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On that Lewis Hamilton ‘Gender Shaming Video’

You may remember Lewis Hamilton posting a 12 second video of himself teasing his nephew about ‘wearing a princess dress’ at Christmas, basically telling him that ‘boys don’t wear princess dresses’.

And he got a lot of stick about ‘gender shaming his nephew from the liberal and trans community, so much in fact that he and later posted a video apologizing for his actions (probably on advice for his agent).

Lewis’ actions do seem somewhat out of touch with the times….. in our postmodern age of ‘gender diversity and fluidity’ the Scottish government has just published guidelines recommending that primary-school children should be allowed to identify as either gender without parental consent, while the Church of England has issued new guidance saying that children should be free to wear tiaras or fireman’s helmets, whatever they want, with out prejudice.

There is a rational argument for allowing children the freedom of gender expression… Ruth Hunt, CEO of Stonewall, argues that society has nothing to fear from becoming more open-minded towards people who question their gender identity. She argues that you can’t ‘turn’ children trans just by allowing boys to dress up as girls and girls to dress up a boys, because ‘trans’ is innate.

She further argues that the reason we’re seeing more trans people today, the reason they are more visible is because society is at last allowing them the freedom to express who they really believe themselves to be. From this perspective, I guess what Lewis Hamilton was doing was restricting the right of his child to ‘be who he really was’.

So it’s only a 12 second video clip, but the reaction to it tells us so much about the society in which we live – changing norms and values surrounding gender and the (terrifying?) way in which public discourse can penetrate into our private lives, if we choose to post videos of ourselves on Twitter that is!

Return to Eden and Eden Lost – A Case Study in Problematic Masculinity?

Starting in Spring 2016, Channel 4’s ‘Return to Eden’ was a year long social experiment in which 23 people moved to Inverness-shire in the Scottish Highlands – their mission – to form a community and survive for one year.

The experiment was a somewhat artificial community-experiment – in that the people were selected by the show, on the basis of their having the different skills thought to be required for a community to survive for a year; and with the exception of electricity and modern technology (most significantly phones and computers) they were given a shed load of equipment necessary to meet their basic needs – although they did have to grow their own food.

Oh, and the community members all had cameras, along with a bunch of fixed position cameras to film the whole experience.

Eden Lost

‘Return to Eden’ initially aired in summer 2016, documenting the first three months of the experiment. Originally, it seemed that Channel Four were going to provide updates on the community throughout the year, but after the initial summer raft of episodes, there was a near total media blackout until the show ‘returned’ as ‘Eden Lost‘ in summer 2017, 3 months after the year long experiment ended.

Eden Lost starts in the summer of 2016, following the participants from 3 months to the end of their stay (by the end, there are only 10 people left, 13 people dropped out, mostly women, before the conclusion of the experiment).

After the first three months – the camp has basically divided into three – a group of five males who have ‘bonded’, 2 ‘outsiders’ who are living in a cabin on their own, and everyone else.

Episode 1 of ‘Eden Lost’ focuses on the group of five males, seemingly led by a character (a plumber) called Titch who at one point proposes a ‘gendered division of labour’ which offends pretty much everyone else outside of the clique of five. This group of lads seems to be quite the ‘Laddish subculture’ – openly joking about ‘sharing women’ in front of, well, the women in the community, and teasing them for ‘getting emotional’ when they got upset about their laddish behaviour.

You can see them throughout the episode justifying their behaviour, employing various of Matza’s ‘techniques of neutralisation’, clearly never taking responsibility for or really ever seeming to care about how their juvenile misogyny was having a negative effect on group dynamics.

The formation of this group seems to have led to yet more women leaving, further entrenching their position of power in the wider community (five in a group of fifteen, which is roughly how many were left by this point is quite a significant number too!)

Episode two focuses on the two outsiders – who effectively get voted out (75% majority required) by the others. These two seem to have been used as a scapegoat, constructed as a venting point for certain people in the main community.

Episode three – ‘Valley Boys’ focuses on the developing split between the five ‘valley boys’ and the other six people left in the original group. These five increasingly isolated themselves from the wider community, wanting to focus more on ‘themselves’ rather than doing things for the community as a whole.

It also seems that the lads deteriorate further into their laddishness, with scenes of derogatory ‘banter’ directed against the gay guy in the group (justified as just ‘banter’ by the lads).

At one point, the lads start eating nothing but meat, pushing the slaughter rate of animals up from one a week to six a week, which offends Rob P, the vet who has respect for animals and can’t see to see so many ‘shot in the face to feed greedy wankers’ (or something along those lines – and he becomes another one who leaves, effectively forced out by the relentless laddish subculture.

NB – what’s particularly grim about they way they deal with their meat fest is that they leave bits of bone and carcass lying around the valley, which makes it ‘stink of death’.

The final episode stars off with Christmas Day – which seems to be going fine until Artist Katie, the girlfriend of the vet who left in the previous month, decides to leave the party stating she doesn’t want to spend the day with any of the people there because they’re all revolting (as far as she’s concerned)

There’s an issue with people getting contraband smuggled into Eden, and a debacle over someone having been using a mobile phone, although we never actually find out who was using it. which kind of makes a mockery of the whole experiment.

By this final episode, the two groups are living entirely separate lives, but they come together for a final fire-party on the beach.

What does Channel 4’s recent social experiment tell us about ‘community’ and social life more generally?

TBH I think it tells us very little…

The Human Development Index

The United Nations uses The Human Development Index (HDI) as a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living. It provides a useful ‘snap-shot’ of a country’s economic and social development.

HDI Scores in 2020

Dark Green is high ranging through to dark red which is low….

The Human Development Index

The Human Development Index measures Human Development using four indicators

To measure health – Life expectancy at birth
To measure education – the average (mean) number years of adult education adults over 25 have received and the number of expected years of education children attending school can expect

To measure standard of living – Gross National Income per capita (PPP)

Each country is then given a rank from between 0 and 1 based on how well it scores in relation to ‘constructed minimum’ and ‘observed maximum scores for each of these criteria. The minimum and maximum scores for each criteria are as below

	Minimum scores*	Perceived maximums
Life expectancy at birth	20	83.2
Mean years of adult education adults over 25 have received	0	13.2
number of years of education children attending school can expect	0	20.6
Gross National Income per capita (PPP)	163	108, 211

(*This is the level below which the UN believes there is no prospect for human development!)

How does the HDI work out a country’s score? – it’s quite easy – if a country has a life expectancy of 83.2, and all the other maximums, it would score one, if it had a life expectancy of 20, and all the other minimums it would score zero. If it was half way between the minimum and maximum – it would score 0.5 – NB by the UK’s standards, this would be a pretty low level of human development!

The Human Development Index – Best and Worst Performers

Top

1	Norway	0.954
2	Switzerland	0.946
3	Ireland	0.942
4	Germany	0.939
4	Hong Kong	0.939
6	Australia	0.938
6	Iceland	0.938
8	Sweden	0.937
9	Singapore	0.935
10	Netherlands	0.933

Towards the Bottom

179	Congo, Democratic Republic e	0.459
180	Mozambique	0.446
181	Sierra Leone	0.438
182	Burkina Faso	0.434
182	Eritrea	0.434
184	Mali	0.427
185	Burundi	0.423
186	South Sudan	0.413
187	Chad	0.401
188	Central African Republic	0.381
189	Niger	0.377

What do the scores above mean?

If a country scores 1-0.788 it is classified as a ‘developed country’ with ‘high human development’ – as are 42 countries – most European countries come into this category. These are typically the countries with GNIs of $40K per capita or more, 13 full years of education and 80+ life expectancies.
If a country scores 0.48 or lower it is classified as having Low human development – e.g. Sierra Leonne – here you will see a GNI per capita of below $1000, 10 years or less of school and life expectancies in the 60s.

Advantages of the Human Development Index

It provides us with a much fuller picture of how well developed a country is, allowing for fuller comparisons to be made.
It shows us that while there is a general correlation between economic and social development, two countries with the same level of economic development may have different levels of social development. See below for examples.
Some argue that this is a more human centred approach, concerned more with actual human welfare than just mere economics. It gets more to ‘the point’ of economic development.

Two Limitations of the Human Development Index

Relying on the HDI score alone may disguise a lack of social development in a country – for example a very high GNI can compensate for poor life-expectancy, as is the case in the United States.
It is still only provides a fairly limited indication of social development – only health and education are covered – there are many other ways of measuring health and education.

Cultural Capital and Educational Achievement

cultural capital is the skills, knowledge and values possessed by the middle class which give their children an advantage in education compared to the working classes.

Cultural Capital can be defined as the skills and knowledge which an individual can draw on to give them an advantage in social life. In this post, I explore and then look at how cultural capital can give children an advantage in education.

Cultural capital is one of the most important concepts within the sociology of education, and it goes a long way to explaining why middle class children do better in education than working class children.

Key Terms

Capital can be defined as any assets that can improve your life chances.

Cultural Capital – having the skills, knowledge, norms and values which can be used to get ahead in education and life more generally.
Social Capital – possession of social contacts that can ‘open doors’
Educational capital – middle class parents having higher levels of qualifications.

The Habitus – Bourdieu’s concept describing a cultural framework, or set of norms and values which contains a set of taken for granted assumptions about good and bad tastes. (It is essentially the same as cultural capital).

Cultural Capital Theory

Cultural Capital Theory is a Marxist theory of differential educational achievement.

In contrast to cultural deprivation theory, cultural capital theory does not see working class culture as inferior, or lacking in any way, it just sees it as different to middle class culture. Instead of blaming working class underachievement on flawed working-class culture, cultural capital theory focuses on the dominance of middle class culture in society and social institutions.

In short, middle class children are more likely to succeed because the education system is run by the middle classes and works in their interests. The middle classes are able to define their own culture as superior and thus working class culture and working class children are marginalised in the education system and end up underachieving.

Pierre Bourdieu and The Habitus

The Marxist sociologist Pierre Bourdieu is the theorist most closely associated with developing the concept of cultural capital and applying it to education.

Bourdieu argued that each class has its own cultural framework, or set of norms, values and ideas which he calls the habitus. This habitus contains a set of assumptions about what counts as good and bad taste which influences the kind of leisure activities different classes engage in, the kind of places they visit, where they go on holiday, the kind of television programmes they are likely to watch, what kinds of books they are likely to read and the type of music they are likely to listen to.

The middle class habitus places much more value on the following kinds of activities, and thus these are the kinds of activities which middle class children are more likely to be exposed to compared to working class children:

Reading non-fiction and classical literature rather than pop literature
Watching documentaries rather than soap operas

Learning to play classical instruments (e.g. The Piano)
Going on educational visits – to museums and art galleries for example
Going on holidays abroad (to ‘broaden horizons’).

Exposure to the above activities provides middle class children with ‘cultural capital’ – many of the above activities are inherently educational in nature and provide middle class children with skills and knowledge which give them an advantage at school. This knowledge can either be specific – such as with reading non-fiction, or more general – such as cultural trips providing children with a sense of independence and self-confidence.

Middle class culture is also the dominant culture in most schools, and schools place high value on the above types of middle class skills and knowledge. Middle class children thus ‘just fit in’ with middle class schools, they are at home in a middle class environment, they don’t need to do anything else other than be themselves in order to belong and thrive at school.

In contrast, working class culture (with its immediate gratification and restricted speech codes) is seen as inferior by most schools. The default assumption of the school in regards to working class children is that school is somewhere where working class children are taught to be more middle class – thus by default working class culture is devalued and working class children are more likely to struggle in education as a result.

Educational Capital

One important (and easy to understand) aspect of cultural capital theory is educational capital: middle class parents are educated to a higher level than working class parents (they are more likely to have university degrees) – an obvious advantage of this is that they are more able to help children with homework throughout their school careers, but the are also more likely to socialise their children into thinking that going to university is a normal part of life – and thus good GCSEs and A levels are a necessity rather than being a choice.

Research on Cultural Capital

This is one of the more researched concepts in recent decades and there have been several studies since the late 1980s which have put cultural capital theory to the test, including:

Dianna Reay – Middle Class Mothers Make The Difference

Stephen Ball – The 1988 Education Act gave middle class parents more choice
Alice Sullivan – A Quantitative Study of how cultural capital effects 400 children
Why do Working Class Kids Lack Aspiration (Broad support for Cultural Capital Theory).

The remainder of this section summarises some of this research (links to more in depth posts forthcoming)

A quantitative analysis of Bourdieu’s theory

Alice Sullivan conducted a survey with 465 children approaching school leaving age in 1998, using the the educational qualifications of the parent with the highest status job to measure parental cultural capital.

Students were asked about the activities they engaged in such as the kind of books they read, the television programmes they watched, the music they listened to and whether they played a musical instrument. They were also tested on their knowledge of cultural figures, their vocabulary and how much they visited museums and art galleries.

Sullivan conducted quantitative analysis to find out which of the above variables affected GCSE results and found that those who read more widely and read more complex fiction and those who watched arts, science and current affairs programmes achieved better GCSE results.

Music and attending cultural events had no effect on GCSE scores.

Sullivan also found that students’ cultural capital was strongly correlated with that of their parents, which in turn was correlated with their social class background.

HOWEVER, Sullivan also found that there were strong differences in educational achievement within middle class students and within working class students, so cultural capital alone does not automatically mean middle class kids will do better, or working class kids will fail.

Other factors such as parental interest and involvement in a child’s education and material factors also contribute to educational achievement.

Positive Evaluations of Cultural Capital Theory

Cultural capital seems more relevant now with neoliberal education policies – marketisation (and free schools) gave parents and schools more freedom – middle class parents and schools use this freedom to exclude the working classes.

Social capital theory is useful in explaining the punishingly depressing fact that privately educated children often use their social networks to get internships to get them into the ‘professions’.
Unlike cultural deprivation theory Bourdieu etc. do not see working class culture as inferior or blame the working classes for the failure of their children.
The theory links inside and outside school factors – middle class families and middle class schools work together to exclude working class children (especially see Ball’s idea about the school-parent alliance).

The theory may be more relevant now with the establishment of Free Schools – Only middle class parents really have the cultural capital necessary to set up Free Schools.

Criticisms of Cultural Capital Theory

Most statistical research suggests material deprivation and economic capital are more significant factors than cultural capital in explaining class differences in educational achievement.
It may be unfair to blame schools for being biased against working class children – many schools put extra resources into helping working class children.

From a research methods point of view, it is more difficult to research and test out some aspects of cultural capital theory – how do you measure the effect of piano lessons on educational achievement for example?
If cultural deprivation theory is true – there are no practical solutions to reducing class inequalities in education within the existing system – more radical (revolutionary?) changes are necessary.

Cultural Capital Theory – A Summary of The Key Ideas:

Marxist Theory

Middle Class Socialisation = Cultural Advantage– Literature, Classical Music and Museums
Middle Class Parents better educated = help with homework/ University seen as necessary
Stephen Ball – Skilled Choosers and the School Parent Alliance

Related concept = Social Capital = Internship in friends Dad’s Law Firm = UNFAIR
Positive Evaluation – Blames the middle classes/ More relevant with 1988 and Free Schools
Negative Evaluation – Money matters more/ no practical solutions to WC failure.

Examples of Cultural Capital in Action

Parents encouraging their children to read.
Parents taking their children on a trip to a museum.
Parents taking their children on a cultural sight seeing tour abroad.

Parents encouraging their children to learn the Piano.
Parents helping their children with homework.
Parents using their research skills to research which school to send their child to.

Parents phoning the school to get their children extra support lessons.
Parents taking their child for a dyslexia test to get them extra time in exams.

Signposting

Cultural capital is one of the most important concepts within the sociology of education, it is part of the broader sub-topic of sociological explanations of underachievement.

For a briefer version of what’s above see this post: The effects of cultural and social capital on education.

For more information on Bordieu, you might like this external post: Bourdieu’s foundational concept of the Habitus.

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