Rob Moore, social realism, and the sociology of education and knowledge

This chapter details the emergence of social realism as an effort to address ‘the problem of the problem of knowledge’ (Moore, 2013b) in the sociology of education. As a backdrop to the discussion, it will briefly outline the manner in which the work of Basil Bernstein - ‘a realist, but without a theory of realism’ (Moore, 2013a, p. 190) - has served as a central intellectual inspiration behind the development of social realism. It will contrast this work with that produced by the ‘new sociology of education’ which came to prominence in the 1970s and has been followed by a recurrent trend towards epistemological relativism in the field. The chapter will focus most particularly on the efforts of Rob Moore to identify the shortcomings of such approaches and his significant influence on the development of social realism as an alternative aimed at supporting their strong claims for social justice with strong, rather than relativising, claims for knowledge

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Knowledge management · Realism · Social knowledge · Social realism · Social science · Sociology · Sociology of Education · Computer Science · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies · Philosophy