The Elusive Object of Transformation: English, Theory and Bernstein’s Sociology of Education

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. I include my own Critical Theory and the English Teacher (Peim l993 Peim, N. 1993. Critical Theory and the English Teacher, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 2. The Cox version of the English curriculum was informed by a five‐way amalgam of subject modalities. Cox expressed no embarrassment about advocating a version of English that was structured from the outset by impossible internal contradictions. 3. Gary Day’s ‘Revolutionary tracts that left us “all shook up”’ (2002 Day, G. November 1 2002. “Revolutionary tracts that left us ‘all shook up’”. In THES November 1, 28–9. [Google Scholar]) captures something of the spirit of the radical edge of ‘new’ thinking in English. 4. Brian Cox, a former Black Paper author, ironically, or perhaps tellingly, became the ally of those trying to salvage a ‘common‐sense’ liberal version of English. Cox promoted an ‘establishment’ view of literature and its value. 5. Bernstein’s ‘system’ is not produced all at once. Code theory provides the beginning; the remaining dimensions get developed through the construction of various co‐ordinates of explanation. The system can be found emerging throughout Bernstein’s work, but is most evident as a totality perhaps in Bernstein (1990 Bernstein, B. 1990. Class, Codes and Control, Vol. IV: The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2000 Bernstein, B. 2000. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield. [Google Scholar]). 6. This is precisely the project envisaged and proposed by Peim (1993 Peim, N. 1993. Critical Theory and the English Teacher, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 7. Much of the poststructuralist rethinking of language comes out of Heidegger’s interest in language as a kind of medium of being rather than a mechanism for representation. 8. An instance of what Bernstein refers to as the ‘collection code’ (where different elements of knowledge come together in a way that may be consonant but is not strictly systematic.) 9. Similarly, the authors of the literacy strategy are patently not at all influenced at all by new literacy studies. 10. See Derrida (1981 Derrida, J. 1981. Dissemination, London: University of Chicago Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 156–69) for the idea of ‘the necessary supplement’. 11. In Hallidayan terms this can be expressed as semantic differences manifesting themselves at the lexico‐grammatical level (Halliday 1994 Halliday, M.A.K. 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar, London: Edward Arnold. [Google Scholar], 15). 12. A point Harold Rosen entirely misconstrued (Rosen 1972 Rosen, H. 1972. Language and Class: A Critical look at the Theories of Basil Bernstein, Bristol: Falling Wall Press. [Google Scholar]). Bernstein’s theory may be contrasted perhaps with Bourdieu’s in terms of the potential deficit metaphor in the idea of cultural capital with its connotations of more or less cultural or social prosperity – though this is not uncomplicated. 13. I have indicated elsewhere how this liberalism is conservative in effect like Thatcherite housing policy (Peim 1990 Peim, N. 1990. NATE and the Politics of English. English in Education, 24(2): 20–30. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 14. ‘A horizontal discourse entails a set of strategies which are local, segmentally organised, context specific and dependent, for maximising encounters with persons and habitats’ (Bernstein 2000 Bernstein, B. 2000. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield. [Google Scholar], 157). 15. This might be characterized in Bernsteinian terms as the heyday of competence models of English – celebrating what pupils can do as against later performance models that defined what they should know how to do and what they should be taught (Moss). 16. For a cheerful account of this process of reinvention see Rylance (2002 Rylance, R. 2002. What will English be?. English Subject Centre Newsletter, 4(September): 4–9. [Google Scholar]). According to Rylance (presenting himself as spokesperson for the subject) English in HE remains consistent ‘despite sporadic disputes about “theory”, ideology, issue agendas, methodology or the compulsory teaching of Anglo‐Saxon, we appear a relatively settled discipline with convergent norms and expectations’ (Rylance 2002 Rylance, R. 2002. What will English be?. English Subject Centre Newsletter, 4(September): 4–9. [Google Scholar], 5). 17. For an elaboration of the distinction between competence and performance pedagogic modalities see Bernstein (2000 Bernstein, B. 2000. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield. [Google Scholar]) and Moss. 18. For an explanation of the term ‘econsophere’ see Appadurai (1996 Ang, I. 1991. Desperately Seeking the Audience, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]).