An additional aspect of Bernstein’s theories of relevance to this research alongside the pedagogical device, is his notion of Pedagogic Identities and Educational Purpose. Bernstein (2000) believes the backwash effect of the vocational emphasis of concepts such as competencies into primary and secondary schools curricula has resulted in “the recontextualising field producing and reproducing imaginary concepts of work and life, which abstract such experiences from the power relations of their lived conditions and negate the possibilities of understanding and criticism” (p. 59). This potentially reinforces more instrumentalist views of education, positioning the learner as a compliant and unquestioning employee.
Bernstein argues that a new conceptualisation of work and life has emerged in more recent times from where stability has been replaced by ‘flexibility’ and ‘adaptability’, responsiveness to change, and constructions of the ‘life-long learner’. He argues that the concept of ‘trainability’ underpins this new conceptualisation:
[Trainability] places the emphasis on ‘something’ the [individual] must possess in order for that [individual] to be ‘appropriately formed and reformed according to technological, organisational and market contingencies. This ‘something’ which is crucial to the survival of the [individual], the economy and presumably society, is the ability to be taught, the ability to respond effectively to concurrent, subsequent, intermittent pedagogics. (p. 59)
Bernstein maintains that the capacity of trainability is the outcome of a specific identity which arises out of a particular social order. He argues that an individual’s future relies not on an ability, but on their adaptability; being able to respond to concurrent and subsequent retraining. Bernstein notes that the individual’s identity is [re]constructed as a ‘consumer’, and success is defined by materialities of
consumption through the abundance or absence of goods (p. 59). He regards this as individualistic, and devoid of social connectedness.
Bernstein sees this emphasis on individualism as characteristic of neo-liberal discourse, with this kind of identity legitimised and reinforced through an agreed collective purpose. In this case, access to traditional resources for identity formation, such as social, cultural and religious groups and their discourse and practices, are no longer straightforward or so easily available. Identities are regulated and fragmented in ever more subtle ways. Social class, in particular, has almost become invisible as a uniting cause across groups of people under neo-liberal discourse (Apple, 2004). Within the school curriculum, Bernstein argues both visible and invisible pedagogies have become virtually secular and market-driven (Bernstein, 2000, p. 78). While the potential of curriculum concepts such as key competencies in addressing social justice issues and strengthening student identity and agency has been identified by some (e.g., Crick, 2008; Haste, 2001), the international literature on curriculum also reveals a concern about the balance between social justice and economic agendas (see Ball, 2012; Sjøberg, 2016; Takayama, 2013).
Bernstein argues, however, that the current dominance of neo-liberal ideologies over the pedagogic device is not deterministic in its consequences, and sees possibilities in
the emergence of new social forms and struggles for its control. While a number of curriculum theorists have argued for the importance of discipline knowledge or ‘powerful knowledge’ as essential for the ‘production’ of new knowledge, and a counter-balance to constructions of the ‘knowledge economy’ (OECD, 1996) and the marketisation of education (Young, 2013), others have believe that traditional discipline approaches to curriculum continue to be about the ‘knowledge of the powerful’ and reinforce social and cultural inequities (Beck, 2013).
Others still have argued that the ‘third way’ (Giddens, 2000) may seem like a balance between the ‘old left’ with its focus on rights, equity, high state accountability and high social expenditure, and the ‘old right’ with its emphasis on competition, privatisation and reduced social expenditure, but is still, at least in the New Zealand context, a softer form of neoliberalism (Roberts & Peters, 2008). A number of critiques of the school textbook industry, particularly in the United States, also note that that ‘knowledge production’ is no longer the preserve of ‘academic experts’, but the site of struggle between powerful groups seeking to build political, economic and cultural accord, and those groups seeking to reveal the agendas underlying school knowledge, and incorporating alternative traditions and worldviews (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Larson, Allen, & Osborn, 2010). This would suggest that the boundaries have weakened between educational and other agents such as those focussed on economic outcomes, and the associated discourses within each of Bernstein’s fields of practice. This has implications for the separation of academic and vocational fields of production.
Bernstein’s pedagogic device seeks to make explicit the ways that knowledge is both produced and legitimised, and reproduced by those in power. The different agents within the fields of practice influence the nature of the discourse that takes place, and whose theories of knowledge and schooling are progressed. Bernstein’s theory examines the ways in which curriculum knowledge is classified and framed, and the visibility/invisibility in the ways ‘knowing and being’ are constructed in the classroom and in the wider society. A concept that will be revisited throughout this research is Bernstein’s ‘struggle for control of the pedagogic device’. Gramsci (1972) referred to hegemonic discourse as a ‘site of struggle’ and I will use this term to describe the
potentially different, or even opposing ideological discourse that takes place with an educational policy setting.
It is important to recognise however, that these ideological struggles are not confined to the higher echelons of university academics and government policy officials. Groups and individuals at all levels of society engage in struggles over the inequities of class, race and ethnicity, gender, religion, etc. as reproduced through educational institutions and pedagogical practices. I therefore propose to use Nancy Fraser’s needs discourse theory as an overarching theory with which to examine some of these perspectives in relation to the key competencies. The theories of Kimberle Crenshaw (1989), Gloria Anzaldúa (1987), Maria Root (1996) and Nicholas Burbules (1997) are utilised to a lesser degree throughout the thesis, but serve to illustrate in more detail some of the complex diversity and identity struggles experienced by groups and individuals, and how these diverse voices need to be considered in both curriculum policy design and curriculum implementation discourses. Each of these are discussed as follows.