Sociology, inequality and teaching in higher education - A need to reorient our critical gaze closer to home?

Abstract

This chapter argues a particular disciplinary positioning for sociologists in negotiating our professional practice as higher education teachers in the neoliberal academy. It conjectures a need to decompartmentalise the equality-focused vales underpinning the research interests of many sociology academics, from our everyday teaching practices. Understanding of the often-unspoken value-orientation of knowledge including that imparted in HE teaching, and the mechanisms of power and privilege of which we are all part, locate a particular responsibility not only to remain attuned in our own practice but also to take an active role in our institutional cultures. Evidence from research and teaching experience demonstrates the complex interplay of policies, cultures, and both intentional and unintentional dimensions of interactions between individuals and groups in perpetuating prejudice and marginalisation in HE contexts. Evidence of the un-belonging experienced by marginalised minorities including within the university sociology classroom identifies a need for us to reorient our critical gaze closer to home, to the classroom and wider institutional culture as the locus of activity in which so much of our professional lives are spent.