The palimpsests of knowledge

This paper first re-visits the origins of the concept powerful knowledge and goes on to assess its mixed fortunes as of 2022. It assesses Basil Bernstein's early interest in knowledge in the curriculum by examining his retrieval of Durkheim's discussion of the Trivium and Quadrivium, going on to examine how the sciences and the Humanities each specialize knowledge but in different ways. It then discusses the recursive form of theorizing of pedagogy developed by Bernstein in his pedagogic device, distinguishing this form from that to be found in recent discussions of Didaktik and powerful knowledge, drawing out their complementarity.