Autonomy,Race,and State Reproduction of Status: Durkheim and Weber on Education and Immigration

Abstract

Durkheim and Weber contributed a neglected, but substantial and controversial body of literature to the topics of education and immigration. A sanitized version of Durkheim and Weber exists in the literature that should be critically revisited. Durkheim’s work fails to engage the implementation of one of the most selective school systems, Weber’s work contains Darwinian, racial overtones in response to Polish migration. Durkheim and Weber’s articulation of autonomy vis-a-vis their subjects of inquiry is examined. The article argues that a limited and restricted version of autonomy out of necessity impaired the progressive potential of the policy reforms that Durkheim and Weber pursued. It draws on McNally’s concept of a ‘feudalized’ bourgeois elite aligned with nationalist interests in order to explain Durkheim and Weber’s conservative, statist solutions for education and immigration, and the administrative, political reproduction of class distinctions that were to follow in France and Germany.

Keywords

sociology race immigration education nation state autonomy reproduction of status

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