Specialised knowledge and everyday knowledge in old and new Grade 6 history textbooks

Abstract

Abstract The post-democratic South African curriculum encourages integration between disciplines, and between disciplinary knowledge and everyday knowledge. This article uses the lens of integration of knowledge to interrogate two Standard 4 history textbooks published in the 1980s and two Grade 6 Social Science textbooks written for the new National Curriculum Statements during the last five years. Using Bernstein's concept of classification, the article describes the extent to which the textbooks represent knowledge as specialised to history or integrated in both substantive and procedural knowledge. Similar content in the chapter ‘History of medical science’ was analysed across all four texts. The findings indicate that the textbooks for the new curriculum contain reduced substantive history knowledge compared to the old textbooks. The new textbooks have a greater focus on inclusive history and on everyday knowledge. One of the implications of this integration is that the new textbooks do not develop a clear sense of narrative and chronology. In terms of procedural knowledge, very few activities require learners to develop historical skills but only generic skills such as comprehension.