Recontextualising rules

The second rule of the pedagogic device are the recontextualising rules, which are responsible for how the knowledge, generated through the distributive process, is transformed into pedagogic discourse (Bernstein, 1990, 2000), and as such, forms the disciplinary knowledge practices of each disciplinary area. According to Apple, the recontextualising rules make up the curriculum by:

‘selectively dislocating discourses from the primary

contexts - the site where knowledge is originally produced - and then re-locating and re-focussing them in the

secondary context to form the pedagogic text’ (2002: 613).

Thus, recontextualisation ‘has a crucial function in creating the fundamental anatomy of education’ (Bernstein, 2000: 33). This, Shay highlights, is where the curriculum and any reform it may undergo is predominantly situated (2015).

To be able to understand the structuring and organisation of disciplinary

knowledge practices Bernstein introduced two elements to the recontextualising rules, classification and framing. The first of these, classification, relates to power relations, in that power creates boundaries, and it is the relationship between these boundaries and their nature, that classification addresses (Bernstein, 2000). What constitutes strong or weak classification is the degree to which objects or their agents are ‘insulated’ across these boundaries.

Something that is strongly classified will have, ‘a unique identity, its unique voice, its own specialised rules of internal relations’ (Bernstein, 2000: 7). In contrast, if there is weak classification, then the insulation is not strong, resulting in ‘less specialised discourses, less specialised identities, less specialised voices’ (Bernstein, 2000: 7). Bernstein added that whatever the classification, strong or weak, there are always corresponding relations of power.

The power relations in-turn relate to another principle of classification, and that is ‘recognition’ and ‘realisation’. Recognition rules are at the level of the

‘acquirer’, and determine whether an individual is able to, ‘recognise the specialty of the context they are in’ (Bernstein, 2000: 17). This means that any change in the classification, will have a subsequent impact on an individual’s recognition. The relationship between recognition and realisation rules can be highlighted by an example: a student may be able to recognise the environment they are in when they are in a seminar but may not be aware of what their role is within that seminar, how they are supposed to contribute, or behave in that context, and thereby realise the expectations. Bernstein clearly expresses the

effect classification and recognition have on power relations and subsequently on communication:

‘The classificatory principle regulates recognition rules, recognition rules refer to power relations. Certain distributions of power give rise to different social distributions of recognition rules and, without the

recognition rule, contextually legitimate communication is not possible … Power is never more fundamental as far as communication is concerned than when it acts on the distribution of recognition rules’ (2000: 17).

As such, these principles of recognition and realisation will prove very useful in analysing the data generated in this study in relation to how the organising and structuring of the curriculum influence the way critical thinking is accommodated and addressed. It is also worth highlighting how the classificatory principle can be used at a range of levels; from the macro, considering the power and

insulation held across a ‘field’ such as HE, or by an institution; to the micro, the degree to which individual schools or disciplines, or programmes within an institution, are insulated and have individual voice.

Looking more closely at the disciplinary level, or what Bernstein referred to as discourses. He used the terms singulars, where the discourse produced by the discipline is about the discipline itself, for its own understanding, and not for wider ‘consumption’, giving physics as an example. Regions, on the other hand, are where multiple singulars have been recontextualised as a collective, for example in engineering, to be of wider social benefit (Bernstein, 2000). What is relevant here is that Bernstein felt over the last 50 years, in HE there had been a general and noticeable shift away from singulars, to what he termed a

‘regionalisation of knowledge’ (2000; 60), something that will also be relevant in the analysis when looking at the specific disciplines involved in this study.

The second element of recontextualising, framing, relates to the forms of

communication realised in pedagogic practice. Essentially framing is about who controls what in pedagogic communications, or more specifically between, ‘transmitters and acquirers’ (Bernstein, 2000: 12). Control in this way may be about the type of communication, it’s pacing or rate of progress, the criteria it is set against, and, Bernstein adds, the social base in which it is undertaken (2000). Tapp identifies framing as controlling the selection, teaching and evaluation of what is to be learned (2015). Where there is strong framing, the transmitter has control over these issues, where there is weak framing, the acquirer has more ‘apparent’ control. The framing can however vary within and across disciplines. For example, some lectures may have very clearly defined content to be addressed in a specified period and approach, whilst in another context, the same topic could be addressed through open debate and

questioning by students, thereby losing some of the control on coverage and pacing, in other words, with weaker framing. Framing will provide a significant tool in the analysis of the disciplinary knowledge practices, and the

observations of the teaching-learning interactions (evaluation), in each discipline

What is also relevant, is the impact strong or weak framing has on the

pedagogic practices. Bernstein highlights that where framing is strong, there will be what he called, ‘visible’ pedagogic practices, which encourage more of a performative curriculum model, where the ‘rules’ of the discourse are explicit

and easily recognisable. However, where there is weak framing, it is likely that this will result in, ‘invisible’ pedagogic practices, and a ‘competence’ model of curricula, with the rules of that practice being either implicit, or simply

unrecognisable to the acquirer (2000). With several participants in this study speaking of the implicit nature of some elements of the curriculum, and

specifically in relation to critical thinking, this will also provide a key part of the analysis when looking at the different disciplines and their recontextualisation.