Marbury Education

AQA AS Sociology

Unit 2

Introduction to Sociological Perspectives on Education

This will give you an understanding about the role and purpose of education from a Marxist perspective.

For Marxists, education is all about supporting the existing distribution of power and wealth, commonly referred to as the status quo. Education is about maintaining order, control and ensuring that the dominant culture is passed on to the dominant class. So education isn’t a meritocracy, it is a cyclical process whereby the working class are failed by the system and the bourgeoisie succeed. The working class are manipulated into thinking that the system is fair through what Marxists call ‘false class consciousness.’ Exams appear fair but the wealthy have an economic and cultural advantage over the working class so the results are actually quite predictable. The wealthy can afford to go to elite public schools where the classes are small, the facilities first rate and the cultural experiences from frequent trips abroad all contribute to exam success. By contrast, the working class often experience overcrowded schools and classrooms, frequent changes of supply teacher, poor resources and institutions that have to deal with a range of socio-economic problems affecting students and their parents. Some understanding of the work of Marx himself would be useful as he argued that whoever dominated the economy would also dominate institutions like the religion, family, law, mass media and education. Although Marx didn’t single out education for specific analysis, if asked, he would have said that because the bourgeoisie own the means of production, the land the factories and the machinery, they will also dominate institutions like the education system. This doesn’t mean that the factory owners actually have to get involved in teaching or managing the system, it means that the culture of the system is biased, the values are bourgeois ones, assessment is designed to reflect existing power relationships and of course, the rich can buy a whole range of educational advantages. There are many criticisms of this general view and one of the main ones might be that it assumes the working class to helpless, unable to improve their educational standing and thus unable to achieve upward social mobility. I’m sure you know of people who came from quite modest circumstances who then went of to be successful through the opportunities education offered them.

The work of Boudon would also be useful as he argues that educational success is mostly dependent on the ‘secondary effects of stratification,’ namely how much money our family has. He calls this positional theory; so it’s your position in the class structure that largely determines what level of educational success you enjoy. One might criticise this by saying that Higher Education has undergone a long process of democratisation and far more working class people go to University than they ever did in the 1970’s. Furthermore, EMA, student loans, hardship funds and bursaries all help the economically disadvantaged. However, many of these things seem under attack by Government due to their very significant spending cuts across all areas of service provision.

Bourdieu is also another neo Marxist who was writing in the 1970’s and he had quite a bit to say which was interesting. For him, education is all about a cyclical process whereby the well off pass on cultural capital to their children and they use this in the education system to achieve high grades and entry to the best schools and this in turn leads to secure economic capital or high salaries. So what is cultural capital? This might include sophisticated language skills and a broad vocabulary, aspirational values and the valuable cultural experiences associated with the dominant social class like going to the theatre, ballet and museums. A child soaks this up like a sponge from being with their parents. Bourdieu refers to this as familial transmission of cultural capital. This all has implications for the notion of meritocracy in that educational achievement isn’t so much about intelligence and application but the possession of a culture which the education system is biased towards. So bourgeoisie culture has utility whilst working class culture is viewed as second rate, at least as far as the education system is concerned. Bourdieu has been criticised for appearing to say that one culture is better than the other but he’s not really saying that. He’s simply saying that our society is a capitalist one and that as a consequence the education system reflects the values and culture of the dominant class. If have this cultural capital you will be at an advantage and if not, the educational odds are stacked against you. However, one might criticise Bourdieu for being deterministic and for ignoring the fact that there is nothing stopping the working class from learning to develop cultural capital; if not from their parents, then from school, free libraries, free museums, galleries and the like. Cultural deprivation theorists would just say the opportunities are there to acquire cultural capital and the only reason why the working class don’t acquire it is because they either don’t have the motivation or the intelligence to do so. 

Bowles and Gintis, two American neo Marxists wrote Schooling in Capitalist America published in 1976. This was also a critical study in that they saw a covert learning process going on in schools. This was referred to as the hidden curriculum. Education moulded the working class into docile compliant but motivated workers who accepted their subordinate place in the factory and society. So breaking classes up into small groups and keeping the students on the move throughout the day helped to make them malleable. In short, the lessons weren’t the important thing, it was learning compliant attitudes and learning to accept authority which was the key purpose of the education system. One might argue that Bowles and Gintis have a point. Education is where we learn to obey those other than our parents because of the position they hold, not because of who they are. We have to obey the rules, defer to authority and generally go along with what is expected of us if we are to be rewarded with a paper qualification. Bowles and Gintis remarked that it wasn’t so much your intelligence or independence that led to good grades, it was you willingness to comply with rules and instructions. However, whilst this may have been true to an extent in the 1970’s, no employer wants an unthinking robot. Many of the skills required by employers today actually don’t fit the model of education described by Bowles and Gintis very well at all. Additionally, Bowles and Gintis appear to view educational authority as all powerful and the individual as weak, something in keeping with macro structural theories but if one looks the work of Paul Willis 1977 in his Learning to Labour, it is clear that many working class students, especially boys, break the rules and reject authority altogether.

So we’ve covered quite a bit and you will now have a good understanding about how Marx, Boudon, Bourdieu and Bowles and Gintis saw the role and purpose of education in a capitalist society. 

Tutorial enquiries to: studentsupport@marburyeducation.co.uk

Marbury Education

AS Sociology

 

Unit 2

 

Research Methods used in Sociology

 

The research methods used in Sociology are little different to those used in other social and political sciences. Common modes of enquiry include the use of social surveys: experiments, interviews and observation. Descriptions of their various strengths and weaknesses can be found in any introductory School or College text and Themes and Perspectives by Michael J. Haralambos is probably the most comprehensive of these. Yet what is more interesting is why particular methods are used or not used.

 

What is your theoretical position?

 

Positivist sociologists like Marx, Comte and Durkheim attempted to explain society by discovering universal laws. They sought to emulate the methods used in the natural sciences and by doing so they hoped to raise the status of the subject and to convince others about the worthiness of their political views. Those that follow this research tradition are referred to as macro theorists and they use methods that necessarily involve the generation and collation of quantitative data taken from large, representative samples.

 

Additionally, man is viewed as relatively passive. Powerful institutions and structures like the mass media, family, education and social classes, shape our identity and behavior. This is important because without subscribing to a passive view of man, the quest to discover scientific laws is doomed to failure. If this belief was mistaken and we are all directed by our own consciousness, behavior could not be generalized and sociology would remain very much to poor relation to natural science. Therefore, one tradition within the subject is positivist, macro and structural.

 

These factors dictate that the research methods used must be imbued with objectivity in order to collect data on social facts. The survey method can be implemented on a large scale and it has a kudos that makes it attractive to national governments to help them with social planning and policy reform. Questions are predetermined and possible answers are limited and fixed. Research can be replicated in order to ensure that it is reliable and surveys can be implemented at intervals to provide data on longitudinal patterns. This standardized method can also be used for comparative approaches like Durkheim's study of suicide or it might be used as part of a unique case study.

Anti Positivists like Goulder, Becker, or Mead argue that universal laws of social behavior don't exist. So the pursuit of them, no matter how "scientific" you are in going about it, is a folly. Natural science and social science deal with different subjects. One concerns itself with matter and one concerns itself with people. One always acts in the same way in the same set of circumstances and one doesn't. Micro theorists argue that social actors have agency, self determination. As people have a large degree of control over their own behavior, social actors are unpredictable, fickle creatures who defy generalization. Social behavior defies neat typologies and universal laws only apply to the natural world. The focus of sociology should be to explain the social actors first order constructs; why we act in the ways we do and how we make sense of the social world. The best way to achieve this explanatory and essentially subjective aim is to apply qualitative techniques like observation or unstructured interviews. So the search for meaning dictates the methodology

 

What is the nature of your enquiry?

 

If you are conducting research on a social problem like crime, some form of positivist methodology would set you on the right path. It gives you an overview and paints a broad picture of your topic. It might give you data on national, regional or local trends, offender profiles and it should tell you if the problem is getting better or worse. If your enquiry is descriptive in nature, then quantitative approaches make sense. However, if you want to go deeper and delve into the reasons for offender behavior, then a qualitative approach like interviews or covert participant observation might be used. Whether that technique is ethical in the circumstances is another matter. That said, many contemporary researchers triangulate and use varying combinations of positivist and anti positivist methods. This helps to inject greater rigor into their work and deters critics from trivializing the research because of its methodological exclusivity.

 

What is state of your finances?

 

If your coffers are full, you may be able to afford the indulgence of taking several months or years to complete your research. As a general rule, anti positive research tends to be more expensive than positivist methods because it is far more time consuming. Merely identifying your research subjects can take time, access to group has to be negotiated and once the primary research has been carried out, the data may take months to transcribe or collate before you have even had a chance to write a meaningful sentence worthy of appearing in a learned journal. If your coffers are empty, it may be prudent to opt for a method that generates statistics and make best use of SPSS, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Also, statistical methods often convey a certain seriousness and competence about an individual. So less senior researchers who don't enjoy the financial benefits of a professorial Chair might do well to invest in the requisite computer software and training.

 

What are the ethical considerations?

 

The British Sociological Association is actually quite non committal regarding what one should and shouldn't do as a researcher. Although they have ethical guidelines, they are quite broadly written and essentially say that one shouldn't do harm and that researchers shouldn't conduct research they are neither qualified nor competent to do. Certain subjects like child abuse, domestic violence and other forms of crime or deviance are prone to a number of ethical problems or dilemmas. Merely speaking to a researcher about some things may do harm in certain cases and it might not be ethical to pry into someone's painful or embarrassing experiences just to satisfy ones professional curiosity or career aspirations. Laud Humphreys Tea Room Trade, which investigated homosexual relations in public toilets was not only criticized for its subject matter but also for its methodology. Humphreys was complicit in the criminality because he acted a lookout and he was also criticized for deceiving his subjects and invading their privacy (what privacy one might expect in a public toilet is another issue). In short, positivist methods avoid many of the ethical problems inherent in studying social behavior but it lacks depth and humanism. Researchers sometimes excuse the inexcusable by saying that "the ends justify the means."

 
Marbury Education

 

A2 Sociology

 

Unit 3 Beliefs in Society

 

Modernity and Religion

 

Modernity

One can’t say with any degree of certainty when the pre-modern era ended and the modern one came about. However, most say that Modernity is associated with the 18^th century enlightenment. During the enlightenment, many western societies latched onto the idea that science could explain nature and that this form of thinking could be used to make social life better and more prosperous. So during modernity, something that lasted up until the 1950’s, there was a clear belief that truth existed, we were governed by structures, progress was inevitable and that science was the panacea for all social and economic problems. Modernity created a sense of certainty and although war was an unsettling and destructive force that occurred too often, at the level of the individual, there was a high degree of predictability about ones’ personal journey through life. For example, social class membership was strong and these classes were homogenous and obvious to all. We knew what was expected of us in terms of social roles like provider, homemaker or employee and these roles guided our behaviour so that the degree of agency or autonomy we had was limited in many ways. We were quite deferential, we often accepted the legitimacy or validity of what we were told by those in authority and this gave us a sense of stability and perhaps even a form of comfort. Although Durkheim described the industrial era associated with modernity as a time when norms and values were less clear and as such the social cement was more vulnerable to fracture with consequent instability and anomie, in many ways it was also a time of absolute values. There was a clear sense of right and wrong, good and bad. This is something that many people, especially those on the political and sociological right, look back on with admiration or nostalgia.

Modernity is synonymous with the Classical theory of Marx, Durkheim and Comte and they were all champions of positivist methodology as they sought to establish Sociology as a subject with the same high status as natural science. Although keen on the use of statistics and other so called objective approaches to research, they were equally keen on using such methods to support their ideological and political viewpoints. Perhaps that’s why Weber argued that sociology can be value free, as long as a distinction is made between the what is, and the what should be.

 

So how does Modernity relate to Religion?

 

As Modernity was synonymous with structure, religion tended to be monotheistic and monopolistic. There was one God in which we believed and the Church monopolised religious knowledge and authority. So we didn’t have a great deal of choice over religious or spiritual affairs, we were largely deferential to religious authority. In fact, our religious affiliation was mostly the product of our socialisation. We were born into a particular faith and we learnt to accept it as true through our primary and secondary socialisation. Agency and self determination were limited and this helped to give power to the large religious organisations like the Catholic Church or the Church of England. Furthermore, by conforming to the principles and practices of our particular faith, we were to be afforded a place in heaven. So religion was very much about a type of faith that was external in nature. There was a God, an all powerful creator and we just had to worship him in the ways that were directed by the clergy. In short, modernity was synonymous was an ontological view that saw man as passive and society and its institutions as strong. However, along with these trends one might argue that a contrary force was at work, namely the rise of science, rationality and logic. Many viewed religion and science as mutually exclusive and offered this an explanation for secularisation. However, is has been clear that throughout the modern era man has felt able to base his understanding on scientific knowledge and religion faith. Yet as modernity drew to a close, in the words of Grace Davie we increasingly became believers without belonging as individuals and states sought to disengage from the church.

Marbury Education Services

 A2 Sociology Beliefs in Society

 

Post Modernity and Religion

It would be difficult to point out a particular year when the modern era gave way to the Post Modern but having said that, some say as early as 1945 and some say as late as late as the beginning of the 21^stcentury. Personally, if pushed, I’d opt for the early 1970’s as its genesis. Perhaps the easiest way to start developing an understanding about Post Modernity would be look at its economic aspects. One might refer to this facet of Post Modernity as Post Fordism.

A Fordist economy was based on mass production and mass consumption of standardised products and services. Yet Post Fordism, which, according to Daniel Bell, emerged in about 1973, was based on small batch flexible production. The consumer wasn’t content with the same products and services as his neighbour anymore, differentiation and specialisation became the dominant approach to satisfying customer needs.

Under Post Fordist conditions, one also saw the declining influence of social class identity. Primary and secondary industries gave way to the new king pin, the tertiary sector. Trade union membership declined and traditional communities withered away as manufacturing and extractive industries closed down due to foreign competition and its life blood, cheap labour.

 

The two homogenous social classes had somehow lost their identity as most of us now carried out some kind of non manual occupation. Inequality remained, but is just didn’t seem quite so obvious anymore; we ceased to define ourselves by our work and most of us couldn’t decide what social class we were even if we were asked. Now we might move onto look as some other aspects of Post Modernity.

 

In a Post modern society notions of truth become more contentious or they simply become something relative; that is, we substitute truth for truths. We start to accept that our world is no longer comprised of definite answers and clear rules upon which there is a general consensus. We have gradually rejected many old values that gave us a clear sense of right and wrong, good and bad and we now simply self select the version of the truth that we prefer, or that we find most convincing, or that we find most utilitarian.

 

The Post Modern world becomes a relativist one. Perhaps a useful practical example of all this was the case made by the Blair government to go to war with Iraq in 2003. The ‘dodgy dossier’ as it has become known, claimed to be an authoritative account of the threat posed to the UK by WMD or weapons of mass destruction. Yet the truth presented was something of mosaic of plagiarised and unattributed sources. In short, it was a version of the truth the Government wanted to believe because it justified their foreign policy objectives, something that was based on supporting the Americans in removing Saddam Hussein.

 

So, we appear to be far more active in the assemblance of the truth than we ever were under Modernity. Truth used to come from Science or religious authority, whereas now, we seek it out. In fact, according Lyotard, Science has never had a monopoly on truth and its’ use language is similar to other forms of expression like history or philosophy. He explains this by saying that science, is governed by protocols or accepted ways of thinking and operating and as such, like other disciplines, it plays its own game with regard to expression, narrative and making sense of the world.

 

We have also ceased to believe in the inevitable march of progress associated with the classical sociologists of the mid 19^thcentury. For Marx it was the march of progress towards the establishment of a Communist utopia and for Functionalists like Durkheim, it was an evolutionary process where society improved through the discoveries of positivist sociology.

Yet for us, we talk about a Risk Society. Natural and man-made disasters, pandemics and threats near and far, real or imagined, have all made us far less comfortable or optimistic in thinking about the future. This leads us to take more active responsibility for our own lives in that we question more, seek out knowledge more, and supporters of the Post Modernity as a concept argue that we benefit from a change in attitudes towards ontology.

 

Post Modernity has seen us throw of the shackles of structures that had hitherto governed our lives and we have become more sovereign, we make more choices about who we are, and who we want to be. We construct our identity and we can be anything we choose, something easily done through the internet. Whilst this view might exaggerate the freedoms we have in society, because the poor are still poor and this will always constrain them in many ways, there does seem to be more active choosing in life, rather than our lives being shaped and determined by the familiar structures of Modernity.

 

Post Modernity and Religion

Firstly, the modernists who were convinced that religion was doomed appear to have been mistaken. Science and religion don’t seem to be mutually exclusive. Furthermore, whilst secularisation has occurred amongst the Trinitarian churches, one might talk about a resacrilisation rather than a desacrilisation. Resacrilisation refers to a reawakening of our interest and concern with religious and spiritual matters. One might argue that this is a reaction to the relativism and uncertainty already discussed. As we lose old forms of meaning and authority, so we look for new forms and as structures have less control over us, we’re freer to make choices. Technology also plays its part in our active choosing because the internet allows us to learn about and experience the religious or spiritual at the touch of a button. Whilst we might interact with ‘distant others’ through cyberspace who share our particular religious interests, in the words of grace Davie, we are believers without belonging in many ways. Mediated religion where physical attendance and deference to clerical authority is required seems less attractive to most of us these days. Perhaps New Age Movements and spiritual development groups allow people to dabble in these things and they can move onto something else when we get bored. Yet for Steve Bruce, the evangelical groups, NAMs and fundamentalist believers are the exception, not the rule and most of us remain secular. However, although Bruce’s criticism of the post modernist argument may have some credence when applied to the UK, if one broadens the unit of analysis, the rest of the world appears just as religious as ever. In short, it is notoriously difficult to measure religion as so much of it is about faith rather than membership and things become even more complicated as we use religion for secular purposes like getting our child into a good faith based school by either making up or exaggerating our own religiosity.

Marbury Education: A2 Sociology

Beliefs in Society

Religion and Social Change

Max Weber Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

If a religion and social change essay comes up in your examination and it often does, you will need to show a detailed understanding of Weber and also be able to offer some criticism and analysis too. This podcast will help you to achieve both of those objectives. By using Weber as an illustrative example, you can show how religion can have the potential to help create social change. Don’t forget when you write about social change, especially in your introductions, you need to differentiate between progressive and retrogressive change. So progressive, or going forward, is synonymous with Weber and retrogressive, or going backwards, becoming more basic, Godly, simplistic or in many cases unequal, is synonymous with fundamentalism in all its forms. Anyway, let’s look at Weber.

Much of Weber’s writings were in response to the work of Karl Marx. For Weber, Marx could be criticised because his ideas were based on a deterministic belief that all could be explained by making reference to the substructure, or economic relations of Capitalist society. So if Marx wanted to explain something, he would point to class relationships because further analysis was already a foregone conclusion. Methodologically, Weber sought to do the opposite. By finding something that happened, in this case Capitalism in the West, he sought to go back in history in order to determine why it occurred. So for Weber, this approach was better ‘science,’ more rigorous and more rational. So maybe Weber was out to prove a point and he was really having a conversation with someone who was already dead, namely Marx.

Weber argued that Protestant forms of Christianity like Methodists, Baptists, Pietists and Calvinists who existed towards the end of the 17^th century had certain ethical characteristics associated with Puritanism. Puritanism was all about leading the ascetic life of self denial, thrift and hard work. Furthermore, their belief was based on something called predestination. This means that God had already determined who was the saved, the elect, and who is not saved, the damned. You assumed that you were part of the elect and you proved your perfect faith by working hard, avoiding gluttony on rich food, wine and pleasures of the flesh. You led an ascetic pure life and this symbolised your faith in God and his wise decision about your destiny. However, predestination caused something called salvation anxiety and I remember seeing an example of this in one of those period dramas on the TV many years ago. I remember seeing a female writing in her diary about how fortunate her family had been in business and how she thought this was surely a sign of Gods pleasure and that she/they were part of the elect. This is an important point for your exam because it means that economic prosperity was viewed as a sign directly from God that one was part of the elect. The result of all this was to foster what we call the Protestant work ethic. Work, invest, self denial, prosper and reinvest, grow wealthy and be sure of your chosen status as part of the elect. Even those who were not wealthy might be part of the elect and by working hard in their vocation or calling as you were adding to Gods Glory. So for Weber, Protestant Calvinism helped to provide the spark, or drive that led to a particular form of rational Capitalism in the West. If it aided the formation of Capitalism as Weber argues then this is a form of progressive social change and something highly relevant to your topic area.   

Weber then goes onto explain that there were similar characteristics or features in both the East and the West. These might include double entry book keeping, raw materials, labour, a legal system for enforcing contracts and a banking system to facilitate exchange. In fact, Weber says that these characteristics were better suited towards the development of Capitalism in places like India and China than they were in places like Germany, but surprisingly no such development occurred. If one examined the dominant religions in countries like China and India, like Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Hinduism, none of them place much importance on hard work or growing rich. In fact one might argue the opposite, meditation, prayer and the embracing of poverty are seen as more desirable traits. For Weber, these religions failed to provide the passion for work where regular labour was an end in itself. Weber doesn’t deny that forms of Capitalism were present elsewhere in the world before type he describes but for him it wasn’t the same. For example, a merchant might do business and by taking advantage of people he might grow rich quickly but once he had the wealth he would seek repose, or rest. He wouldn’t have the need or desire to work continuously or regularly. He would be a pleasure seeker, wasting money, squandering it. Money was only necessary to buy rest and enjoyment, something very different to the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Weber describes. But under the particular ethic Weber describes, Protestant Calvinism helps propel the development of a uniquely successful form of Capitalism in the West. The Puritan would grow rich and never cease to stop working and investing all for the glory of God and to demonstrate the perfection of his religious faith.

The subtle point is that there wasn’t a mechanical process going on where religion simply created capitalism, more that a particular form of religious ethic helped in the creation of a particular type of rational, organised Capitalism in the West where maximum profit was the objective. The Protestant work ethic helped to foster the Spirit of Capitalism and this can be viewed as a form of progressive social change. So religion shapes our attitudes, this affects our behaviour and this in turn shapes our economic development.

Now we can look at some of the criticisms directed at Weber:

Sombart (1907) argues that Calvinists were not money orientated and saw such acquisitiveness as greedy. However, this is perhaps unfair to Weber because he never referred to the teachings of Calvin himself, who was writing some 150 years earlier, he was referring to certain Calvinist circles that existed towards the end of the 17^th century. Predestination may not have intentionally caused us to become obsessed with becoming wealthy but it had that affect none the same. Salvation anxiety makes us look for signs of Gods pleasure and growing rich was viewed a positive sign.

Others say that there were many Calvinist communities in Scotland, Switzerland, Hungary and the Netherlands where capitalism didn’t occur but Gordon Marshall says that this is perhaps unfair to Weber because he isn’t claiming that the only thing responsible for the development of Capitalism is protestant religion.

The Marxist Kautsky (1953) offers a more significant critique in that he says Weber has his history muddled up. For Kautsky, Protestant Calvinism developed after Capitalism, not the other way round. This is often referred to as the chicken and egg argument. What Marxists are getting at is that Jesus wasn’t a great fan of rich people and he embraced a life of poverty. The quote from the bible that says ‘it’s easier for a camel to jump through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,’ is a good illustrative example. So perhaps Protestant Calvinism is simply a religion of the rich as it takes away their guilt for being so rich whilst others are so poor. If being rich is a sign of Gods pleasure, it seems to be a very convenient religion for the rich. So Protestant Calvinism becomes an apologia or defence for the bourgeoisie.

In short, there hasn’t been a lot of agreement about how valid Weber’s thesis is but that shouldn’t worry us as students of sociology. As long as you can offer an accurate account of the main aspects of the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism at it relates to social change along with some criticisms, that’s the main thing.

Gordon Marshall wrote an article on Weber’s Protestant Ethic in Sociology Review September 1991, a bit long but certainly worth having a look at.

Tory troubles; the politics of gay marriage

With tensions still simmering within the Conservative party over our relationship with the EU the prospect of introducing legislation on gay marriage by Easter looks set to cause more troubles for the Prime Minister.  David Cameron appears to be leading a party of reactionaries, conservatives and social liberals, something which reflects his decision to offer Tory MP’s a free vote on the issue.  Despite his archetypical ‘family man’ credentials, the Prime Minister has embraced a form of social liberalism in order to modernise and rebrand the party as inclusivist and compassionate. Whilst this sits well with the Liberal Democrats, the Labour Party and social liberals, David Cameron’s focus on General Well Being (GWB) irks many Conservative traditionalists. Whilst the Prime Minister might be unconcerned about upsetting the Tory right within the Parliamentary party, it may not prove so wise to alienate grassroots activists despite increasing his support amongst the LGBT community from 11% in 2010 to 30% today.   

Bob Blackman MP for Harrow East is an example of the reactionary thinking in that he views ‘gay marriage as wrong in the first place’ and has even called for the reintroduction of Section 28. Such thinking within the Parliamentary party is somewhat limited as most are acutely aware that rekindling an exclusivist ideology synonymous with Thatcherism and John Major’s ‘Back to Basics’ would conjure up an outdated image Mr Cameron is so desperate to bury.

Those who wish to keep the status quo and who view civil partnerships as an end in itself not a first step towards gay marriage include the Cornerstone Traditional Values Group (CTVG) and Conservative Voice. CTVG have 40 MP’s opposing gay marriage whist Liam Fox and David Davies, defeated candidates in the Conservative party leadership contest are amongst the heavy hitters in the Conservative Voice. The Coalition for Marriage has brought together academics, religious leaders, politicians and others to lobby against redefining marriage with 624,497 petition signatories. However, despite approximately 100 Tory MPs set to make a spectacle in voting against the Bill it looks set to pass with the support of Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The consequences of this independent spirit, conscience or disloyalty, is a manifest sign that David Cameron has failed to shape the party in his socially liberal image.     

Marriage was defined in Hyde v Hyde (1866) as an agreement between a man and a woman who become husband and wife. Social liberals within the Conservative party like David Cameron, Michael Gove and potential leadership hopeful Boris Johnson seek to redefine marriage for the 21^st century. An Ipsos MORI poll published on the 12^th December 2012 found 73% of British adults agree that gay people should be able to get married. Traditionalists and reactionaries within and outside the party argue that such a move was not contained in the parties manifesto. Yet our constitutional arrangements have never acted to constrain a Prime Minister on such matters of policy. Furthermore, the Conservative Contract for Equalities, or Equality Manifesto published before the general election included reference to a reclassification of marriage on page 16 of the document.

The reforms look almost certain to succeed on their way through the Chambers in the New Year, earlier rather than later. Yet this success will come at a cost for David Cameron as he shows the electorate that the party is not only divided over Europe and Taxes but also on social matters too. David Cameron’s leadership has been clear on matters of equality but the party, or a significant section of them appear unwilling to be led.