A pedagogy of conceptual progression and the case for academic knowledge

Abstract

The potential for academic knowledge to 'interrupt' inter-generational reproduction in education is located in the structural contradictions that shape knowledge and democracy. Since the late 1990s research in the sociology of education, which theorises curriculum knowledge using the ideas of Durkheim, Vygotsky and Bernstein, suggests that academic knowledge, far from being the domain of conservative forces, contains the means by which the working-class and marginalised groups may overcome class determinism. The paper argues for a pedagogy of conceptual progression to assist students across the 'interruption' or 'discursive gap' into academic knowledge. Such a pedagogy need not be confined to its central purpose-that of teaching abstract ideas drawn from their disciplinary systems of meaning and classified for teaching as academic subjects. It can also be the means to mediate the relationship between the context-dependent knowledge of students' experience and the context-independent knowledge of the academic subject. This pedagogy might be the way to maintain the motivational intention of constructivism and 'relevance' approaches that emphasise students' experience. However, it would use experience to illustrate the abstract ideas acquired in academic subjects, not serve as the source of knowledge itself, nor the knowledge focus.

Human rights education’s curriculum problem

“…Conceptual progression (Rata, 2016) means that a school subject has an epistemic framework-an organized system of meaning-which includes a scheme for sequential teaching and learning. This requires in turn that educators possess a shared understanding of what constitutes a preliminary grasp of the subject and a more advanced grasp, and an understanding of the difference between superficial and deep knowledge of the subject.…”

Knowledge Equivalence Discourse in New Zealand Secondary School Science

“…We explain how academic knowledge differs from the type of knowledge acquired from, and linked to, experience which characterises non-academic subjects that emphasise practical skills (Rata 2012(Rata , 2015. Section three examines the equity argument found in the equivalence discourse with section four using a research study previously undertaken by one of the authors of this paper about senior science teachers' curriculum practices to illustrate the theoretical argument.…”

“…Equity is not realised by removing the epistemic quality of knowledge because it is that very epistemic quality which is required for access to educational achievement. Conceptual progression based upon epistemic sequencing enables students to progress from lower to higher levels of achievement (Rata 2015); a progression required for future advanced professional and vocational specialisation (Wheelahan 2010).…”

Vzdělávací obsah: ukazují Bernsteinova teorie a sociální realismus cestu z krize?

“…jejich předávání ve škole, a na jejím základě volá po rehabilitaci vzdě-lávacího obsahu. Staví se proti přesvědče-ní, že akademické znalosti jsou "doménou konzervativních sil ve vzdělávání", ale naopak předpokládá, že důraz na znalosti (zejména jejich pojmovou strukturu) je progresivní cestou podporující demokracii a sociální spravedlivost ve školství (Rata, 2016). Proto se pokouším stručně shrnout východiska a vybrané závěry sociálního realismu zejména v pojetí žáků Basila Bernsteina.…”