Pedagogic governance: theorising with/after Bernstein

Abstract

Researchers interested in new modes of social control and regulation through pedagogic means have increasingly drawn on Bernstein’s theories of social control through pedagogic means and the emergence of a totally pedagogised society. This article explores this aspect of the Bernsteinian theoretical project by extrapolating and contrasting Foucault’s and Bernstein’s theories of power knowledge relations, pedagogic discourse and different types of knowledge structures. It elaborates on Bernstein’s theory of the complex division of labour within the field of symbolic control, consisting of agents from different class factions engaged in conflicts and struggles over the production and recontextualisation of different types of scientific knowledge. The article provides two case studies of empirical research to illustrate how Bernstein’s concepts can be used to theorise different modes of pedagogic governance. It demonstrates the possibilities of Bernstein’s later theoretical oeuvre to studies of social reproduction, interruption and change in and through pedagogic relations.