Sociological contributions of Durkheim and Bernstein to sociocultural diversity in school

Abstract

There is consensus that the sociological discipline provided a framework for understanding therelationships between education systems and the broader social contexts in which they are situated.However, the portraits that tradition has sketched of schools take on contrasting meanings. Theperspectives explored in this article arises as a response to the obsolescence of deterministic modelsof educational change and their difficulty in explaining those processes of change that take place inschools. This article offers a theoretical reflection on the concerns of socio-cultural diversity based on the distinction between the instrumental and expressive orders in schools, delimiting diversity as a problematic area and providing conceptual resources based on the contributions of Durkheim and Bernstein. This approach is conceptually anchored to the distinction between models ofintegrative relations based on organic and mechanical solidarity and presents a systematic effort to theorise educational practices. The article concludes that educational policies address a dilemma between the demand for specialised performances and a set of core competencies, values, and beliefs in the context of societies that are equally complexifying and diversifying rapidly, societiesthat aspire to a coexistence between the dynamics of technological change and democratic life.