Page 51 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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22 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

progress in numerical measures. Converting accept their subordination. Illustrating this
knowledge into a commodity, schools com- insight, Gibson describes how excessive
modify their students in turn. Well-known pressures led parents at one school to succeed
Skinnerian techniques of learning objectify in mobilizing protest against mechanical
students through testing and ranking, and teaching and performance testing; deter-
reinforce their alienation by making it impos- mined teachers have also found ways of
sible for them to evade the realization that counteracting and evading detrimental regu-
they are found wanting. Such alienation leads lations. This concerted ‘revolt’ is a fact, but
many adolescents to withdrawal and perhaps also an analogue of the diverse ways available
to an alcohol- or drug-based flight from for escaping the shackles of alienation by
reality. Some students, more alienated than achieving a viable identity through insight
others, more isolated than others, and and action.
angrier, find in violence the only way they In modern societies, with a wide range of
can express agency. Ironically, it is only options for identities, viable identities are
when the dehumanized take human lives that created, negotiated, and articulated in differ-
they gain recognition. Locating these seem- ent ways. Looking at the wide range of
ingly isolated acts in the larger context of meanings and usages that identity has
capitalism, Gibson shows how the school assumed in academic discourses, Langman
system exploits the marginalization of many (2000, 2005a) defines identity as a narrative
youths whose academic and social statuses based on group membership that becomes
are closely intertwined. part of individual selfhood, a self referential
By contrast, moreover, with the frequently template where memory meets the future as
expressed conclusion that exploitation and people present themselves and plan agendas.
marginalization may be effected despite the Following Castells’ (1996) analysis of
efforts of egalitarian schooling, Gibson network society, he differentiates (1) con-
points out that where quantification takes formist identities that legitimate the status
over and test scores become the be all and quo, (2) resistance identities (oppositions to
end all, the efforts are minimal. In an area of various forms of domination), (3) project
California where well-to-do neighborhoods identities that articulate new forms of subjec-
and impoverished neighborhoods send chil- tivities. But further, (4) Langman (2000) sug-
dren to the same schools, it is relatively easy gests that Castells did not consider the ludic
to show that the schools serve particular identities fostered by consumerism and pop-
interests. The agenda of preserving distances ular culture. Langman notes that each kind
between social classes is disguised as main- of identity is disposed to different forms of
taining standards of achievement and as alienation.
education for values. Alienation is insinuated He argues that identities may be alienated
into the subtle procedural messages that con- in different ways, but points out, too, that
vince the under-classes that they deserve to they may also exercise agency through
be marginalized. Through the inner convic- choices that are likely to allow escape from
tion that their isolation from the benefits of a alienation. Beginning by legitimating the
good education is justified, they submit to an very conditions that victimize, they may
alienation that is cruel and unrelenting in develop the ability to resist them, or find
damning them to a kind of slavery – failure in ways to take part in the ‘fun and games’ that
studies and rejection by the peers-who-count. the capitalist system provides as entertain-
As Heidegger (1967) intimated, however, ment. But there is still the possibility that in
eventually Slaves, with their fragmented, developing the resistance, underlings will
ignorant, and weak selves, are likely to come become capable of articulating progressive
to understand the situation and refuse to identity projects. It is only this type of