Revisiting Hargreaves: An Eliasian analysis of school relationships as figurations and power balances

Almost 50 years after the publication of Social Relations in a Secondary School, I return to David Hargreaves’ pioneering school ethnography to analyse its data from an Elisian perspective, by focusing on concepts such as second nature, power balances, the civilising process and game models. I present a case for why Hargreaves and Elias share common concerns about school relations as figurations, from the micro circumstances of form streams, up to the societal figuration of class structure. I begin with an appraisal of Hargreaves’ work, before detailing the contribution of an Eliasian perspective, offering a re-reading of the ethnography from an Eliasian lens of involvement and detachment, Established-Outsider figurations, power balances between streams, family-school figurations, and the role of emotions in the civilising process. I close by proposing why a figurational approach offers potential for future theory-driven ethnographic research.