Overrating inequality and ignoring the difference: a reply to Mahon.

In a previous paper published in "British Journal of Sociology," the author made the claim that despite decades of intensive investigation, not a single researcher had ever shown that class difference in education was indeed unfair and unjust. It was a charge that was underwritten by a simple, if technical, argument, which drew attention to what, in logic, would have to be shown if such a difference was to be regarded as an inequality, rather than as just another difference in a differentiated society. In this case, it was suggested that, other things being equal, the researcher would have to meet one of two conditions. He would have to show that the different classes were similarly disposed to education or, alternatively, if there were evidence, as in Great Britain, of considerable working-class indifference to education, he would need to demonstrate that such indifference was itself the result of structural or cultural inequality. Only then, it was argued, could the researcher be said to have reasonably shown that class difference in education was unfair; for only then could the researcher be reasonably sure that such a difference was not, after all, just another difference.