The Complex Gendering of Invisible Pedagogies: Social reproduction or empowerment?

Abstract

This article explores the contribution to gender studies of Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse and, in particular, his analysis of the social logic and social consequences of invisible pedagogies. His understanding of the introduction of invisible competence-based pedagogies in the l960s and l970s in the UK uniquely demonstrated the interconnections of gender and class reproduction and the ways in which empowerment and notions of democracy masked the continuation of such reproductive processes. Bernstein's language of description is shown to unite the experiences of mothers, daughters, female teachers and the differential positioning of women of different social classes. Bernstein's theory of pedagogy offers a wealth of research agendas around the ways in which gender relations shape the recontextualisation of pedagogic discourses, the restructuring of women's domestic pedagogic work, the infant teachers' status, the experiences of working-class mothers vis-a -vis schooling of their children, and middle-class daughters' responses to individuation.