ELECCION DEL TERRENO

Social realist theorists and those developing Bernstein’s later work frequently refer to problems concerning the ways in which different forms of knowledge ‘articulate’ with each other (Ensor & Galant, 2005). As I have discussed, framing the problem in this way can tend to flatten out the different social epistemic relations within the different knowledge communities. It may be useful, therefore, to view the problem as being concerned with the way in which different knowledge communities or epistemic

communities articulate with each other, rather than to focus upon how one form of knowledge articulates with another.

Such an approach recalls research carried out within a sociocultural tradition. For example, Lemke’s (2001) paper Articulating communities: sociocultural perspectives

on science education focuses upon student identities, the importance of “social, economic, historical and technological contexts” (p. 300) and the multiple discourse demands that are placed on students. However, because Lemke does not adopt a realist theory of knowledge, there is no scope for the particularly epistemic nature of

the communities to be brought into focus. Lemke is in part reacting against conceptual change approaches to science education research. He characterises this research tradition as focusing upon a model of students engaged in a decontextualised process of ‘rational choice’. Lemke points out the limitations of this view, emphasising the embodied and situated nature of learning, asserting that it is a:

… falsification of science to pretend to students that anyone can or should live by extreme rationalist principles. It is often unrealistic even to pretend that classrooms themselves are closed communities which are free to change their collective minds. Students and teachers need to understand how science and science education are always a part of larger communities and their cultures, including the sense in which they take sides in social and cultural conflicts that extend far beyond the classroom.

(Lemke, 2001: 310)

However, while I agree that contextual issues are important, there are conflicts between Lemke’s view and a realist and social realist perspective. For example, there is little discussion in Lemke’s paper about how or why science is ‘falsified’ in this way in relation to actual scientific discourse. Lemke suggests that school science represents a middle-class, European-dominated sub-culture; a view which recalls the ‘voice discourse’ approaches critiqued by Moore & Muller (1999). This view fails to recognise the status of scientific knowledge as powerful knowledge (Young, 2008a), tending to cast scientific discourse as only one discourse among many without considering the grounds upon which one discourse may be considered to be more adequate in certain circumstances than another. This is not to deny the significance of

culture and class differences in students’ engagement with science (Osborne et al., 2003a) or with other academic disciplines; rather, I suggest that, from a social realist perspective, questions about the articulation of knowledge communities should not be reduced to only being concerned with cultural or class differences.

As I have discussed, Lemke contrasts an individual, ‘rationalist’ conceptual change approach with a sociocultural approach which (in terms of science education) he describes as “viewing science, science education, and research on science education as human social activities conducted within institutional and cultural frameworks” (Lemke, 2001: 296). I have already briefly referred to the distinction between conceptual change and sociocultural or participationist approaches in chapter 3. Citing Hodkinson et al. (2008), I pointed to problems relating to a dualist approach to such issues. The distinctions between conceptual change (or cognitive) and sociocultural approaches and the possibilities for bridging between them have been the subject of recent research (e.g. Mason, 2007; Hodkinson et al, 2008; Tobin, 2008). Some writers suggest that the two approaches might not represent such a duality as sometimes might be supposed and that sociocultural researchers do not necessarily hold relativist, postmodern views of knowledge, such as that which is implied by Lemke (Mercer, 2007). Some researchers also suggest that neither one nor the other conceptualisation is sufficient on its own (Sfard, 1998; Mercer, 2007).

A key challenge for sociocultural and conceptual change explanations lies in theorising the transfer of learning from one context to another. Vosniadou (2007: 55) observes that “neither the cognitive nor the situated perspectives can explain all the empirical evidence around the problem of transfer”. The notion of segmented

learning and issues surrounding students’ acquisition of context-independent knowledge which preoccupy social realist researchers also indicates a concern which the problem of transfer. For learning to be cumulative in Maton’s (2009) conceptualisation, students are able to “transfer knowledge across contexts and through time” (p. 45). Further, Maton suggests that “cumulative learning depends on weaker semantic gravity and segmented learning is characterised by stronger semantic gravity constraining the transfer of meaning between contexts” (p. 46). It appears that social realists’ discussion of verticality and Maton’s notion of cumulative learning align to some extent with a conceptual change approach. As such, they may be susceptible to criticisms and uncertainties similar to those which feature in the debate concerning participationist (or sociocultural) versus conceptual change approaches.

These uncertainties primarily concern the role of different contexts as epistemic

contexts and the situated nature of meaning-making. Recall, for example, Lave & Wenger’s (1991) questions relating to the communities of practice that high school physics students may be engaged in. They ask whether students are engaged in reproducing the discipline of physics or in reproducing the high school itself. This distinction and Lave & Wenger’s critical question about the differences between talking about a practice and talking within it (pp. 106-107) are intimately related both to the problem of transfer and to the problem of differences between epistemic communities. Such questions appear to remain unaddressed within the conceptual change approach and within approaches such as Maton’s within the social realist body of research, indicating that further attention needs to be paid to the role of different communities.

While I do not claim that it is straightforward to somehow resolve all the differences between these different research traditions, I do suggest that given the problems that have been highlighted here and elsewhere, an alternative conceptualisation which emphasises the articulation between different epistemic communities may be a useful way forward. Such an approach, unlike that of Lemke (2001) focuses upon the epistemic nature of the community. It also loosely relates to what has been termed a ‘social epistemology’ (e.g. Goldman, 2002) in that it emphasises the social dimensions of knowledge and knowing rather than a solely individualistic or cognitive approach.

In summary, I therefore propose to explore how a social realist theory of educational knowledge can account for the significance of different contexts, particularly the epistemic nature of those contexts. This proposal signals an intention to return to some aspects of sociocultural theory, a theory which does acknowledge the significance of context.

This theoretical agenda aligns with my fourth research question: ‘Taking science as a case, what impact does the recontextualisation of disciplinary discourse and practices have on the development of students’ relationships with knowledge in educational contexts?’. I suggest that these aims may be addressed by considering the processes by which different epistemic communities articulate with each other. I will take these questions forward in chapter 7 where I explore the significance of different epistemic contexts and discuss how such an analysis may provide a more complete account in relation to my model for forms of knowledge. Such a discussion, however, is best illuminated in relation to a specific epistemic context – as I have previously discussed in relation to Bernstein’s notion of knowledge structures, there is an important

difference between discussion in the abstract compared with an exploration of specific disciplines or subjects. Furthermore, Bernstein and social realist theorists tend to ignore the epistemic relation – what knowledge is about. I therefore propose to carry out a case study of the school science curriculum. In the next section, I outline a rationale for this approach in relation to existing research in the field of Bernsteinian and social realist theory.