Blog by Herman van de Werfhorst

During the pandemic I started to write #nextdoorauthors blogs, about authors who happen to stand next to each other on my bookshelves. My posts at the time were on a site that no longer exists, so here comes number two (again), about political philosopher David Miller and economist Branko Milanovic. I wrote it in April 2020.  I have always liked to read outside my discipline. Insights from economists, political philosophers and political scientists add something to my sociological lens. In fact, the breadth of my interests is much wider than of my own work I fear. There is always something new to write about education and stratification. Side paths of civic education and income inequality have given me change of focus sometimes, but when colleagues start to joke that my next paper on educational tracking is waiting I may try to get a bit more inspiration from other fields.    #nextdoorauthors I am writing a blog on neighbouring authors on my book shelves. What I like abou...

During the COVID19 pandemic I spent a lot of time in my study at home. All this time reminded me of a thought game I am often doing looking  at my book shelves.  I imagine that the authors, whom I put on alphabetical order, are neighbours. Would they like to have a good time talking about their work and their field? Or would the blood drip from the walls? And looking at a few doors down the road, I wonder if it would be a nice neighbourhood for them to live.  As a first #nextdoorauthors post, in March 2020, I wrote the following. I wondered what we can make of the late Pierre Bourdieu and the late Raymond Boudon? They are next-door authors on my shelf, with Bourdieu’s Distinction and Boudon’s The Logic of the Social. The two French sociologists of the same generation stand for two different schools in social theory. Boudon can be seen as a founding father of analytical sociology, following a purposive action model of social action. Bourdieu is harder to place – a cultural...