Jim Hordern

How is vocational knowledge recontextualised

This paper sets out to examine how vocational knowledge is recontextualised in curricula, pedagogy and workplaces, by learners, and to ensure the availability of valuable and relevant knowledge for vocational practice. Starting from Bernstein’s notion of recontextualisation, and with reference to literature in the sociology of educational knowledge, studies of workplace learning and learning theory, recontextualisation is understood here as a socio-epistemic process which is influenced by the interrelation between the distinct structures of different knowledge types and the social dynamics of vocational education infrastructure. Various aspects of recontextualisation are considered, including whether the overall process can be disaggregated to reveal a series of separate elements, how knowledge is transformed and concepts are developed, and influences on the character of recontextualisation. Potential tensions that may affect recontextualisation in vocational environments are identified, and some conditions for reconciling these are briefly discussed.

Knowledge, practice, and the shaping of early childhood professionalism

This article argues for an early childhood professionalism based upon notions of professional community and professional knowledge. Professionalism is conceived here as shaped by the relation between the social and the epistemic, with certain types of professional knowledge given precedence in accordance with the involvement of different organisations, institutions and public bodies. It is argued that shared processes that recognise the validity of certain types of knowledge for practice are required in order to advance early childhood professionalism, and that this requires forms of sociality that are derived from disciplinary communities but are often adopted, and adapted, by professionalised occupations. Drawing primarily on English examples, but with reference to other European countries, the development of the types of professional community that could advance professionalism is seen as challenged by the fragmented nature of the early childhood workforce, organisational diversity and the role of government.

A productive system of early years professional development

This paper uses the concept of the productive system to identify some of the tensions between the stages of professional development of early years practitioners and the relationships between the various actors within the system of professional formation in England. In the context of the recommendations of the Nutbrown Review a series of challenges facing early years professionalism and the design and delivery of continuous professional development (CPD) are discussed. These include issues that relate to the predominance of external influence on the nature of early years professional knowledge, the significance of the early years setting in supporting practitioner learning and influences on workplace learning processes. Some strategies for strengthening practitioner influence over the productive system are briefly outlined, which relate specifically to how practitioners engage with the challenge of how CPD is organised and located as part of an early years professional identity.

On the making and faking of knowledge value in higher education curricula

ABSTRACT This paper uses Bernsteins sociology of knowledge and studies of professional knowledge and expertise to identify how knowledge value is constituted in higher education curricula. It is argued that different knowledge structures and forms of disciplinary community influence how curricula are determined, and lead to distinctive types of knowledge value that reflect curriculum purpose. Three models of curriculum construction are presented to distinguish between the constitution of value in the curricula of (i) pure disciplines, (ii) ‘stronger’ professional disciplines and (iii) ‘weaker’ occupational disciplines. These illustrate how processes of knowledge selection and transformation, and the dynamics of disciplinary and professional communities, can lead to the strengthening or undermining of knowledge value.

Regions and their relations: sustaining authoritative professional knowledge

The development and iteration of a body of professional knowledge appropriate to the demands of practice is a central concern of studies of professional education and work. This article concentrates on Bernstein’s notion of the ‘region’ of professional knowledge, identifying regions as complex socio-epistemic entities into which forms of knowledge are appropriated and transformed to meet the requirements of practice. In order to better understand the constitution of professional knowledge, there is a need to conceptualise how knowledge is recontextualised between regions, disciplinary ‘singulars’, and professional practice. Two variables, proximity and dominance, are introduced to illustrate how relations between regions, singulars and practice may vary, with implications for what is recontextualised into regions. In some professions, there are pressures for greater proximity between regions as a consequence of changes in work practices, while in others there is the potential for the dominance of recontextualisation processes by market and bureaucratic logics. It is suggested that actors within regions need to find ways to maintain authority over professional knowledge while avoiding the risks of control by bodies ill-equipped to maintain knowledge validity. The analysis provides a lens through which to view developments in the knowledge bases of professional, or professionalising, occupations, and concomitant changes in professional education.

Workforce development, higher education and productive systems

Workforce development partnerships between higher education institutions and employers involve distinctive social and technical dynamics that differ from dominant higher education practices in the UK. The New Labour government encouraged such partnerships in England, including through the use of funding that aimed to stimulate reform to institutional processes and build capacity. In the broader policy context, greater workforce development activity had the objective of supporting national skills policy targets and increasing industrial productivity. In this article, the notion of the productive system is used to identify factors influencing the outcomes of this policy, using three models of the production of higher education provision. Attention is paid both to the structure in which these productive processes are situated, and the stages that result in new higher education programmes. To evaluate the sustainability of the productive systems, the development of mutual interests between participants is examined, in addition to the norms that structure culture and relationships and the distribution of power and influence. The role of the institution in respect of the employer and the student is also addressed, with reference to uncertainty regarding the value of workforce development provision in economic and political contexts of perpetual change.

Skills governance and the workforce development programme

In the United Kingdom higher education environment, government may make efforts to encourage institutions to engage in governance structures to secure policy objectives through a steering approach. In this article connections between skills governance structures and the recent Higher Education Funding Council for England workforce development programme are examined in the context of the wider implementation of the Leitch Review of Skills in England. Using analysis of policy documents, submissions to a select committee inquiry, and a series of interviews undertaken at higher education institutions, limited co-ordination between skills governance and institutions is identified, which is likely to have been a consequence both of the open-ended approach taken by government to the implementation of this policy in higher education and the ineffectiveness of governance approaches as mechanisms for steering higher education institutions in the United Kingdom.

The Logic and Implications of School-based Teacher Formation

ABSTRACT This paper uses Bernsteinian concepts to identify how forms of power and control within teacher professional formation are exercised. Drawing on previous comparative work into collaborative models of teacher education and contemporary examples from school-based programmes, it is argued that current developments in England raise substantive questions for teachers’ knowledge, learning and professional commitment.

Higher apprenticeships and the shaping of vocational knowledge

Higher apprenticeships are celebrated in current policy discourses as an alternative to traditional higher education, with the claim that they will prepare higher apprentices for their future careers and enhance industrial productivity through higher skill levels. This paper aims to scrutinise these claims using notions developed by Bernstein and related work in the sociology of educational knowledge, identifying how the formulation of higher vocational knowledge will affect how apprentices work, learn and access knowledge. It is suggested that the socio-epistemic processes through which ‘regions’ of professional and vocational knowledge are constituted, and the manner in which knowledge is recontextualised, give rise to specific knowledge articulations and curriculum decisions. Drawing on an analysis of the structure of apprenticeship frameworks and their associated qualifications, as well as interviews with professional bodies, the research will demonstrate how certain types of knowledge are foregrounded as a result of sectoral and professional dynamics and the imperatives of knowledge structure. In some sectors and professions, key concepts associated with disciplinary knowledge may be downplayed or obscured, reducing what Wheelahan and others have described as ‘epistemic access’, with a potential impact on progression opportunities for apprentices and the ability to provide valuable input in the workplace. In others, higher apprenticeships may continue longstanding traditions of higher vocational formation, involving educational institutions, employers and practitioners in constituting productive vocational knowledge and practice, albeit within a macro-context that may not promote practitioner influence over the circumstances of formation.

Teaching, teacher formation, and specialised professional practice

This paper starts by exploring the relevance of Bernstein’s work on vertical and horizontal discourses and the constitution of professional knowledge for conceptualisation of the knowledge needed for teaching practice. Building on arguments for the differentiated nature of knowledge, and drawing on the work of Winch, Young and Muller on expertise, and the sociology of the professions, this paper advances a conception of teaching as a ‘specialised professional practice’ that requires the support of particular socio-epistemic arrangements and conditions embedded in professional communities. Prevalent notions of teaching and teacher education that find favour in some European countries are examined in the light of these arguments, with particular reference to recent reforms in England.