Abstract:
This article addresses Making the Difference (Connell et al., 1982) as a research
project, in the specific context of Australian education and Australian sociology. It argues that the form
of its research and writing have been as influential as the argument itself, and illustrates these themes by
comparing that project of the earlY 1980s with two more recent Australian projects of the late 1990s.
It is suggested that Making the Difference was successful in illustrating class and culturallY based
inequalities in the form of Australian schooling, and in illuminating some gendered processes of that
schooling, but that its proposal for an 'organic working class curriculum' was difficult and utopian in
conception, and quickly overtaken by broader interests in school 'effectiveness' and political moves to 'third
way' policies rather than class war. It is argued that the Queensland New Basics project illustrates some
of the lessons of engagement and communication offered by Making the Difference, and also the
pragmatism of this new political context; and that the longitudinal 12 to 18 Project attempted to build
on insights about class and gender of the earlier work, but with attention to some of the limitations of
the type of focus on class of that work.
