What Knowledge is Worth Knowing?

Abstract

The paper reports a study that used a Bernsteinian analysis in order to investigate the association between higher primary science curriculum and social equity in four contrasting socioeconomic contexts: British Columbia (Canada), Singapore, South Africa and Kenya. The official science curriculum of each jurisdiction was analysed in terms of strength of knowledge boundaries, selection and progression of content and the use of vertical and horizontal discourses. All four curricula included life science and physical science topics, with a variable attention given to earth and space science and technology. South Africa and British Columbia had strong boundaries between content domains, while Singapore and Kenya had weak knowledge boundaries. The depth, an indicator of increasing specialization, increased over the higher primary years in each curriculum. British Columbia and Singapore addressed fewer topics in each year of study than Kenya and South Africa. Kenya included many applied science topics, including technology, health education and agriculture. South Africa separated physical science into chemistry and physics and integrated technology and health education into science. The two wealthier countries, British Columbia and Singapore, prioritized vertical discourse, while the two developing countries, South Africa and Kenya, referenced horizontal discourse more frequently. The results only partially support the claims made by Bernstein (Br. J. Sociol. Educ. 20:157–173, 1999) and Young and Muller (2016) for an association between the curriculum and social equity.