Knowledge in Education

Author: Richard Pountney (SIG Leader)

‘The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly, that we can say they were almost made for each other’ [1]

We all know the saying about square pegs and round holes, and how they mis-align, but it is also true that round pegs will fit into (some) square holes. I am reminded of this when I am working with postgraduate researchers (PGRs) who are looking for a methodology. They are often very clear on the problem, and the problem space. Sometimes they haven’t yet problematised their object of study. By this, I mean that new(er) researchers may be stuck at a point where they are not yet ready to give up on things they  take for granted – as Pat Thompson explains, ‘problematising simply means making something problematic, not taking it for granted, questioning assumptions, framings, inclusions, emphases, exclusions‘. Before I go on to unpick some of the implications of this, I should acknowledge that early stages of postgraduate research are subject to all of the uncertainties and doubts that we all face when starting research, and that PGRs look to their supervisors to guide them. And, I remember the frustration when my supervisors bounced this back to me: ‘… what do you think, Richard?’ Faced with this, it is not surprising that some researchers go searching for that square hole to put their round peg in.

A puzzle without clues?

I should say that there are a lot of square holes out there, and some are more signposted and available than others. Sometimes these square holes are contextually favoured – they dominate the discourse in doctoral schools and they become the measures of success in research. A straw poll of education professors and doctoral supervisors in my own institution show that socio-constructivist, sociomaterial, and ethnomethodological interests predominate. Well, hats off to these colleagues, of course, and their eminence in their research areas is well deserved. But, think about that for a moment. The established community of researchers is led by research leaders, each with their own repertoire of interests and problem spaces, creating a reservoir of intellectual capital and resources. This is the well that supplies the drinking water to researchers. The struggle over these resources is more than who in the institution is named in the Research Excellence Framework (a key factor in funding for research) – it also affects how doctoral scholarships are determined, how supervisors are allocated to new doctoral students (who, often, are yet to decide on a research methodology), and how funding is allocated. Therefore, while I would hesitate to label these research leaders as gatekeepers, it is not much of a stretch to suggest that there is potential for reproduction of the status quo in this scenario.

A matter of taste?

So what has this to do with this SIG ? The knowledge in education field is referred to as a ‘coalition of minds’ – the intersection of the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu, Basil Bernstein, and Karl Maton, referred to as (Social) Realism (see the post Waving not Drowing). This field has eminent and influential researchers, including Professors Michael Young, Johan Muller, Leesa Wheelan and Elizabeth Rata (the Cambridge Bernstein Group) and Karl Maton (Legitimation Code Theory), who have published a significant corpus  including hundreds of doctoral studies that have used these theories (see, for example, the database of LCT publications here). These theorists are linked with international centres of excellence associated with this SIG (for a list see About) and there is a growing interest in these ideas in the Sheffield Institue of Education (and hence this SIG), but this is not without its own struggle. Over what, you might ask?

It is perhaps a given that any curriculum has knowledge, of some kind, at its foundation and that the acquisition of knowledge is a ‘key feature that distinguishes education (general or vocational) at any level from all other activities’ (Young, 2003: 553). However, this does not sit comfortably with those who draw on understandings of the curriculum as social practice (Brown and Duguid, 2001), and who criticise curricula that are seen as knowledge-based (Pinar, 2006). In this sociological point of view the word knowledge is reserved for what is collectively endorsed or granted with authority by groups of people (Bloor, 1991). Edwards and Usher (2001: 280) refer to the ‘unruliness’ of knowledge owing to the lack of rules and the sense that it is ‘up for grabs’ epistemologically. This view of knowledge as constructed and contested downplays the notion of disciplines as bodies of canonical knowledge to be transmitted in favour of generic and transferable skills (ibid). Gibbons et al. (1994), for example, argue for a mode 2 form of knowledge that is ‘trans-disciplinary’, context-driven and problem-focused. This contrasts with the traditional, mode 1, form of knowledge that is academic and discipline based. However, there is a value-laden implicit message here that mode 2 knowledge should replace mode 1 in which for ‘mode 1 read stuffiness; for mode 2 read avant-garde and glitzy’ (Barnett, 2009: 431).

The sum of its parts?

One outcome of this purely social, and socialised, approach to curriculum and pedagogy is the situation where ‘the mantra of ‘learning how to learn’ arises … [in which] Knowledge recedes from view’ (ibid 430). This prevailing aversion to knowledge, that to rely on knowledge is to be ‘didactic, a didact, or even worse a pedagogue’, is, Barnett suggests, held by academics both ethically and pedagogically. Maton (2007; 2013; Moore and Maton, 2001) refers to this as a kind of knowledge blindness, or at the least a ‘blind-spot’, that limits knowledge structures being theorised in empirical research. Young (2008: 14) goes further to suggest that we need insights into knowledge structure in the curriculum to distinguish between ‘knowledge of the powerful’ and ‘powerful knowledge’ – in terms of what it tells us about knowledge itself – e.g. the fact that some curriculum knowledge, such as esoteric knowledge, is higher status (Beck, 2013).

Therefore, if you are someone who is thinking about researching curriculum and/or professional learning there are three reasons, drawing on Wheelahan (2010), I would like to give you as to why knowledge is important in your study:

The first is that the notion of knowledge and its acquisition has implications for learning and teaching. It resonates with Meyer and Land’s (2005) work on threshold concepts and knowledge that students (and teachers) find ‘troublesome’. The implications of this are echoed by Donald’s (1986) study of knowledge concepts in HE courses, including physical science, social science, applied disciplines and humanities. She identifies disciplinary differences occurring at four levels: in the nature of the concepts used; in the logical structure of the discipline; in the truth criteria used; and in the teaching methods employed in the discipline.  Her study indicates that students in social science subjects (horizontal and segmented knowledge structures in Bernstein’s terms) were required to have a greater ability to make inference, while physical science (hierarchically structured) require less inference. This focus on knowledge and concepts matters, therefore, because it aims to bridge the gap with understanding and skills by emphasising that constructivist approaches, which aim to ‘scaffold’ learning, are important as a means to an end (i.e. learning), not the end in itself (the process of learning).

The second reason why knowledge is important is because of the argument that teachers have epistemological beliefs, related to their disciplinary understandings, about knowledge and knowing (Hofer and Pintrich, 1997) and that these beliefs shape how the discipline is taught and what is required of students (Buehl and Alexander, 2001). These beliefs range from naive to sophisticated, involving beliefs of whether ability to learn is innate, how knowledge is acquired, the source (and authority) of knowledge, its certainty, and its inter-relatedness (Schommer, 1993; 1994). Where these epistemological understandings are underdeveloped or unclear this can lead to students’ surface learning: this also has an effect on how teachers develop their pedagogy that in turn influences learners’ own epistemological beliefs (Nielsen, 2012). Attention to knowledge, therefore, can offset the ‘pedagogic imperative’ that otherwise restricts teachers’ thinking to the realities of the classroom.

The third reason is that attempts to deny knowledge as important in the curriculum also deny the social basis of knowledge as a condition of its own possibility (Young, 2013). Furthermore, it excludes the possibility of something other than itself, as a ‘doxic’ experience of the world (Schiff, 2009).  Knowledge blindness (Maton, 2007; 2013; Moore and Maton, 2001), therefore, opens the door for those, including curriculum reformers, who seek to develop ideological conceptions of the curriculum, such as competence-based training and genericism (Wheelahan, 2010; Young, 2008), and to project a prospective neo-conservative identity for children and future citizens (Beck 2012).  Social realism, on the other hand, promotes the idea of ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young, 2008), and the potential to ‘regenerate’ the curriculum (Beck, 2013).

The reasons I give above make the case for using sociology of knowledge concepts in researching curriculum practices and are aligned with the notion that the concepts enable the identification of the problem as well as its explanation, while the empirical data provides the illustration, even evidence, of both problem and explanation. As Rata (2012) advises us, such a  methodology is within the Kantian rationalist tradition where the “united operation” of concepts and content (Kant (1781, p. 69) avoids both the idealism of concepts alone and the restrictions of empiricism.

I argue, therefore, that a realist, or conceptual, methodology of curriculum and professional learning is a round hole for researchers who have round pegs shaped by their problematisation of their objects of study. Of course researchers might still decide to use the square holes more-readily available to them, possibly because of their concern for complexity – and their research projects will fit in very nicely. My concern is that on the completion of their studies they may have a beautiful rendering of the problem, but still have complexity.

So, yes, research is complex – but need it be complicated? I will return to how a realist, conceptual methodology can simplify problematics and what this entails in a later post.

To be continued …

[For opportunities in doctoral scholarships in curriculum studies in 2020-21 see details here]

References

[1] Smith, Sydney, Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy, Delivered at the Royal Institution, in the Years 1804, 1805, and 1806 (London, 1850), p. 111, quoted in Bell, Alan, Sydney Smith: A Life (Oxford, Oxford UP, 1980), p. 58.
Barnett (2009) Knowing and becoming in the higher education curriculum, Studies in Higher Education, 34:4, 429–440
Beck J. (2012) Reinstating knowledge: diagnoses and prescriptions for England’s curriculum ills, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 22(1), 1–18
Beck, J. (2013). Powerful knowledge, esoteric knowledge, curriculum knowledge. Cambridge Journal of Education, 43(2), 177-193.
Bernstein, B. (2000) Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique. Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield
Bloor, D. (1991) Knowledge and social imagery. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Brown, J. S., and Duguid, P. (2001) Knowledge and organization: A social-practice perspective. Organization Science, 12(2), 198–213
Buehl, M. M., & Alexander, P. A. (2001). Beliefs about academic knowledge. Educational Psychology Review, 13(4), 385-418.
Cook, S. D., & Brown, J. S. (1999). Bridging epistemologies: The generative dance between organizational knowledge and organizational knowing. Organization science, 10(4), 381-400.
Donald, J. G. (1986) Knowledge and the university curriculum. Higher Education, 15(3–4), 267–282
Edwards, R., and Usher, R. (2001) Lifelong learning: a postmodern condition of education? Adult education quarterly, 51(4), 273–287
Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., and Trow, M. (1994) The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies.
Hirst, Paul H., ed. “Curriculum integration.” In Knowledge and the curriculum. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974
Hofer, B. K., and Pintrich, P. R. (1997) The development of epistemological theories: Beliefs about knowledge and knowing and their relation to learning. Review of Educational Research, 67(1), 88–140
Kant, I. ([1781] 1993) Critique of pure reason. London, Everyman
Maton, K. (2007) Knowledge-knower structures in intellectual and educational fields. Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy: Functional Linguistic and Sociological Perspectives, 87–108
Maton, K. (2013) Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a Realist Sociology of Education. London: Routledge
Meyer, J. H., and Land, R. (2005) Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49(3), 373–388
Moore, R. and Maton, K. (2001) Founding the sociology of knowledge: Basil Bernstein, intellectual fields and the epistemic device. In A. Morais, I. Neves, B. Davies and H. Daniels (Eds.), Towards a Sociology of Pedagogy: The Contribution of Basil Bernstein to Research, New York, Peter Lang: pp. 153–182
Muller, J. (2009) Forms of knowledge and curriculum coherence. Journal of Education and Work 22: 205–26
Nielsen, S. G. (2012). Epistemic beliefs and self-regulated learning in music students. Psychology of Music, 40(3), 324-338.
Pinar WF. (2006) The synoptic text today and other essays: Curriculum development after the reconceptualisation. New York, Lang
Rata, E. (2012). The politics of knowledge in education. British Educational Research Journal, 38(1), 103-124.
Schiff, J. (2009) The Persistence of Misrecognition. In Political Theory Workshop (Vol. 12) [Online at: http://ptw.uchicago.edu/Schiff09.pdf. Visited 30/6/13]
Schommer, M. (1993). Comparisons of beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning among postsecondary students. Research in higher education, 34(3), 355-370.
Schommer, M. (1994). Synthesizing epistemological belief research: Tentative understandings and provocative confusions. Educational psychology review, 6(4), 293-319.
Wheelahan, L. (2010) Why Knowledge Matters in Curriculum: A Social Realist Argument. Abingdon, Routledge
Young, M. (2003) Durkheim, Vygotsky and the curriculum of the future, London Education Review, 1(2)
Young, M. (2008) Bringing Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education, London and New York, Routledge
Young, M. (2013). Overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: A knowledge-based approach. Journal of curriculum studies, 45(2), 101-118.

Author: Dr. Weipeng Yang, Singapore University of Social Sciences, Singapore

It is perhaps a ‘given’ that educators deliver cultural traditions to learners through the teaching and the curriculum content that they choose. Despite their similarities across different countries, the early childhood curriculum (ECC) for educators is often context-specific. In this blogpost I would like to discuss this and suggest some considerations that might frame this debate.

ECC is the core of early childhood care and education (ECCE). The presence of a well-planned and coordinated curriculum is crucial to prioritise learning settings and provide learning goals and content for early childhood educators and centres (see for example Starting Strong Key OECD Indicators on Early Childhood Education and Care).  ECC can act as a tool to improve early childhood educators’ professional development as well as adequately supporting children’s continuous growth in the early years.

The extent to which children are the products of a given society and culture will vary according to the strength of the different experiences and values of their communities, and consequently their learning may have differing trajectories. In 1987, developmentally appropriate practice (DAP)  was first adopted in a position statement proposed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), in the United States. Since then, it has become one of the most influential theoretical ideas in the field of ECCE throughout the world. Children’s agency is recognised as having an essential role in effective learning, constructed in play, social interaction, and community participation (Yang et al., 2020). Research shows that despite the mutual interactions and similarities, ECC policies and practices have been developed in context-specific ways across countries. For example, Australia’s  and New Zealand’s  (Te Whāriki) ECCs emphasise the development of the culturally competent child on top of the holistic development of a capable child, without segregating children’s learning into domains (Yang et al., 2020).

Research on the cultural aspects of curriculum tends to regard the educator as a bearer of dominant cultural ideologies who delivers the local traditional culture to learners through teaching styles and curriculum content. For example, Chen et al. (2017) studied the ‘Hong Kong style’ of the Project Approach and found that the underlying mechanisms were contextually and philosophically driven. Contextually, there were real challenges, such as time pressure and curriculum demands, parental expectations for academic success, professional competence, emotional tensions and culturally driven pedagogical beliefs. Philosophically, these challenges were confounded by a set of different cultural beliefs about early education and a long-held tradition of practising teacher-directed Chinese pedagogy.

However, there is still a dearth of research on how culture may influence curriculum development in diverse contexts. It remains to be addressed whether culturally relevant and diverse content has been used in ECC, and what kind of ‘culturally sensitive curriculum development’ has happened in a particular society.

My research indicates a need of proposing a more inclusive and balanced framework for understanding ECC against the political and sociocultural backgrounds. This framework is supposed to integrate diverse orientations towards promoting children’s learning and development, not only by themselves as human beings, but also situated within the complex and changing sociocultural context. A fusion of developmental and cultural perspectives will require a hybrid model for ECC, which can be entitled ‘curriculum hybridization’ in ECC policies and practices (Yang et al., 2020).

‘Curriculum hybridization’ model in ECC policies and practices (Yang et al., 2020)

A hybrid model of curriculum that reflects cultural conflicts and fusion is aligned with the important need to support early childhood educators and children with the access to cultural tools and diverse understandings of social issues. This will in turn equip them with the cultural self-awareness and intercultural understanding and competence over time. Understanding and and competence in cultural interchange will also enable early childhood educators to position and critically reflect on the curriculum policy requirements that they work with and transcends them as professionals (MacNaughton, 2003). The model of curriculum hybridization can provide a coherent analytic framework for achieving both cultural inheritance and cultural development in ECEC, which allows children’s learning experiences to be culture-sensitive and highly relevant to the changing society.

References:

Chen, J. J., Li, H., & Wang, J. Y. (2017). Implementing the project approach: A case study of hybrid pedagogy in a Hong Kong kindergarten. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 31(3), 324-341. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2017.1309479
MacNaughton, G. (2003). Shaping early childhood: Learners, curriculum and contexts. Open University Press.
Yang, W., & Li, H. (2019). Changing culture, changing curriculum: a case study of early childhood curriculum innovations in two Chinese kindergartens. The Curriculum Journal, 30(3), 279–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2019.1568269
Yang, W., & Li, H. (2018). Cultural ideology matters in early childhood curriculum innovations: a comparative case study of Chinese kindergartens between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 50(4), 560–585. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2018.1428367
Yang, W., & Li, H. (2020). The role of culture in early childhood curriculum development: A case study of curriculum innovations in Hong Kong kindergartens. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 1463949119900359. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949119900359
Yang, W., Xu, P., Liu, H., & Li, H. (2020). Neoliberalism and sociocultural specificities: a discourse analysis of early childhood curriculum policies in Australia, China, New Zealand, and Singapore. Early Child Development and Care, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2020.1754210

Author Bio:

Dr. Weipeng Yang is a Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at the Singapore University of Social Sciences. He is currently the Co-Convenor of the Curriculum, Assessment and Pedagogy SIG at the British Educational Research Association (BERA). He is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of Research in Childhood Education and guest editors of three international academic journals.

Contact:        email: – weipengyang@suss.edu.sg              Twitter: @Dr_Weipeng_Yang

Author: Richard Pountney, SIG Lead

It’s a strange kind of question, ‘does my teaching ever flatline?’ I was reminded of it recently when introducing my students to curriculum theory, in a masters module I lead, Curriculum Design and Innovation. Their reactions to the theory ranged from ‘it makes my brain hurt’ to ‘this has unlocked my thinking’ [1]. Mostly, they say, ‘we have never been asked to think about our practice in this way before’. It left me wondering what can explain this variation, and how can I help students with theory.

But first a story [2].

An academic walks past a homeless man every day on the way to work. One day the homeless man shouts out, ‘I had a dream about you last night and you gave me a hundred pounds! What do you think it means?’ The academic hesitates, thinks for a moment, and then says: ‘Tomorrow, you will find out’. The next day the academic stops at the beggar and gives him a package. The man excitedly opens it. Inside he finds Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams.

Social Realism: a coalition of minds

The basis of this joke is in the mismatch of expectations, as Freud himself might have analysed. In response to a request for material contribution, the means of understanding those needs was offered. The story raises the question of whether the ‘gift’ of knowledge, in this context, was practically useless. But, as Kurt Lewin [3] famously surmised ‘There’s nothing so practical as good theory’ – because good theory guides effective action by turning knowledge into wisdom. We can agree that theories are good to inform, explain and predict practice – but mostly they are good to think with. However, what we mean by theory and its relationship with knowledge needs to be unpicked.

I should start by professing my theory. I am an educational sociologist and my sociology is a realist one. Social realists, like me, conjecture that knowledge is socially constructed and has real properties. It is a kind of coalition of theories including Field Theory (Pierre Bourdieu), Knowledge Code Theory (Basil Bernstein), and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT, Karl Maton). As a theory of knowledge, it can be used to examine innovation in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment [4]. I talk about knowledge practices and the need to get ‘under the bonnet’ of social activities such as teaching and learning, to examine the underlying basis of practice. I argue for epistemic justice as the purpose of higher education, despite claims that my discipline, Education, does not have an episteme [5].

Legitimation Code Theory Semantic Plane

But what kind of social theorist would I be if I didn’t use my theory to examine the problem of the place of theory in learning?  One dimension of Legitimation Code Theory [6] is semantics and the two symbolic codes: density and gravity. Semantic Density (SD) is the degree of complexity of a thing, knowledge or practice. Semantic Gravity (SG) is the degree of abstraction, or distance from context. So strong gravity (written as SG+), and weak density (shown as SG-) is close to context and simple – this is practical knowledge and a good example would be playing conkers. On the other hand, weak SG and strong SD (SG-,SD+) is abstract and dense – this is theoretical knowledge and Quantum Physics is a good example. You can plot this as types of knowledge on the continuous plane below [7].

A Semantic Profile of a practice

Returning to my flatline question, variations in semantic gravity and density can be plotted in a timeline, as a kind of semantic profile of any activity such as the teaching of a whole course or an individual lesson [8].  I have used it elsewhere [9] to show how it can differentiate between novice and expert knowledge. In the example of a profile  I can map my lessons on theory. The dotted line C is my preference: I invite students to talk about their practice (context) and to simply state their problems (strong semantic gravity and weak density). When I introduce theory, the gravity decreases and density increases. By giving real-life examples of how the theory can be applied the curve drops down again (it waves) [10].

Giving practical examples and waving semantically between the actual and the abstract may seem like common sense but people say being mindful of this when you teach is really helpful. It avoids being too theoretical all of the time (flatline A on the profile) or overly simple (flatline B). It is the connection, and waving, between theory and empirical examples of the application of the theory that is helpful for students, so that they can plot their own waves.

Thinking about it now, I was probably driving my students to abstraction. What is your semantic range and have you ever flatlined? I know I have!  You could probably plot a semantic profile of this blogpost. . But maybe I am getting too theoretical …

Notes:

[1] I should add that students did very well on the module and there were several distinctions

[2] My version of a joke told by Wayne Hugo in Hugo, W. (2014) Editorial: Semantic density and semantic gravity, Journal of Education, 59

[3] Lewin, K. (1951). Problems of research in social psychology. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers (pp. 155-169). New York: Harper & Row. (p169)

[4] Pountney, R. and McPhail G. (2019) Crossing boundaries: exploring the theory, practice and possibility of a ‘Future 3’ curriculum, British Educational Research Journal, 45: 483-501 DOI 10.1002/berj.3508

[5] Furlong, J. (2013). Education–An Anatomy of the Discipline: Rescuing the university project? London: Routledge.

[6] See http://legitimationcodetheory.com/ for papers and explanations

[7] Shay, S. (2013) Conceptualizing curriculum differentiation in higher education: a sociology of knowledge point of view, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 34(4): 563–582

[8] For a great overview of Making Semantic Waves in the Classroom see https://www.slideshare.net/dorianadenlove/making-semantic-waves-in-the-classroom

[9] Pountney, R. (2019) Seeing and framing mentoring through the lens of knowledge practices CollectivEd 7,  Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University [online: https://bit.ly/2W1PABo ]

[10] See Maton, K. (2013). Making semantic waves: A key to cumulative knowledge-building. Linguistics and Education, 24(1), 8-22.

Author: Richard Pountney, SIG Lead

[This post was prepared as a podcast (https://www.bera.ac.uk/the-bera-podcast-who-owns-the-curriculum-now) for the BERA Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment Special Interest Group]

Having recently been asked to say what had I thought has been the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the curriculum and the work of this special interest group, I am going to address this under three headings: the effects of the pandemic; the structures involved; and the responses being made. My overriding question is ‘Who owns the curriculum now?’

The first of these is effects, and it is clear that there has been an interruption. But we are yet to fully understand the level of disruption.  Let’s consider the main factors of this interruption – [the impression that…] schools, colleges, and universities closed since March; examinations cancelled; pupils and students sent home and asked to learn at home; and teachers and lecturers being asked to work and teach remotely. Clearly, this is not ‘business as usual’, but I have seen incredible levels of adaptation by schools and teachers to the challenge. My own university and the school trusts we work with, have worked extremely hard to respond. On a personal level, I have seen this in the schools that the children in my family attend. The hard work of teachers in this period is often not reflected, unfortunately, in media reporting of what schools have been doing – schools have not been closed and teachers have not stopped working! The effects have been on the whole community and it has required a whole school response. The role of parents, and schools’ partnerships with parents, has been crucial. Parents have had, arguably, more influence over their children’s curriculum than ever before. I would say this is more a case of parents as proxy for teachers, rather than as replacement for them – but it is a noticeable shift, perhaps, from ‘in loco parentis’ to ‘in loco magister’.

One factor of the interruption has been teachers’ uncertainty about how long it will last and what will happen next – I know my own response started as ‘survive till Easter’ – and then became ‘manage till May’ and more lately, ‘hold on to the holidays’. I get a sense that that if we are locked down again, I will be better prepared! How about you?

I want to pause there, to think about structures. Schools are more than buildings – they represent a complex set of interconnected structures including, timetables, routines, and people, including parents – this is what Karl Maton calls a ‘constellation of practice’. This cosmology includes the reservoirs of physical things but also the intangibles – feelings, hopes and investments; also, our ways of doing and being are often tacit. These are our repertoires – including relationships between people, and between people and ideas. Schools are a fragile ecosystem, held together by habits of work and learning that persist because of and for the community. The curriculum is one structure that provides the ‘what’, aligned with the pedagogy of ‘how’, underpinned importantly by how we assess the ‘how well’.

In terms of pedagogy, teachers have shifted the emphasis towards remote learning, both synchronous and asynchronous. This is a shift in the dynamic – the polarity of learning and teaching. It raises the visibility of teachers own subject knowledge, and, in many cases, along with their pedagogic content knowledge – that is, the expertise to understand the sequencing and pacing of learning, as well as how learners’ misconceptions are recognised and addressed. There is no doubt in my mind that schools have provided these forms of learning and this has been impressive. Interestingly, the lockdown has become a kind of ‘opening up’ – of the curriculum and pedagogy.  The open letter to ministers from the Research Libraries UK calling for a loosening of copyright laws suggests the need to rethink how we share and re-use curriculum resources, as well as strategies and techniques for teaching and learning. The difficulty, I feel, is ensuring teachers’ autonomy in curriculum making, while helping them manage the workload. This shouldn’t be too prescriptive.

The responses we continue to make, however, must take account of inequality heightened by the interruption. Recent studies indicate that those children most in need of school are those most likely to miss out on remote provision. Black, Asian and minority ethnic students are among those that are affected, increasing calls for an accessible and fair curriculum as a matter of social justice. In experiencing home learning, young people will want to make sense of Black Lives Matter and the calls to decolonise the curriculum and to understand the responses we, as educators, make to this. I know my own university is making huge efforts to offer extra resources and additional support to students and to pupils in our partner schools.

The announcement of the governments’ ‘catch-up premium’ and its emphasis on academic aspects of children’s return to school is important, but this needs to take account of the emotional aspects of the pandemic. Experiencing the world again as a safe space, and reaffirming connection and belonging is equally important, and sadly we may need to help pupils to acknowledge loss. Personally, I prefer the term recovery to catch-up – and it may be that we need to uncover as well as recover. Our curriculum research might throw light on what can be revealed by the drawing back of the established structures of our schools and the curriculum?

This is where we might need to hold on to our curriculum principles when they are stress-tested. Our response may be pragmatic, but it must also be informed. The pandemic will favour some ideologies over others, including those that further either a traditional or progressive idea of schooling. This is where the interruption becomes a ‘discursive gap’ – a space of possibilities. The special interest group for Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment can contribute to this space and to the debate. I look forward to being involved in this.

As to the question ‘who owns the curriculum now?’ – my answer for what its worth is ‘we all do!’

Author: Richard Pountney, SIG Lead

OK. Let’s be honest – the  Sheffield Institute of Education Knowledge in Education Research Group isn’t much of a group yet. But I am hoping that having a web presence will change that for the better. Along the way, I hope to persuade colleagues to lend an ear to some of the theories and methodologies associated with knowledge in education – namely those that relate to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment (Basil Bernstein’s three symbolic message systems). I guess that that statement puts me in the realism camp, and I aim to explain why that is. I have written elsewhere about this as a social justice issue (see ‘Epistemic Justice – is this what universities are for?‘) and as an emancipation issue (see ‘Are Teacher Educators the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists of the Academy?‘). And you never know, there may come a time when we don’t have to whisper it: ‘knowledge is important in education!’