Chapter 2: Theoretical considerations and literature review
2.6 Legitimation Code Theory (LCT)
2.6.2 Bernstein‟s theory of codes, the pedagogic device and knowledge structures
Bernstein‟s theoretical framework foregrounds knowledge as an object of study (Maton, 2009).
Baldwin states that the theoretical tools developed by Bernstein and social realist theorists allow one to address “the constructed and constructing nature of knowledge” and proposes that relationships with knowledge “are not only concerned with the knower’s subjective experience;
they also reflect the way in which aspects of the engagement with knowledge are, or may be viewed to be, contingent upon the characteristics of the knowledge itself” (2010, p.83, emphasis in original).
Bernstein‟s work on codes, the pedagogic device and knowledge structures can be used to show how the “structuring of intellectual and educational knowledge specialise actors and discourses in ways that shape social relations, institutional organisation, disciplinary and curricular change, identity, consciousness and habitus” (Maton, 2007, p.87). Central to this work are the concepts of classification and framing.
Classification and framing
Bernstein‟s (1996) concepts of classification and framing can be used to analyse power and control relationships in pedagogic contexts. Classification relates to the way in which knowledge is organised and the extent to which a category of knowledge is able to insulate itself from other categories of knowledge. It thus has to do with the strength of boundaries between different categories of knowledge, where stronger classification (+C) refers to stronger boundaries and weaker classification (-C) to weaker boundaries. In the context of this study, these boundaries could be between academic and everyday knowledge of Marketing, between Marketing and other disciplines in the degrees in which Marketing is offered as a major and between different subjects within the Marketing discipline. Framing relates to the locus of control over communication between transmitters and acquirers of knowledge (such as Marketing lecturers and students) with regard to how knowledge is selected, sequenced, paced and evaluated, as well as its social base. Stronger framing (+F) signifies control by transmitters, while weaker framing (-F) signifies (apparent) control by acquirers (Bernstein, 1996). Thus classification and framing can be said to relate to what is to be transmitted and how it is to be transmitted and acquired, respectively.
Geirsdottir shows how the use of the classification and framing concepts enables an analysis of a curriculum‟s local pedagogic discourse by capturing “structures and modes that are specific within the context of the disciplinary curriculum at a specific time and place” (2008a, p.18).
The pedagogic device
While Bernstein‟s work on codes conceptualises the principles that structure practices, his work on the pedagogic device conceptualises how these principles are created, transformed and reproduced (Maton, 2005a).
The pedagogic device is a concept developed by Bernstein that allows for analysis of the process whereby knowledge is translated into curriculum and then into pedagogy (Luckett, 2010b). In other words, it relates to how meaning is recontextualised from esoteric knowledge into a more
„digestible‟ form suitable for educational purposes and settings. The device comprises three fields of practice: a field of production, where new knowledge is created; a field of recontextualisation, where this knowledge is transformed into curriculum; and a field of reproduction, where the curriculum knowledge is taught and evaluated. Often, these three fields represent different sites:
for example knowledge may be produced in universities, recontextualised into curriculum by government education departments and reproduced in schools. In this study, however, the focus is on production, recontextualisation and reproduction as represented in university settings and academics thus have roles to play in all three fields of practice. Also, as will be discussed in Section 2.6.3, understandings of what counts as legitimate knowledge (in the field of production) influences curriculum design (in the field of recontextualisation) and pedagogical practices (in the field of reproduction). Thus, all three fields are of some relevance to this study. However, the primary focus of this study is on the field of reproduction. Table 2.3 indicates that this involves analysis of pedagogic and assessment practices in the discipline of Marketing. Therefore, in this study, the pedagogic device has been used as a „locating device‟.
Table 2.3: The arena of the pedagogic device Field of practice Form of
regulation
Symbolic structure
Main types Typical sites Production Distributive rules Knowledge
structure
Hierarchical/ horizontal knowledge structures
Research publications, conferences, laboratories Recontextualisation Recontextualising
rules
Curriculum Collection/ integrated codes39
Curriculum policy documents, textbooks Reproduction Evaluative rules Pedagogy and
evaluation
Visible/ invisible pedagogic codes
Classrooms, assessment Source: Luckett (2010b, p.13, adapted from Maton & Muller, 2007)
Importantly, the structure of knowledge in the field of production influences what type of curriculum is created in the field of recontextualisation (and thus what type of pedagogy manifests in the field of reproduction). For example, Luckett outlines how it is probable that when knowledge
39 Beck (2010) notes that collection/integrated codes have been replaced by singulars/regions. These are outlined later in the chapter.
with a horizontal knowledge structure and a weak grammar based on a knower code is transformed into curriculum, “it will accord greater space to the interests, dispositions and social position of the knower...thus, allowing more discursive space for the cultural arbitrary and ideology to play” (2010b, p.18). These and other knowledge structures identified by Bernstein will now be outlined.
Knowledge structures
Bernstein‟s later work on knowledge structures is particularly relevant to this study. In this work, he focuses on how knowledge is organised in different fields, and how the structure of these different knowledge forms impacts on the shaping of educational contexts and the production of identities (Collins, 2000; Doherty, 2010).
Bernstein differentiates between two forms of discourse: horizontal and vertical.40 Horizontal discourse refers to common-sense, everyday, segmentally organised knowledge that is “likely to be oral, local, context dependent and specific, tacit, multi-layered, and contradictory across but not within contexts” (Bernstein, 1999, p.159). Whereas horizontal discourse tends to be acquired in everyday settings and emphasises the acquisition of common competence, such as the ability to tie one‟s shoelaces, vertical discourse tends to be acquired in formal pedagogical contexts and emphasises graded performance (Bernstein, 1999; Doherty, 2010). Vertical discourse refers to scholarly, educational or official knowledge, such as “theoretical bodies of knowledge organised in disciplinary fields” (Wheelahan, 2006, no page). The academic discipline of Marketing is thus an example of vertical discourse.
However, there is likely to be some interplay between horizontal and vertical discourse in Marketing, as students and lecturers may draw on their everyday knowledge of marketing based on their perspectives and experiences as consumers. Doherty‟s study of lectures in Business Studies reveals how horizontal discourse (in the form of personal anecdotal knowledge from the lecturer, students and case studies) is used to exemplify and elaborate on theories from vertical discourse and becomes “legitimate grist for the curriculum” (2010, p.255). Although this sort of drawing on horizontal discourse is probably true of lectures in a variety of disciplines, Doherty claims that:
Business Studies, more than any other academic fields, has attracted international enrolments and has an intrinsic interest in drawing students‟
knower-mode knowledges into the curriculum to supplement the vertical technical discourse of the discipline. This has fostered a more interactive, multimodal and multivocal genre of lecture premised on a marked degree
40 Diaz (2001, p.86) offers the following explanation of Bernstein‟s use of „discourse‟: “Discourse is a crucial field for struggles, territorialising and deterritorialising meanings and their realizations. Discourse is not words but structured/structuring devices for positioning subjects”.
of parity between lecturer and student as knowers who can contribute to the curriculum.
(2010, p.257)
The extent to which this claim may be represented in the Marketing discipline at UKZN will be explored in Chapter 5.
Within vertical discourse, Bernstein differentiates between hierarchical and horizontal knowledge structures. A hierarchical knowledge structure is a hierarchically organised “coherent, explicit and systematically principled structure” (Bernstein, 1999, p.159). Represented by the symbol for a triangle (∆), and exemplified by Physics, this knowledge form is based on an „integrating‟ code and progresses via theory development by integrating knowledge at lower levels towards greater abstraction and generalisation (Bernstein, 1999). For example, physicists are working towards
“the ultimate law that explains the universe” (Bertram, 2008, p.52). A horizontal knowledge structure, by contrast, “takes the form of a series of specialised languages with specialised modes of interrogation and specialised criteria for the production and circulation of texts”
(Bernstein, 1999, p.159). Its visual representation (L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7…Ln) shows that it is based on a „collection‟ or „serial‟ code and that development occurs through introducing a new language or perspective (Bernstein, 1999), as is the case in the Social Sciences. In the Marketing literature, references to “additions of marketing schools” (Lagrosen & Svensson, 2006, p.371) and
“specialised silos within marketing” (Bauerly et al, in Bolton, 2005, p.20) indicate that the discipline of Marketing is an example of a horizontal knowledge structure. The introduction of a new language in Marketing is exemplified by the emergence of the „relationship marketing‟ school of thought which focuses on relational dimensions of marketing (in contrast to the earlier non- interactional and transactional schools), and which has been described as a “new paradigm of marketing utterly different from the traditional marketing theories” (Lagrosen & Svensson, 2006, p.375). Bernstein (1999) states that managing a range of languages, each with its own procedures, makes the acquisition of horizontal knowledge structures difficult. In addition, he contends that recognising and constructing „legitimate texts‟ is more tacit and problematic in horizontal knowledge structures; this may be because in such structures, truth relates to an
„acquired gaze‟, and also because it is difficult to maintain separation from horizontal or everyday discourse.41 He asserts that this is especially so for horizontal knowledge structures with weak grammars (see below), such as Marketing.
41 Gaze is “a particular mode of recognising and realising what counts as an 'authentic' sociological reality”
(Bernstein, 1999, p.165). Breier further explains Bernstein‟s understanding of „gaze‟ as “the perspective of expert or transmitter, transmitted tacitly to acquirers, which enables the recognition and realization of phenomena of legitimate concern to a discipline or field of education or of practice” (2004b, p.213, citing Bernstein, 1999).
Horizontal knowledge structures can be further differentiated in terms of having either strong or weak grammars (Bernstein, 1999). Grammar can be described as the degree to which the concepts of a knowledge structure “can be operationalised to provide relatively precise and consistent empirical descriptions that allow the knowledge to be tested and confirmed or disconfirmed empirically, thus contributing to the rational progression of that knowledge form”
(Luckett, 2010b, p.14). Thus, a horizontal knowledge structure with a strong grammar (such as Economics) advances rationally by integrating old theories into new theories that can be empirically tested, while a horizontal knowledge structure with a weak grammar (such as Sociology) advances ideologically through critique and power (Luckett, 2010b, citing Maton &
Muller, 2007). Morais asserts that the reason Science educators are more willing to accept Psychology knowledge than Sociology knowledge as a grounding for Science education relates to the latter‟s weak grammar, which leads to Sociology being viewed as “very „loose‟, poorly conceptualised and unable to help them with their research and practice” (2001, p.2). Similar perceptions exist about Marketing. The discipline has been characterised as „descriptive and qualitative‟ – although it has tried to “reinvent itself as a rigorous and, therefore, acceptable discipline” by embracing quantification (Easton, 2002, p.103) – and research-based Marketing knowledge has been said to be of little practical usefulness to marketing practitioners (Ottesen &
Gronhaug, 2004). Marketing can thus be described as exhibiting a relatively weak grammar, although it aspires to a strong grammar.
Disciplines can also be described as singulars or regions. Singulars may be seen as “the traditional „pure‟ academic disciplines” (Beck & Young, 2005, p.185). While singulars face inwards and address themselves, regions (which involve the recontextualising of a number of singulars) face both inwards (to their constituent singulars) and outwards (to fields of practice) (Bernstein, 1996). Marketing may be described as a region because, having drawing from core disciplines such as Economics, Psychology and Anthropology (Rust, 2006), it has been involved in recontextualising singulars. Furthermore, „business studies‟ (which includes Marketing) has been described as a „contemporary‟ region (Beck & Young, 2005). This has implications for identity formation in Marketing, as Bernstein (1996) argues that „new‟ regions are more likely to produce projected identities that depend on the fields of practice that they face. There are also repercussions in terms of the status of the discipline, which will be discussed in Chapters 5 and 6.
In summary, the academic discipline of Marketing can be classified as a vertical discourse with a horizontal knowledge structure and a weak grammar. It can also be described as a region.
Bernstein‟s work on knowledge structures has been criticised for presenting these structures as
“dichotomous ideal types whose differences are too strongly drawn” (Maton, 2009, p.45). His
framework thus requires further conceptual development (Muller, 2007, in Maton, 2009), which involves theorising “the underlying principles generating discourses, knowledge structures, curriculum structures and forms of learning” (Maton, 2009, p.45). This conceptual development is undertaken in Maton‟s Legitimation Code Theory.