The data made evident that Political Science as an academic discipline represents a knower code. In essence, this means that the curriculum and the pedagogy are based on developing knowers, or a certain kind of knower; someone with a particular set of attributes or a particular disposition towards learning or knowledge (see Maton 2007, 2013a). As discussed in the previous section, there is a student-centred approach to teaching and the students’ needs are considered in this discipline when curricula are designed and pedagogic approaches planned. What kinds of knowers do they need to be to be successful? What kinds of skills or attributes need to be embedded or built into the curriculum? These are the questions that these two lecturers, at least, have mentioned and considered in relation to their teaching and course design. The notion of teaching certain foundational concepts or knowledge is not absented, but it is not the basis of what counts as marking a student as a successful Political Science student. Rather the basis of specialisation is on the who being taught as opposed to the what; in Maton’s (2007) terms, the subject of the knowledge rather than the object. The what, or the knowledge, is the vehicle used to develop the who, or the knowers.
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Both lecturers talked to their students over the course of the semester and also to me in the interviews about the kinds of attributes and skills that successful Political Science students need. They talked about these to some extent in relation to where they see these students going once they have graduated and entered the world of work. Frank talked about wanting his students to be ‘open-minded’, ‘thinking’, ‘curious’; Mike talked about wanting his students to be ‘interested’, ‘excited’, ‘interactive’; they both spoke about wanting their students to be critical and to think about issues with open minds. Frank made this comment in his interview:
I would such as the students to be critical thinkers and not just, for example, take information just on face value, but also to see the mechanisms of how theory works. So, for example, theory says, um, X. Um, how does theory X or how does the theory prove how these events, you know, cause and effect…and the, you know, a possible analysis to it…So having that analytical and critical thinking, um, skills and also just developing, you know, a coherent argument – supporting it with actual theory and facts…What we are schooling and teaching them is actually skills, um, and it is critical things, skills. It’s um, being able to construct an argument and, um, teaching them how to analyse things in a systematic and critical way (Frank, interview, May 2013).
Mike gave his students the aims of the module or section of the course he was teaching, although these could apply to the course as a whole, thus:
To be able to argue coherently
To raise controversial issues and back them with facts To be able to write academically
To be able to stand up and defend a point you make (Mike, field notes, 2013).
He further told his students, in the second week of the course that: ‘It is our hope as a department that you will learn to evaluate facts and listen attentively and work out what is fact and what is not. So it won’t matter who is talking but rather what they are saying – the content and the context. You will be able to evaluate and weigh information without being swayed by emotion’ (Mike, field notes, 2013). Reading critically, analysing texts, articulating and defending arguments are skills in the sense that they are things students need to be taught and learn how to do well, and in different contexts. But when considered with the data in which both Mike and Frank talk about the attributes they want their students to have or develop, or the dispositions towards knowledge and learning that successful Political Studies students need to develop and nurture, these ‘skills’ are revealed as practices connected to the discipline – knowledge practices rather than generic skills that mark Political Science graduates or students from
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others and that give students particular aptitudes or abilities regarding knowledge inside and outside of the discipline.
When asked what a degree in Political Science would enable students to do professionally, or what these lecturers understood themselves as training students for, neither lecturer could give a clear indication of a particular profession or field that would require a particular or specialised set of skills or knowledge. Rather there was a sense of training students to work with any knowledge and any information, and helping them to develop these attributes and related ways of knowing and approaching knowledge so they will be able to work in a range of possible professional fields and adapt, and succeed. In other words, they are cultivating a gaze (Bernstein 1999; Maton 2013a) – a way of seeing the world through a set of lenses provided by political theory or International Relations as two sub-disciplines of Political Science28, but that largely prepare students to be certain kinds of knowers rather than to work only within a specific field. Frank, for example, commented on the need for students to be critical and able to think and reason:
I think it’s, it’s more – it isn’t about the content, but rather about, you know, constructing arguments, thinking critically, seeing the different levels of analysis, um, and that is actually a life skill. You…no matter what, whether you are working in an office or out in the field, you, your ability to think and reason and all of those things…that is a skill which actually gives you such as, the – you know, you can have degrees in, and grades, for being an Accountant but if you can’t think critically about how to solve a problem within, it does not really help you much (Frank, interview, 2013).
Mike made the following insightful point during the interview about the possible purposes of a politics degree and again the focus is on cultivating knowers, rather than on specific principles or procedures:
Mike: I think the role of the module basically is to, is to instil a sense of critical citizenship…If we can create a student who time and again would always say “On what grounds are you saying this?” I think that for me would be the, the biggest achievement. So that will mean that the student can go to the private sector or the student can go to the public sector for as long as the student is able to say “on what grounds Sir or Mrs, are you saying this? Can you justify your point?” I think if we do it such as this, it will be okay…if with your Political studies degree you can go and be the CEO of the biggest hospital in South Africa that for me would be okay. If you can go with your political studies degree
28 There are four sub-disciplines in total. The other two (other than the two discussed in this case study)
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and be the Governor of the Reserve Bank, that would still be okay… (Mike, interview, March 2013).
This cultivated knower code (Maton 2013a) affects and shapes the pedagogy as well. It can explain perhaps part of the reason for the ‘looser’ approach to the framing in terms of pacing and sequencing, as well as the more relaxed organisation of many of the lectures, with space given to students to raise issues for discussion and to engage in more openly interactive and collaborative discussion or ‘buzz groups’ during lectures. These discussions, as well as this control given to students to have a say in what issues are important, relevant or worthy of discussion, were part of the lecturers giving expression to their need to teach students to be more questioning and critical; to think for themselves and be more active, engaged and interested students and learners. If the lectures were what Frank referred to as a ‘soliloquy’ where he did all the talking and the students did all the listening (Frank, interview, May 2013), then there would be few opportunities to develop these abilities in the lectures and in conversation with a lecturer working within this knower code who has the ‘gaze’ (Bernstein 1999) or the approach to learning and the related ways of knowing or skills that students need. These lecturers are trying to model the behaviours they want their students to adopt by asking questions of their students, and by engaging them during the class discussions and after during the plenary sessions where students feed back on their small group conversations. However, both noted an interesting ‘danger’ inherent in these class discussions that lecturers need to be aware of.
Both noted that, while discussions are interesting and can even be a lot of fun, they need to be doing something that is helping students to achieve the aims of the course, or develop these abilities. Frank commented: ‘…when we’re having lectures, this is a focused learning time. It isn’t just about having random discussions. It’s very interesting having discussions, um, in class but are they learning the skill?’ (Frank, interview, May 2013). Similarly, Mike said:
I think there is a danger of making the course exciting – there's moving away from the core teachings of a module because you can make the course exciting – students can be excited, um, and happy to go and attend the lectures but all that you do is just discuss general stuff – that’s the danger, right. Um, and the best way to avoid that is to always remind them that, 'look, inasmuch as we are discussing this, how do you relate what we are discussing to what’s in the course reader? (Mike, interview, March 2013).
Thus, while lectures should be interesting, and include opportunities to develop certain abilities, aptitudes or academic dispositions that mark Political Science as a knower code, this is an academic discipline, and there is theoretical knowledge that must be learned. These abilities and skills may be general in the sense that they may apply to many social science disciplines
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similarly, for example in Philosophy or Sociology which are knower codes in similar ways, but they are not, however, generic; they are academic abilities, aptitudes or dispositions that are learned in higher education settings. As such they are learned as the students are presented with different theoretical ‘lenses’ with which to look at current issues or topical issues, learning how to think critically and analytically, how to question and how to take a position or articulate and defend an argument using relevant theory, evidence and explanation.
Thus, Political Science has, as its basis, a focus on knowers and developing a certain kind of knower with a critical, thoughtful, engaged and curious disposition, and a certain set of aptitudes related to knowledge, such as being able to read analytically, make and defend coherent arguments in the manner recognised by the discipline, and being able to make relevant links between knowledge in the everyday political sphere with theoretical knowledge. The emphasis in this discipline is therefore on the social relations of knowledge (SR). As this section has shown, although particular theories or concepts – the epistemic relation of knowledge (ER) - are often the focus of the teaching and learning, they are not the basis for claims to legitimacy in Political Science. Political Science thus represents a knower code, with stronger social relations and weaker epistemic relations (SR+ ER-). This is represented heuristically in Figure 5.1 below.
Figure 5.1 Political Studies as a knower code represented on a Cartesian plane (see Maton 2007)