Why Knowledge Matters in Curriculum

A Social Realist Argument

Leesa Wheelahan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781135272944
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

What should we teach in our schools and vocational education and higher education institutions? Is theoretical knowledge still important?

This book argues that providing students with access to knowledge should be the raison d'être of education. Its premise is that access to knowledge is an issue of social justice because society uses it to conduct its debates and controversies.

Theoretical knowledge is increasingly marginalised in curriculum in all sectors of education, particularly in competency-based training which is the dominant curriculum model in vocational education in many countries. This book uses competency-based training to explore the negative consequences that arise when knowledge is displaced in curriculum in favour of a focus on workplace relevance.

The book takes a unique approach by using the sociology of Basil Bernstein and the philosophy of critical realism as complementary modes of theorising to extend and develop social realist arguments about the role of knowledge in curriculum. Both approaches are increasingly influential in education and the social sciences and the book will be helpful for those seeking an accessible introduction to these complex subjects.

Why Knowledge Matters in Curriculum is a key reading for those interested in the sociology of education, curriculum studies, work-based learning, vocational education, higher education, adult and community education, tertiary education policy and lifelong learning more broadly.

1
Introduction

What should we teach?

Introduction

What should we teach? What knowledge is important and why is it important? These are key questions for education because ‘what we know affects who we are (or are perceived to be)’ (Moore 2007b: 3). The central argument in this book is that access to abstract theoretical knowledge is an issue of distributional justice. It is part of the emerging ‘social realist’ school of educational theorists who argue that the principal goal of education should be to provide students with access to knowledge. It critiques theories of curriculum that argue that learning should be contextual and situated because this leads to the displacement of theoretical knowledge from the centre of curriculum and in so doing denies students access to the knowledge they need to participate in society’s debates and controversies. In other words, unless students have access to theoretical knowledge they are denied the necessary means to participate in ‘society’s conversation’.

This introduction first considers why access to abstract theoretical knowledge is essential for democracy and why access to it is an issue of distributional justice. The next section discusses the paradox that arises because knowledge is highly valued in the knowledge society, yet it has been displaced from the centre of curriculum by an emphasis on the vocational purposes of education. The third section discusses the crisis of curriculum that has arisen because of the failure of the three dominant approaches to curriculum, which are constructivism, technical-instrumentalism and conservatism, to consider the importance of knowledge in its own right because each, in its own way, subordinates knowledge to other curricular objectives. The fourth section discusses the emerging social realist alternative within the sociology of education and it outlines the main social realist arguments about the place of knowledge in curriculum. This is followed by a section that explores the theories that social realism is drawing on and the way in which theorizing is being extended through collegiate discussion and debate. The penultimate section of the chapter discusses the specific contribution this book seeks to make to social realism by using the sociology of Basil Bernstein and the philosophy of critical realism as complementary modes of analysis. Taken together, these two approaches establish the objectivity and truthfulness of knowledge as the basis for curriculum as the means through which students are provided with access to knowledge about the natural and social worlds. The final section outlines the approach taken in the book and the focus of each chapter.

Knowledge and democracy

The late British sociologist Basil Bernstein (2000) argued that access to abstract theoretical knowledge is a precondition for an effective democracy. He argued that this is because theoretical knowledge is the means that society uses to think the ‘not-yet-thought and unthinkable’ and to imagine alternative futures. Michael Young (2008a: 41–42), who is a leading sociologist of education in England, explains that theoretical knowledge is the means that society uses ‘to “make connections” between objects and events that are not obviously related’, and ‘to “project beyond the present” to a future or alternative world’.Theoretical knowledge, which has traditionally been organized as academic disciplinary knowledge, constitutes the means society uses to transcend the limits of individual experience to see beyond appearances to the nature of relations in the natural and social world. All societies need to connect the material and immaterial, the known and the unknown, the thinkable and the unthinkable, the here and the not here, the specific and the general and the past, present and future. The capacity to do so is a precondition for the existence of society.

This is why theoretical knowledge is socially powerful knowledge. Access to theoretical knowledge is important because it provides access to society’s conversation about itself. This conversation includes debates about how society should respond to perceived threats such as global warming, but also debates about society’s values, norms and mores and questions such as whether banks need more regulation, whether the nation should participate in war, or how refugees should be treated when they land on foreign shores seeking asylum.

Students need access to knowledge if they are to participate in this conversation. This does not mean that they all need to understand the complexities of physics or English literature. Rather, they need access to ‘disciplinarity’ or disciplinary styles of reasoning so that they understand how knowledge is used and the broad criteria that need to be applied in evaluating the validity of arguments. For example, a capacity to use knowledge from the humanities and social sciences provides students with a way of assessing arguments in politics and evaluating competing policy proposals, while a broad understanding of the scientific method provides at least some access to debates about how humankind should shape its relationship with the natural world, as exemplified by debates about global warming.

Students also need access to knowledge because the increasing complexity of technology, work and society means that the knowledge demands of most occupations is increasing. Young (2006a: 115) argues that, while all jobs require context-specific knowledge, ‘many jobs also require knowledge involving theoretical ideas shared by a community of specialists’ located within the academic disciplines. Workers need to be able to use theoretical knowledge in different ways and in different contexts as their work grows in complexity and difficulty. They need to be able to access decontextualized disciplinary systems of meaning if they are to select and apply contextually specific applications of that knowledge. For example, electricians, mechanics and engineers need to understand mathematics if they are to select an appropriate formula and apply it correctly. Child-care workers and teachers need to know about theories of child development if they are to identify problems in a child’s development. They also need sociological insights to understand how relations between educational institutions and families may be mediated by social class or ethnic background in ways that make it easier for some families, but more difficult for others, to be effective advocates for their children. Access or lack of access to such knowledge leads to real consequences. Continuing this example, a lack of sociological insight may result in unequal outcomes of education being explained as deficits of those who are disadvantaged, rather than the outcome of socially differentiated access to knowledge and education in which middle-class students are privileged because of the congruence between their home and school environments. Moreover, all workers need access to the theoretical knowledge that underpins their occupational field of practice if they are to participate in the debates and controversies within their field. These examples illustrate the way in which occupational progression is strongly related to educational progression because education is the main way in which most people are provided with access to theoretical, disciplinary knowledge. Consequently, all qualifications should provide students with the disciplinary knowledge they need to study at a higher level within their field in addition to immediate occupational outcomes.

The retreat from knowledge in curriculum

The paradox is that while education is supposed to prepare students for the knowledge society, the modern curriculum places less emphasis on knowledge, particularly theoretical, disciplinary knowledge. The essence of the argument justifying the retreat from knowledge in curriculum is that the knowledge society has transformed the nature of knowledge so that the tacit, contextual and immediately applicable is more productive than the disciplinary and codified, resulting in an emphasis on contextualized and situated knowledge on the one hand, and ‘generic’ skills and capacities on the other (Chappell 2004).

This applies to all sectors of education and training, but particularly to post-compulsory education and training which includes the senior years of school, vocational education and training (VET) and higher education. Learning outcomes have been redefined so that they are increasingly tied to the workplace, and the curricular emphasis is on ensuring that students are ‘work-ready’ as a consequence of putatively authentic and relevant learning experiences. This is reflected in many countries in government reforms of qualifications so that they are more firmly based on generic skills or employability skills (Young 2007b).

The emphasis on the contextual and specific is a move away from the traditional concern of curriculum which has been to provide some students with access to decontextualized knowledge organized relationally through disciplinary systems of meanings. The process of vocationalization has, as would be expected, had the greatest impact on vocationally oriented programs in both VET and higher education, but it also has had an impact on traditional academic programs. Academic pathways differ from pathways designed to prepare students for the professions or vocational occupations because the purpose of academic qualifications is to induct students into ‘classified’ disciplinary knowledge. In contrast, the purpose of vocational and professional qualifications is to induct students into a field of practice and the theoretical knowledge that underpins practice as the basis for integrating and synthesizing each (Bernstein 2000). There is thus continuity between vocational and professional education, and both are distinguished from academic qualifications. Academic qualifications face ‘oneway’ to the disciplinary field of knowledge, whereas vocational and professional qualifications must face ‘both-ways’: to the field of practice and to the disciplinary knowledge that underpins practice (Barnett 2006). Academic qualifications emphasize the traditional, ‘pure’ academic disciplines, whereas vocational and professional qualifications emphasize applied disciplinary knowledge as these are the disciplinary tools that underpin practice (Barnett 2006; Young 2006c). However, while academic and vocational/professional education have different purposes, both have traditionally sought to provide students with the capacity to recognize different types of knowledge so that they can distinguish between everyday knowledge and theoretical knowledge, and between different fields of theoretical knowledge, for example, between physics and chemistry or sociology and psychology.

These boundaries are rendered less visible by the current emphasis on the contextual. Generalist and liberal arts qualifications are affected by the displacement of knowledge from curriculum, partly by the emphasis on generic skills and generic attributes, but also by ‘smorgasbord’ programs that emphasize transdisciplinarity that take as the object of study a feature of the world rather than the structures of knowledge. This is expressed, for example, in the use of ‘problem-based learning’ as a key principle for organizing curriculum so that students focus on a particular problem and use different disciplinary insights to understand that problem. It is in contrast to organizing the curriculum around disciplines and engaging with problems through explicit negotiation of disciplinary boundaries, which includes the criteria used by the disciplines to evaluate knowledge. The place of disciplinary knowledge is also weakened in academic programs that emphasize student choice across a range of disciplines as the principle of curricular coherence, in contrast to a curricular principle designed to induct students into the boundaries that define and insulate different disciplines, the structures of knowledge within disciplines and the sequencing of knowledge that such induction entails (Muller 2006a).

All of these trends are also reflected in curriculum for vocational and professional qualifications, but the displacement of theoretical knowledge from curriculum is driven further in these qualifications because of their focus on preparing students for a field of practice. Learning in ‘realistic settings’ is emphasized, particularly workplace learning (see Boud 2006). Knowledge is most marginalized in VET qualifications that are based on competency-based training such as National Vocational Qualifications in England and the similarly structured Training Packages in Australia, because all outcomes are tied to specific workplace roles and tasks.

The crisis of curriculum theory

Debates about the changing nature of knowledge in the knowledge society have led to theorizing about the curriculum and new understandings of the purpose of education and the nature of pedagogy. Cullen et al. (2002: 68) exemplify this when they explain that, while understandings of pedagogy and ensuing methods and practices vary between the sectors of post-compulsory education and training, nonetheless ‘A “new pedagogy” is emerging, drawing on constructivist theory and practice as its main source of understanding.’ They explain that:

Context has become an immensely significant element of the new pedagogy: both the context (changing environment, proximal forces) of the whole education enterprise itself but also the significance which context has acquired within the pedagogy, and in the making and remaking of the curriculum. The very nature of knowledge is perceived differently. The curriculum, in term [sic] of both content and process, reflects this through a move away from propositional knowledge to knowledge as contextualized and contingent, as well as, often, more immediately applicable.

(Cullen et al. 2002: 68–69)

The emphasis on context is shared by two major approaches to curriculum – social constructivism and technical-instrumentalism – while the third major approach to curriculum, conservatism, continues to eschew the contextual in favour of tradition. While there are differences between different social constructivist theories, there is, as Chappell (2004: 4) explains, ‘general agreement that learning involves the active construction of meaning by learners, which is context dependent, socially mediated and situated in the “real-world” of the learner’. This focus on the tacit, contextual and applied is at the expense of disciplinary knowledge. The focus on the contextual arises in instrumentalism because it is concerned primarily with producing knowledge and skills needed in the economy and the broader purposes of education are subordinated to this goal.

Even though instrumentalist and constructivist curriculum theorists have different philosophical premises and theorize the nature of contexts differently, they share a common concern with context and both emphasize the contextual, situated and problem-oriented nature of knowledge creation and learning. Both sacrifice the complexity and depth of knowledge in curriculum in favour of ‘authentic’ learning in the workplace. Consequently, both support the notion of a ‘hybrid’ curriculum by emphasizing, as Muller (2000: 57) explains in his critique of hybrid curriculum, ‘the permeability of classificatory boundaries and the promiscuity of cultural meanings and domains’. Young (2008a: 37) also critiques hybrid curriculum, and explains that supporters of the hybrid curriculum ‘reject any claims that the boundaries and classifications of the curriculum reflect features of knowledge itself and are anything more than a product of history’.

In contrast to hybrid curriculum, ‘insular’ curriculum emphasizes traditional disciplinary boundaries for constructing curriculum. Muller (2000) explains that debates about the hybrid curriculum and the insular curriculum are cast in terms of progressive/conservative polarities. He explains that ‘progressive’ curriculum theory aims above all to cross cultural boundaries, because boundaries are seen to constrain and limit freedom:

To live a life beyond bounds and without boundaries is the dominant ethical ideal … to enquire into facts and meanings that exceed epistemological boundaries is the primary research ideal … to teach children to cross boundaries wherever they may find them is the ideal of pedagogy … to treat the world as a continuous network of interlinked intensities and flows beyond all divides and divisions is all there should be …

(Muller 2000: 75)

An example of this approach is provided by Thomson Klein (2004) who argues that ‘Transdisciplinary vision, which replaces reduction with a new principle of relativity, is transcultural, transnational and encompasses ethics, spirituality and creativity.’

Transgressing disciplinary boundaries appeals to radicals (who are usually constructivists) and instrumental neo-liberals (in contrast to conservatives) even though the borderless social reality they envisage is constituted differently. Young (2008a: 37) explains that the negation of boundaries is attractive to many radicals because it exposes the way in which boundaries are imposed by the powerful in their own interests and then universalized and naturalized as the ideal that pertains to the whole society. For many radicals, particularly post-modernists, the academic disciplines and the structures of knowledge represent the world outlook of those who have dominated education and are the means through which the voices of the dominated are delegitimized, devalued and excluded from ‘what counts’.

Neo-liberalism, on the other hand, regards the market as the ultimate mechanism for the free flow of knowledge, products and people and boundaries are a problem because they constrain this movement. Government policy makers favour the hybrid curriculum because it questions the authority and autonomy of specialist knowledge producers and renders the latter’s work more open to accountability measures (Young 2008a: 37). Consequently, identifying hybrid curriculum as intrinsically progressive is selective, because neo-liberal instrumentalists can use it as a tool of managerialism. It is the means through which the purpose and role of education is defined (or redefined) through the prism of micro-economic policy, which encompasses and redefines social objectives of increased participation in education and training as necessary for the formation of human capital and less to do with broader social reasons concerning social justice and the nature of civil society. The focus of the curriculum in this instance is on ‘relevance’ to the workplace measured by the ‘impact’ of learning on workplace outcomes, which is narrowly defined as relating directly to workplace tasks, roles or problems, rather than equipping students with the knowledge they need to participate in society’s conversation more broadly.

Muller (2000: 57) explains that, in contrast to the hybrid curriculum, the ‘insular’ curriculum emphasizes disciplinary boundaries and ‘highlights the integral differences between systems of knowledge and the differences between the forms and standards of judgement proper to them’. Whilst it need not be so, this position is usually associated with conservative models of curriculum that emphasize tradition as the basis of authority and authoritative knowledge, rather than the intrinsic features of knowledge itself (Muller 2000: 57). The main role of education in this perspective is the transmission of knowledge and culture as authoritative truths. Its importance lies as a mechanism of social selection and stratification by the way in which access to knowledge is distributed and by outcomes that are examined and ranked with clear winners and losers. Moore and Young (2001: 447) explain that conservatism is less concerned with knowledge and its epistemological status and more concerned with enculturation into traditional values and norms, based on a relationship of deference to traditional bodies of knowledge taught in traditional authoritarian ways that require submission to become ‘the kind of person it is supposed to make you’.

Consequently, constructivism, instrumentalism and conservatism each fail to place knowledge at the centre of curricu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• 1 Introduction: what should we teach?
• 2 A Bernsteinian analysis of knowledge and the implications for curriculum
• 3 Evaluation and critique: a modified Bernsteinian basis for curriculum
• 4 What does commitment to realism mean for curriculum?
• 5 The role of the disciplines in curriculum: a critical realist analysis
• 6 How knowledge was dethroned in society and displaced in curriculum
• 7 The crisis of curriculum
• 8 The appropriation of constructivism by instrumentalism: the case of competency-based training
• 9 Conclusion: What type of curriculum do we need? The social realist alternative
• Notes
• References
• Index