Ballet programs were established in universities in the United States as early as the late-1940s, but are generally omitted from the story of dance in American higher education. This essay partially addresses this absence in the literature, speculates about the reasons for ballet's limited legacy in the story of dance in American higher education,…

This paper interrogates the concept of recontextualisation and discusses its relevance for understandings of the knowledge required for teaching subjects. While various distinctive approaches to recontextualisation can be identified, this analysis primarily draws on the work of Bernstein, with recontextualisation discussed in the broader context…

In this article, we engage with undergraduate geography students' reflections on their geography education. We begin by examining the position of geography within education across the British Isles. Following this, we critically consider how geography education is shaped by "the gap" between school and university geography and…

Big ideas, sometimes referred to as key, core, fundamental or threshold concepts, are widely applicable concepts at the heart of disciplines that are or have been central and influential for their fields. Attention here is particularly directed to meta-concepts common to sister disciplines in the sciences. "Learning thresholds",…

This paper outlines the development of a comparative research framework in subject didactics and applies this in the process of analysing the transformations from academic disciplines across different school subjects. The theoretical framework builds on the concepts of 'powerful knowledge' and 'transformation' and 'epistemic quality' within which…

The 'Learning Compass 2030' was released by the OECD in 2019 as their new policy framework for the compulsory schooling sector. This framework takes the bold step of asserting that access to disciplinary knowledge is central to schooling, putting it in stark contrast to previous OECD reports which have advocated instead for more generic skills and…

If today the departments of "cultural management" (in its broadest term) have been in existence for almost four decades, it is in part because of the existence of the "cultural industries". If this concept's founder and critical theorist, Theodore Adorno, indeed stigmatised cultural industries as "predominance of profit ……

This article extends the authors' earlier work (Young & Muller 2013) exploring the concept of 'powerful knowledge'. It first examines some of the origins of the concept and goes on to a brief consideration of how sociology, political theory and economics have traditionally represented 'power' and 'knowledge'. Two key senses of power are…

Over the past 20 years, the South African higher education (HE) system has become increasingly regularised. All programmes offered at South African public universities have to be registered and accredited by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET); the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) under the auspices of the Council on…

This paper uses Bernstein's sociology of knowledge and studies of professional knowledge and expertise to identify how knowledge value is constituted in higher education curricula. It is argued that different knowledge structures and forms of disciplinary community influence how curricula are determined, and lead to distinctive types of knowledge…

Although viewed (and dismissed) by many as primarily a tool for communication, language (and literature) cannot be understood only in relation to "what" it communicates. A study of "how" it is shaped uncovers the social forces that provide its broad and complex template in the acts of reading and writing. This article focuses…

In response to the current demands and trends within education, the disciplines as one of the core long-standing organizing structures within knowledge production and transmission are questioning and shifting what and how they teach. Universities are increasingly offering interdisciplinary subjects and programmes as an alternative to or alongside…

This paper examines two influential views within the sociology of knowledge, specifically in literature examining relationships between knowledge, curriculum, and social justice, located in the South African context of extreme inequality and poverty. The first emphasizes the role of disciplines in creating criteria of powerful knowledge, arguing…

This paper analyses the coverage of Indigenous topics in K-12 education in British Columbia (BC) using curriculum documents and course enrolment. It focuses on curriculum documents published between 1995 and 2010 and mandated in public education from 1995 to 2019, and argues that Indigenous topics were marginalized in the curriculum overall.…

Accredited engineering degrees call upon students to develop a wide range of knowledge and skills. These range from technical, scientific and mathematical knowledge, through to transferable skills such as communications, teamwork, business acumen and critical analysis. Through a faculty-wide curriculum development programme we have sought to…