth and the human capital of individuals but also in terms of their contribution to the public.
This book responds to the key debates that the Browne review and Government statements have sparked, with essays on the cultural significance of the university, the role of the government in funding research, inequality in higher education, the role of quangos in public life and the place of social science research. It is a timely, important and considered exploration of the role of the universities in the UK and a reminder of what we should value and protect in our higher education system.
This book brings together some of the leading figures in Higher Education in the UK to set out what they see as the role of the university in public life. The book argues for a more balanced understanding of the value of universities than that outlined in the Browne Report. It advocates that they should not purely be seen in terms of their contribution to economic growth and the human capital of individuals but also in terms of their contribution to the public.
This book responds to the key debates that the Browne review and Government statements have sparked, with essays on the cultural significance of the university, the role of the government in funding research, inequality in higher education, the role of quangos in public life and the place of social science research. It is a timely, important and considered exploration of the role of the universities in the UK and a reminder of what we should value and protect in our higher education system.
This Programme investigated the relationship between science, politics and publics in the aftermath of an influential 2000 UK House of Lords Science and Society report. We conceptualised top-down initiatives promising greater transparency... more
This Programme investigated the relationship between science, politics and publics in the aftermath of an influential 2000 UK House of Lords Science and Society report. We conceptualised top-down initiatives promising greater transparency around the use of scientific evidence in policymaking and opportunities for public engagement around research and innovation agendas, as well as bottom-up instances of public mobilisation around science as an effort to make science public. In principle, such a movement seemed to speak directly to wider arguments for ‘opening up’ controversial domains of evidence and research to public scrutiny of framing, tacit assumptions, and alternative forms of expertise. Yet, these promises raised a number of dilemmas that we sought to examine in a range of cases.
Research Interests:
Herbert Adolphus Miller (1875–1951) is a neglected figure within North American sociology, yet he made a distinctive contribution to the sociology and politics of race relations. He was one of the first sociological critics of eugenics... more
Herbert Adolphus Miller (1875–1951) is a neglected figure within North American sociology, yet he made a distinctive contribution to the sociology and politics of race relations. He was one of the first sociological critics of eugenics and developed a distinctive approach to race relations and the position of subject minorities derived from a critical analysis of European empires. His approach was complementary to that of Du Bois with whom he had a close relationship. In this article, we trace Miller’s critique of eugenics and the idea of ‘Americanisation’ as a policy of immigrant assimilation, showing the distinctiveness of his approach within North American sociology, including the milieu of Chicago sociology with which he was associated. We also examine the connection between his sociology of race and Park’s position on race relations as being a process of gradual assimilation. We conclude with discussion of the Chicago school influence over Gunnar Myrdal’s The American Dilemma and the alternative approach to race relations that both Du Bois and Miller had already outlined in the 1920s.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Sociology, Cultural Studies, Globalization, Higher Education, Political Science, and 11 morePublic Universities, Neoliberalism, Social Exclusion, Human Capital, Equity and Social Justice in Higher Education, Citizenship, Literary studies, Power, Tuition Fee, Public University, and South Atlantic Quarterly
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
And yet without the influence of ideals associated with autonomy – the pursuit of knowledge as its own end, disinterested research, open-ended experimentation – the content of academic life diminishes. Indeed, it is the very obstacles... more
And yet without the influence of ideals associated with autonomy – the pursuit of knowledge as its own end, disinterested research, open-ended experimentation – the content of academic life diminishes. Indeed, it is the very obstacles that stand in the way of the realisation of autonomy that underline the continuing significance of this ideal for the university. Collini represents Newman as an unaccountably successful windbag, who somehow continues to influence the debate on the university. He claims that the ideal that Newman ‘conjures up is beguiling’ but also ‘peculiarly contentless’ (p. 50). He goes to great length to deride Newman’s ‘silly prose’ for its rhetorical excesses and his ‘rhetorical overkill’ (pp. 48–52). No doubt Newman, a Catholic theologian writing for a religious audience, used a narrative that is inconsistent with the rigour of scientific or philosophical logic. As Collini himself recognises, Newman’s critique of utilitarian education was informed by his objective of offering an alternative meaning to life (p. 52). However, what Collini really dislikes about Newman is not simply his rhetoric but also his alleged tendency to overstate the argument for non-utilitarian and non-instrumental education. He particularly objects to Newman’s tendency to emphasise the significance of education in cultivating character and the public mind. Newman’s apotheosis of the university does sound strange and even naive to our 21st-century secular imagination. Nevertheless, arguably, at a time when education is frequently interpreted as a skill and when the integrity of academic life is dominated by a narrow instrumental ethos, Newman’s warnings about going down the road of utilitarian education can appear prescient and compelling. Despite his disdain for Newman’s arguments, Collini recognises that his opponent is no mere charlatan. The very fact that he feels obliged to criticise a ‘deliberately archaic treatise’ indicates that Newman’s arguments still matter (p. 41). Collini is not quite clear why this 19th-century cleric continues to be cited in the debates. He ungenerously implies that the ‘persistence’ of ‘pre-capitalist cultural attitudes’ must be linked to the influence of elitist attitudes towards the university. ‘Snobbery and social exclusiveness played their part here’, he remarks (p. 94). Yet the fact that the university was historically associated with elitist privilege is not an argument against some of the values that inspired it in the past. The necessity of eliminating narrow privilege can and must coexist with upholding and developing elements of the ethos that originally inspired the liberal ideal of education. What Collini has characterised as the ‘remarkable longevity of Newman’s book’ probably says more about the problem of giving meaning to the 21st-century university than anything else (p. 27), which is why Collini concludes by recognising that the ‘twenty-first century university needs a literary voice of comparable power’ to that of Newman to begin to answer the question of what is the purpose of the university (p. 60). True. But it also requires a willingness to uphold an academic ethos that runs counter to the dominant utilitarianian and social engineering cultural currents of our times.
Research Interests:
This article addresses the sociological approach and political engagements of the early twentieth century sociologist, Herbert Adolphus Miller (1875–1951). He is now largely forgotten, but he had deep connections within the Chicago milieu... more
This article addresses the sociological approach and political engagements of the early twentieth century sociologist, Herbert Adolphus Miller (1875–1951). He is now largely forgotten, but he had deep connections within the Chicago milieu of pragmatist sociology and social reform activities through both the Settlement movement and the Survey movement. In 1914 he wrote a volume in the Cleveland Survey on Immigrant children in the school system and in 1918 was appointed to head the division on Immigrant Contributions in the Carnegie Corporation’s project on ‘Methods of Americanization’, in which Robert E. Park was head of the division on Immigrant Press and Theater (Park in The Immigrant Press, 1922). If Miller’s name is recognized at all it is as author with Park of Old World Traits Transplanted (1921), a work subsequently attributed to W. I. Thomas. We examine the nature of Miller’s research on immigrant populations from subject nationalities in Europe, undertaken in Cleveland and a...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Este artigo versa sobre as origens coloniais e raciais do estado de bem-estar social com uma ênfase particular no estado de bem-estar liberal do Reino Unido e dos Estados Unidos. Ambos são entendidos em termos da centralidade da condição... more
Este artigo versa sobre as origens coloniais e raciais do estado de bem-estar social com uma ênfase particular no estado de bem-estar liberal do Reino Unido e dos Estados Unidos. Ambos são entendidos em termos da centralidade da condição mercantilizada da força de trabalho enquanto expressão da lógica das relações de mercado. Em contraste, argumentamos que, com um entendimento adequado das relações entre capitalismo e colonialismo, a venda de força de trabalho como uma mercadoria representa um movimento contrário à forma mercantilizada de trabalho representada pela escravidão. O colonialismo europeu é constitutivo ao desenvolvimento dos estados de bem-estar e suas formas de inclusão e exclusão, que permanecem racializadas até o século XXI.
Research Interests:
<p>This chapter focuses on the Trojan Horse affair. The puzzle in the Trojan Horse affair is to understand how a successful school could become the centre of a moral panic. Events unfolded quickly from the first media report in the... more
<p>This chapter focuses on the Trojan Horse affair. The puzzle in the Trojan Horse affair is to understand how a successful school could become the centre of a moral panic. Events unfolded quickly from the first media report in the <italic>Times</italic> on 2 March 2014, followed by Ofsted inspections of 21 schools ordered by the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove. On the basis of interim Ofsted reports, Peter Clarke was appointed by the Secretary of State in mid-April to provide a wider report. This appointment was controversial insofar as it placed matters directly in a context of violent extremism, since Peter Clarke was formerly in charge of Counter Terrorism Command within the Metropolitan Police in London. At around the same time, Ian Kershaw was appointed by Birmingham City Council to report on implications for the local authority.</p>
Research Interests:
Este artigo versa sobre as origens coloniais e raciais do estado de bem-estar social com uma ênfase particular no estado de bem-estar liberal do Reino Unido e dos Estados Unidos. Ambos são entendidos em termos da centralidade da condição... more
Este artigo versa sobre as origens coloniais e raciais do estado de bem-estar social com uma ênfase particular no estado de bem-estar liberal do Reino Unido e dos Estados Unidos. Ambos são entendidos em termos da centralidade da condição mercantilizada da força de trabalho enquanto expressão da lógica das relações de mercado. Em contraste, argumentamos que, com um entendimento adequado das relações entre capitalismo e colonialismo, a venda de força de trabalho como uma mercadoria representa um movimento contrário à forma mercantilizada de trabalho representada pela escravidão. O colonialismo europeu é constitutivo ao desenvolvimento dos estados de bem-estar e suas formas de inclusão e exclusão, que permanecem racializadas até o século XXI.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The immediate context of this chapter is the radical reforms to higher education in England that were initiated after the Browne Review (2010). It recommended that undergraduate degree programmes in social sciences, arts and humanities... more
The immediate context of this chapter is the radical reforms to higher education in England that were initiated after the Browne Review (2010). It recommended that undergraduate degree programmes in social sciences, arts and humanities should be wholly financed by student fees supported by a publicly underwritten system of income-contingent loans. The subsequent government White Paper (2011) modified the proposals to some degree (primarily by placing a cap on fees and student numbers because of the potentially high cost of the loan system), but reinforced the commitment to higher education understood simply as an investment in human capital. At the same time, it proposed to allow for-profit providers to compete for students with access to loans, and for universities to change their legal status to facilitate their own for-profit activities and joint ventures with for-profit companies (McGettigan, 2013).1
Research Interests:
This theoretically focused chapter by John Holmwood adopts a strategy of conceptual ‘provincializing’ and thereby reveals race as a lacuna in Polanyian and neo-Polanyian scholarship. Alongside its wide-ranging theoretical engagement,... more
This theoretically focused chapter by John Holmwood adopts a strategy of conceptual ‘provincializing’ and thereby reveals race as a lacuna in Polanyian and neo-Polanyian scholarship. Alongside its wide-ranging theoretical engagement, including innovative postcolonial reflections, Holmwood’s discussion is extraordinarily timely, engaging with US ‘race relations’ and the current ‘asylum crisis’ in large parts of Europe, as well as with wider currents of marketization. Racism is thereby analysed in both its deeper historical and current socioeconomic contexts.
Research Interests:
For a long time, the theory of industrial society has dominated sociological accounts of modernity. Our societies were argued to be defined by the large-scale production of commodities, produced and distributed according to a market logic... more
For a long time, the theory of industrial society has dominated sociological accounts of modernity. Our societies were argued to be defined by the large-scale production of commodities, produced and distributed according to a market logic of ‘scarcity’. This logic became enshrined in the discipline of economics in the definition of its object as the study of the ‘allocation of scarce means among alternate ends’. However, modern societies were also argued to confront a ‘social’ problem which was continuous with their ‘economic’ problem. This derived from the fact that large-scale production depended upon an industrial proletariat whose interests potentially went beyond the social structures of market capitalism. For many, the growth of the welfare state was to be understood as a strategy of class containment and incorporation. Social integration could be secured — though, perhaps, not indefinitely — it was argued, by the reproduction functions of social welfare services and the redistributive efforts of the welfare state. At the same time, any economic crisis tendencies of market capitalism could be reduced by Keynesian techniques of economic management.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper addresses moderation in the context of an immoderate populist politics and claims that social integration requires inculcation in the values of a dominant culture, especially by those perceived as originating from outside the... more
This paper addresses moderation in the context of an immoderate populist politics and claims that social integration requires inculcation in the values of a dominant culture, especially by those perceived as originating from outside the political community. The paper argues, instead, for a deep pluralism and for the idea of multiculturalism as friendship and the means of securing moderation in public debate. In making these arguments, it draws upon the pragmatist approach of John Dewey and the significance of his idea of a ‘public’ and on the work of Danielle Allen and her idea of political friendship. The paper concludes with the argument that political friendship requires motivation and that this will be secured by an orientation toward social justice.
Research Interests:
List of Contributors Introduction The Idea of a Public University, John Holmwood Redefining the public University: Global and National Contexts, Michael Buraway Open Universities: A Vision for the Public University in the Twenty-first... more
List of Contributors Introduction The Idea of a Public University, John Holmwood Redefining the public University: Global and National Contexts, Michael Buraway Open Universities: A Vision for the Public University in the Twenty-first Century, Nicola Miller and John Sabapathy Science as a Public Good, Philip Moriarty The Politics of Publicly-funded Social Research, Desmond King The Religion of Inequality, Stephen McKay and Karen Rowlingson Universities and the Reproduction of Inequality, Diane Reay Afterword, Sir Steve Smith Notes Bibliography Index
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper identifies and seeks to resolve the paradox that British social policy appears to have diverged from its EU partners in the period since membership and to have converged with that of the USA. Existing historical... more
This paper identifies and seeks to resolve the paradox that British social policy appears to have diverged from its EU partners in the period since membership and to have converged with that of the USA. Existing historical institutionalist approaches stress common regime characteristics of Britain and the USA in explanation of British difference from other member states. The present paper challenges such accounts and argues that the explanation lies in the transformation (and demise) of the post-Imperial/Commonwealth system of political economy in which the British economy (and related social policy) was embedded. This transformation has also produced internal problems within the British state giving rise to its reorganization with devolved Assemblies in Scotland and Wales. The final part of the paper addresses how this latter development has created a 'fault-line' in the British social policy debate with the possibility of reversing the trend toward Americanization.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Sociology, Social Change, Anthropology, Social Sciences, Interdisciplinarity, and 15 moreHigher Education, Politics, Social Studies, Economy, Humans, British Sociology, Political Sciences, Universities, Audit Culture, Great Britain, Mode 2 knowledge production, Disciplinary Formation, Interdisciplinary Communication, Management Audit, and academic discipline
Research Interests:
Structure/agency theories presuppose that there is a unity to structure that distinguishes it from the (potential) diversity of agents’ responses. In doing so they formally divide the robust social processes shaping the social world... more
Structure/agency theories presuppose that there is a unity to structure that distinguishes it from the (potential) diversity of agents’ responses. In doing so they formally divide the robust social processes shaping the social world (structure) from contingent agential variation (agency). In this article we question this division by critically evaluating its application to the concept of role in critical realism and structural functionalism. We argue that Archer, Elder-Vass and Parsons all mistakenly understand a role to have a singular structural definition which agents may then diverge from. Drawing on the work of Gross, Mason and McEachern we argue instead that if agents diverge in their conceptions of what role incumbents should do, there is no single role definition, but rather a range of diverse role-expectations. Acknowledging this can help us to understand variation in role behaviour, with different incumbents potentially being more exposed to some expectations than others. ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Sociologies of Moderation presents a series of original papers that explore the origins, intellectual foundations, and relevance of moderation in 21st-century politics, religion, and society. Reappraises an old idea—‘moderation’—in order... more
Sociologies of Moderation presents a series of original papers that explore the origins, intellectual foundations, and relevance of moderation in 21st-century politics, religion, and society. Reappraises an old idea—‘moderation’—in order to salvage and recast it for the challenges of 21st-century politics, religion, and society Represents an important and innovative concept for contemporary times Brings together leading sociologists and social theorists from Britain and America as well as emerging scholars conducting original empirical research in the US, the UK, and beyond Makes a timely contribution to contemporary debates regarding the future of democracy, expertise, and the role of the media
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In 2014 the UK government launched an investigation into the “Trojan Horse” affair: an alleged plot to “Islamify” several state schools in Birmingham. Twenty-one schools in Birmingham were subjected to snap Ofsted inspections and included... more
In 2014 the UK government launched an investigation into the “Trojan Horse” affair: an alleged plot to “Islamify” several state schools in Birmingham. Twenty-one schools in Birmingham were subjected to snap Ofsted inspections and included in the various inquiries into the affair. The book's authors — one who was an expert witness in the professional misconduct cases brought against the teachers in the school, and the other, who researches the government's counter-extremism agenda — challenge the accepted narrative, arguing that a major injustice was inflicted on the teachers, and they go on to show how the affair was used to criticize multiculturalism and justify the expansion of a broad and intrusive counter-extremism agenda. The government cites the 'plot' in its argument about the need to develop a new counter-extremism strategy that confronts extremist ideology and not just threats of violence. However, the Kershaw Report and some other commentators argue that th...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The welfare state as an area of study has been of increasing significance for social theory. It seems that a simple story can be told. The post-war period witnessed the rapid growth of welfare expenditures in all industrial societies... more
The welfare state as an area of study has been of increasing significance for social theory. It seems that a simple story can be told. The post-war period witnessed the rapid growth of welfare expenditures in all industrial societies accompanied by a growing sense of crisis ...