The Culture Wars move on: Memoirs of an activist sociology teacher
It appears that as an activist sociology teacher in the late 1970s I was one of those who sowed the seeds of Wokery (letter to The Times 15th August)
Andrea Jenkyns who is a Tory Minister who has some responsibility for higher education claimed at the Tory Conference in October 2022 that Universities were teaching critical race theory, anti-British history and social (or possibly sociological) Marxism and this was a bad thing.
Anti-British presumably means covering all of British history with nothing left out, which Boris Johnson sometimes claimed he supported.
Social Marxism is more problematic since it has no clear meaning beyond its use by far right US Republicans to cover views they consider as ‘woke’.
Culture Wars move on and The Times (14th August) reports that ‘activist teenagers’ are increasingly studying sociology at A Level. It is the fifth most studied subject up from ninth five years ago. The view is that with capitalism in crisis, climate change etc there is an increasing interest in how society works, or doesn’t. The Times (Editorial 14th August) concedes this is not entirely bad although it still thinks students would be better off studying classics
In the late 1970s I was myself a promoter of social or sociological Marxism. I studied Marxism as part of my first degree, (and indeed often turned theory into practice with college sit-ins and demos) and then went on to get a PGCE teaching qualification as Sociology teacher.
I was of course then as now an activist
I was briefly unleashed on the pupils of Birmingham but the wider world intervened. Mrs Thatcher was elected in May 1979 and she was no keener on sociology or Marxism than Andrea Jenkyns. I looked elsewhere for employment..
Sociological Marxism essentially sees Marx as one of the great thinkers alongside others such as Weber. It significantly underplays the importance of Marx’s beard something I have always emphasised
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