A model for forms of knowledge

To explore these issues, I will draw upon Ball & Forzani’s (2007) recent work in which they ask ‘what makes educational research ‘educational’?’. Their argument is for an approach which focuses inside educational transactions and they refer to this as research in education in order to distinguish it from research related to education. A key theoretical device within this conceptualisation is the notion of the instructional dynamic which is a model of a formal educational context. The instructional dynamic is grounded on the understanding that education is the “deliberate activity of helping learners to develop understanding and skills” (Ball & Forzani, 2007: 530) and in this sense it places the transmission and acquisition of knowledge at the centre of the process. It also emphasises the interactions between teachers and students and content in a specific environment. Ball & Forzani (2007) theorise the interactions that occur with the context as follows:

By interactions, we mean active processes of interpretation that constitute teaching and learning. Teachers interpret and represent subject matter to students, who interpret their teachers, the content, and their classmates and then respond and act. … We consider these multiple interactions, which we call the instructional dynamic, to be the defining feature of education.

(Ball & Forzani, 2007: 530, emphasis in original)

Figure 2.1. The instructional triangle (from Ball & Forzani, 2007: 530)

Ball & Forzani (2007) cite the work of Hawkins (1974), Schwab (1978) and McDonald (1992) to illustrate that the broad notion of a triangular representation of teacher, students and subject is not new. They do, however, argue that what distinguishes their model is its dynamic aspect and mutual interpretation that occurs over time. The model represents a complex and specific phenomenon, which, the writers propose, is the unique province of research in education. It is asserted that, to a significant extent, educational researchers do not seek to highlight and claim this specific focus which is necessary in order to produce principled knowledge within the field of educational research. Ball & Forzani suggest that:

education research frequently focuses not on the interactions among teachers, learners, and content—or among elements that can be viewed as such—but on a particular corner of this dynamic triangle. Researchers investigate teachers’ perceptions of their job or their workplace, for example, or the culture in a particular school or classroom. … Such studies can produce insights and information about factors that influence and contribute to education and its improvement, but they do not, on their own, produce knowledge about the dynamic transactions central to the process we call education. Knowing about

and understanding teachers, learners, content, or environments––or even knowing and understanding all of these entities––is not a substitute for knowing about and understanding the dynamic relationships among them that constitute the core of the educational process.

(Ball & Forzani, 2007: 531)

Ball & Forzani stress the validity of research which addresses individual aspects of the instructional triangle, and they also acknowledge that this can contribute to research in education. We can apply this point to the learning cultures research. The notion of learning cultures does provide useful insights into the interactions between teachers and students, but does not focus on the whole of the instructional triangle because it does not explicitly theorise the place of subject knowledge within the context.

As research by Ecclestone (2007a) discussed above also indicates, the neglect of subject knowledge leads to an incomplete conceptualisation of the educational context. Ecclestone (2007b) also indirectly highlights the implications of research which addresses only a particular corner of the instructional triangle in her editorial in an issue of Studies in the Education of Adults which addressed issues of identity, structure and agency. Alluding to her research which has explored therapeutic discourses in education (e.g. Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009a,b), she suggests that a neglect of consideration of structure and an increasing emphasis on identity can give rise to a focus on creating the self and learning about the self as a ‘subject’. She argues that this “constructs a new subjectivity but it also creates curriculum content and therapeutic forms of pedagogy and assessment around the self” (Ecclestone, 2007b: 130). Ecclestone also points to an ‘invisible strand’ in research which is

concerned with “agency and progression in ideas, in thinking and learning in relation to specific subjects, skills or crafts” (p. 130). Her view is that:

The depiction of identity, agency and structure divorced from learning a subject as opposed to learning about oneself raises new questions about how education helps people think and act for themselves and, crucially, what they think and act about.

(Ecclestone, 2007b: 130, emphasis in original)

In summary, the notion of learning cultures emphasises the co-constructed nature of the meanings within an educational context. While this provides clear insights into the complexity of specific contexts, it does not place educational knowledge within that context explicitly. I suggest that a more complete conceptualisation of the ‘culture’ or ‘dynamic’ of an educational context needs to focus upon the mechanisms by which meaning is made in relation to the subject. Furthermore, the nature of subject knowledge and its relation to occupational or disciplinary knowledge and other forms of knowledge needs to be clarified. I therefore suggest a model for the educational context which incorporates Ball & Forzani’s (2007) model and the more nuanced exploration of forms of knowledge outlined earlier in this chapter. This model for the forms of knowledge in an educational context is shown in Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2.Model for forms of knowledge within an educational context

An adapted form of Ball & Forzani’s (2007) instructional dynamic is included in the centre of this model. Subject knowledge in this model relates to ‘formal school knowledge’. I identified a missing element of disciplinary knowledge and this is included in a triangle of relations between subject knowledge and everyday knowledge. The forms of knowledge identified in my discussion of the vignettes – students’ and the teacher’s owned knowledge and everyday knowledge – are also placed within this model.

Several key questions remain unanswered in relation to this model. First, differences between the form and structure of the types of knowledge have not been fully considered. Second, although the importance of ‘relevant knowledge’ was discussed, the ways in which different forms of knowledge may be translated into the other forms has not yet been addressed. Third, although this model is the starting point for an exploration of the development of relationships with disciplinary knowledge, the place

Teacher’s owned knowledge Students’ owned knowledge CONTEXT Subject Teacher Student Disciplinary knowledge Everyday knowledge

of that form of knowledge is not theorised with this model. The proposed model for forms of knowledge and the questions that remain in relation to it will be used as an organising idea for the remainder of the thesis.