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Conviviality under the Cosmopolitan Canopy? Social mixing and friendships in an urban secondary school

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  • Sumi Hollingworth
  • Ayo Mansaray

Abstract

Social mix and social mixing are topics of increasing significance to both the policy and academic communities in the UK, and have particular salience in urban multi-ethnic and socially diverse contexts. Enshrined in the comprehensive school ideal, and implicated in the now legal duty to promote ‘community cohesion,’ (urban) schools play a pivotal role in agendas for social mixing but little is empirically known about how this is lived and experienced by the young people in those schools. This paper begins to develop a theoretical understanding of social mixing drawing on qualitative data on the patterns, discourses, and experiences of associations and friendships collected in a London comprehensive school. We find that while the social mix of the school is celebrated, in official discourse as congenial and ‘convivial’, by staff and students alike, the extent of actual mixing - of associations and friendships forming between those of different social and ethnic backgrounds - is both constrained and complex. We point to the social and cultural factors which produce this sense of conviviality, and the opportunities for cultural learning it supports. At the same time, we argue that there are limitations. Schools are sites of differentiation, and friendships as exemplars of social mixing, both (re)produce and are (re)produced by existing social hierarchies and inequalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Sumi Hollingworth & Ayo Mansaray, 2012. "Conviviality under the Cosmopolitan Canopy? Social mixing and friendships in an urban secondary school," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 17(3), pages 195-206, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:17:y:2012:i:3:p:195-206
    DOI: 10.5153/sro.2561
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Carol Vincent & Sarah Neal & Humera Iqbal, 2017. "Encounters with diversity: Children’s friendships and parental responses," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(8), pages 1974-1989, June.
    2. Katy Bennett & Allan Cochrane & Giles Mohan & Sarah Neal, 2017. "Negotiating the educational spaces of urban multiculture: Skills, competencies and college life," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(10), pages 2305-2321, August.
    3. Antoine J Rogers, 2013. "Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects: The Riots One Year on and an Academic's Unquenched Anger," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 18(4), pages 10-13, November.
    4. Kim Allen & Sumi Hollingworth & Ayo Mansaray & Yvette Taylor, 2013. "Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects: Reflections, Repercussions and Reverberations - an Introduction," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 18(4), pages 1-14, November.
    5. Jessica Abrahams & Nicola Ingram, 2013. "The Chameleon Habitus: Exploring Local Students’ Negotiations of Multiple Fields," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 18(4), pages 213-226, November.
    6. Kim Allen & Sumi Hollingworth, 2013. "‘Sticky Subjects’ or ‘Cosmopolitan Creatives’? Social Class, Place and Urban Young People’s Aspirations for Work in the Knowledge Economy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(3), pages 499-517, February.

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