Panacea or nostrum? Open Educational Resources and the recontextualisation of pedagogy

Open Educational Resources (OERs) have become a global educational phenomenon because of claims that they are a panacea for issues of access and quality. However, little consideration has been given to the social significance of this digital platform, particularly for teachers and students in low-income countries. This article draws on Bernstein’s (2000) notion of recontextualisation to investigate the influence of structuring conditions on pedagogy within OERs. The findings of this research demonstrate how wider economic agendas have influenced the recontextualisation of pedagogy within OERs to de-centre learning from the pedagogic relationship.     

Changing schools: a study of primary secondary transfer using Vygotsky and Bernstein

ABSTRACT

This article is concerned with the influences that are brought to bear on the design of school buildings and the effects that the design of these buildings have on those who teach and learn in them. The article also focuses on the ways in which design is altered in and through the practices of these occupants. We argue that there is a mutual shaping of design and practice in these schools. We deploy the theory of socio-genesis developed by Lev S. Vygotsky and the sociology of pedagogy developed by Basil Bernstein in order to study the consequences for students of different trajectories of transfer between different designs and pedagogic cultures of primary and secondary schools in England. Our intention is to contribute to current debates about the effects of new school designs and the enduring concerns raised by difficulties that some students encounter in transitions between schools.     

Health-education policy interface: the implementation of the Eat Well Be Active policies in schools

While grappling with their traditional core business of imbuing students with official curricular knowledge, schools have simultaneously, increasing demands to take on health promotion responsibilities. This paper examines the mandated implementation of the Eat Well Be Active (EWBA) Action Plan and its subsidiary ‘Smart’ policies in schools in the state of Queensland, Australia. Within the context of health promotion, the interaction between the health and education policy interfaces was explored. In particular, we paid close attention to the responses of the schools and their staff to the convergence of various health policies within their institutions. Drawing on Bernstein's concept of field, this paper reports our analyses of responses within the reproduction field to the imperatives of the Smart policies. The results suggest that there exists a disjunction between the recontextualising and reproduction fields in terms of the EWBA policy intent and implementation.     

The right to enhancement: students talking about music knowledge in the secondary curriculum

In this paper the idea of social entitlement to conceptual knowledge is considered in relation to students’ views of music at secondary school in New Zealand. The data was collected as a means of triangulating the key focus of a study concerning the beliefs and actions of teachers in relation to curriculum. In interpreting the student data I utilise thematic categories developed in the study but also Bernstein's concepts of pedagogic rights and identities to consider whether students’ experience of the curriculum empowered them to look beyond what they already know to consider alternatives. Most students were able to recognise themselves and their aspirations within their school music departments while also recognising the potential importance of the theoretical knowledge of the discipline. The interplay between enabling pedagogy and curriculum content appears to be pivotal in developing these rights for students.     

‘Approaching the sacred’: directionality in the relation between curriculum and knowledge structure

Increasing pressure on all levels of educational provision, whether academic or overtly vocational, to be to ‘relevant’ and ‘useful’ prompts consideration of the relation between curriculum and pedagogy in terms of the internal structure of knowledge forms. Following Durkheim’s distinction between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ orders of meaning and drawing on the work of Basil Bernstein, this paper questions pedagogic presuppositions that directionality from sensory experience to abstraction posits the everyday life of the student as the foundation for the acquisition of complex, systematic knowledge. Two empirical examples are discussed: one focuses on the internal structure of craft knowledge, while the other focuses on the internal structure of mathematics as school subject. They converge in the finding that transmission of knowledge structure, whether in material or symbolic form, requires the transformation of empirical objects into theoretical objects before a connecting point can be found between the world of everyday experience and specialised knowledge forms. This is what constitutes a ‘relevant’ curriculum.     

A ‘region’ under siege? Singularisation,regionalisation and genericism in Early Childhood Studies in England

This paper draws on Bernstein’s sociology of knowledge to examine the academic study of early childhood in England, involving scrutiny of how knowledge is recontextualised from contributory disciplines to take account of early childhood practice and professionalism, and of governmental influence on what counts as disciplinary and curriculum knowledge. The relatively fragmented disciplinary structure of Early Childhood Studies suggests vulnerability to attempts to control its purpose. However, this is mitigated by commitments within the academic community to traditions of early childhood practice, and a sense of advocacy and shared values. The analysis draws upon a recent investigative project undertaken at English higher education institutions.     

教学实践理论：伯恩斯坦的结构主义方法

近30年来，伯恩斯坦一直是教育社会学界的中心人物，从他早期关于鳊码理论的语音学著作到后来的课程与知识传递方面的论著，伯恩斯坦试图将宏观水平的阶级和权力与微观水平的学校教育过程联系起来。文章介绍了伯恩斯坦近来的一些教学实践模型，并结合其课程与教学理论阐述了伯恩斯坦全部结构主义的社会学方案。此外，文章还指出了伯恩斯坦著作中和经验主义与实用价值领域一些尚未解决或者没有回答的问题，尤其是与美国教育发展有关的问题。     

Bézier curves with shape parameter

In this paper, Bézier basis with shape parameter is constructed by an integral approach. Based on this basis, we define the Bézier curves with shape parameter. The Bézier basis curves with shape parameter have most properties of Bernstein basis and the Bézier curves. Moreover the shape parameter can adjust the curves' shape with the same control polygon. As the increase of the shape parameter, the Bézier curves with shape parameter approximate to the control polygon. In the last, the Bézier surface with shape parameter is also constructed and it has most properties of Bézier surface. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 10371110) and the National Basic Research Program (973) of China (No. G2002CB12101)     

Pedagogic governance: theorising with/after Bernstein

Researchers interested in new modes of social control and regulation through pedagogic means have increasingly drawn on Bernstein’s theories of social control through pedagogic means and the emergence of a totally pedagogised society. This article explores this aspect of the Bernsteinian theoretical project by extrapolating and contrasting Foucault’s and Bernstein’s theories of power knowledge relations, pedagogic discourse and different types of knowledge structures. It elaborates on Bernstein’s theory of the complex division of labour within the field of symbolic control, consisting of agents from different class factions engaged in conflicts and struggles over the production and recontextualisation of different types of scientific knowledge. The article provides two case studies of empirical research to illustrate how Bernstein’s concepts can be used to theorise different modes of pedagogic governance. It demonstrates the possibilities of Bernstein’s later theoretical oeuvre to studies of social reproduction, interruption and change in and through pedagogic relations.     

Music on the move: methodological applications of Bernstein’s concepts in a secondary school music context

In 2002 Parlo Singh outlined Bernstein’s theory of the pedagogic device, elaborating the potential in Bernstein’s complex theoretical framework for empirical research. In particular, Singh suggests that Bernstein’s concepts provide the means of making explicit the macro and micro structuring of knowledge into pedagogic communication. More recently, Power has noted that use of Bernstein’s ideas remains relatively unrepresented in the literature. This paper makes a case for the use of Bernstein’s ideas as a particularly rich resource for educational researchers. It provides illustrations of a number of concepts as part of a methodological procedure in a research project examining the approaches to curriculum and pedagogy of six secondary school music teachers within the dialectic of western art music and popular music. Through utilisation of Bernstein’s concepts of knowledge discourses, recontextualisation, and regionalisation, the study is able to identify, describe, and shed light on a key problem for music education and education generally: developing the pedagogical means for the utilisation of informal knowledge as a pedagogic resource within the secondary school curriculum. In turn, the music context suggests a number of extensions to Bernstein’s concepts.