http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9761-1531
Doctoral Theses
We have agreed that the journal will invite and include notices of recently completed theses in the Sociology of Education. This will be an important resource for readers to follow through as well as provide the names of colleagues who are new entrants to the discipline.
This is an open invitation starting with theses completed from 2015 onwards. We would like the following information:
The name of the Author;
The title of the thesis;
The university awarding the degree;
A 200 word synopsis of the thesis (which must include an indication of overall purposes, theoretical elements, research design and method nature of conclusions and significance for the sociology of education);
An email address.
Please forward these to Helen Oliver, BJSE Editorial Office,
Email: [email protected]
We will include this call for the above information in forthcoming issues of the journal.
Executive Editors
Name of Author: Quentin Maire
Thesis Title: ‘Creating a better world’: the International Baccalaureate and the reproduction of social inequality in Australia
Awarding University: University of Adelaide, Australia
Degree and Year: PhD 2016
This study explores the contribution of an alternative senior secondary certificate, the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma, to the reproduction of social inequality in Australia. Drawing on theoretical instruments from dispositional sociology and a relational conception of educational opportunities, it examines the social distribution and quality of the ‘IB opportunity’, as well as the institutional configurations underpinning its position in the education system. The research combines a country-wide analysis of IB schools’ socioeconomic and academic profile with a survey of IB students in selected schools to unravel the relationships existing between the supply of this alternative educational offering and the dynamics of reproduction of social inequality at play in Australian secondary education. The results suggest that the IB Diploma is primarily implemented in socially selective schools, in which high academic achievement is the norm. By its socially selective intake, the IB Diploma expands the panel of educational strategies available to those who possess the proper species and volume of capital and thus contributes to the reproduction of social inequality. The study’s significance for the sociology of education resides in its theoretical developments on the sociological implications of contemporary forms of educational differentiation, notably via the concept of ‘regimes of curricular alternatives’.
Email: [email protected]
ORCID: Quentin Maire http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9761-1531