Bridging boundaries with Bernstein: approach, procedure and results of a school support project in Catalonia

Abstract

This article presents the theoretical foundations, methodological approach and results of a school support project involving 154 primary school pupils, with low academic performance, in a region of Catalonia (Enxaneta Project). Drawing on the later work of Basic Bernstein, specifically his notion of pedagogic device, the project is based, on a theoretical level, on the use of the notions of classification and framing and of distributive, recontextualising and evaluative rules to analyse the dominant pedagogic practice and propose alternatives. Methodologically, the project works through an intense, professional mentoring with children and families. It is based on mixed pedagogies with four objectives: a) to question the current school pedagogic practice characterised by a regulatory discourse that generates inequalities in its link between power, knowledge, pedagogic identities and forms of consciousness; b) to enable families to enter the school physically and symbolically and share it with mentors and teachers; c) to improve teacher expectations towards children and families; d) to reduce or subvert, as the final goal, initial inequalities. The results obtained (quasi-experimental design) enable us to affirm that the Enxaneta children improve significantly more than the non-Enxaneta children in linguistic and mathematical tests, but not in school marks.