The sociology of education is deadlocked. It is impossible for her to explain precisely why a child from a privileged background does better than a child from a disadvantaged background.
Everything suggests that inequalities have remained so high for decades. At the same time, the research remains locked into analytical frameworks that have basically not changed since Bourdieu and Boudon. 40 years later, we are still there!
As I delved into the theme, I found that a question had never been asked: what if educational inequalities were explained by the uselessness of the content? I have indeed the growing feeling that what I learned at school was basically useless: I learned to write by writing I learned to research by researching learned English by reading and writing it Etc.
However, the uselessness of the content would not be socially neutral. If you can’t take an interest in the content because it is useful to you, there are only two main motivations left (besides the constraint): calculation (it’s just a way to get a good grade) and faith (you trust the institution). Children from disadvantaged backgrounds will know less about these unwritten rules and have less reason to have faith in institutions.
It is this intuition which started this book , which might open a new chapter in the sociology of education.