Bringing Knowledge Back In ‘This book tackles some of the most important educational questions of the day. It is rare to find a book on education which is theoretically sophisticated and practically relevant: this book is’ (from the Foreword by Professor Hugh Lauder). What is it in the twenty-first century that we want young people, and adults returning to study, to know? What is it about the kind of knowledge that people can acquire at school, college or university that distinguishes it from the knowledge that people acquire in their everyday lives, at work, and in their families? Bringing Knowledge Back In draws on recent developments in the sociology of knowl- edge to propose answers to these key, but often overlooked, educational questions. Michael Young traces the changes in his own thinking about the question of knowledge in educa- tion, since his first book Knowledge and Control, published in 1971, and The Curriculum of the Future (Falmer Press 1998). This rethinking partly reflects his own experience as a policy analyst and advisor in the UK, South Africa and a number of other countries. He argues for the continuing relevance of the writings of Durkheim and Vygotsky and the unique importance of Basil Bernstein’s often under-appreciated work. He illustrates the importance of questions about knowledge by investigating the dilemmas faced by researchers and policy makers in a range of fields; these include the integration of acade- mic and vocational learning, the role of qualifications in educational reform, professional and vocational education, curriculum theory, and the assessment of experiential learning. He also considers the broader issue of the role of sociologists in relation to educational pol- icy in the context of increasingly interventionist governments. The book: ● provides conceptual tools for people to think and debate about knowledge and education in new ways; ● provides clear expositions of difficult ideas at the interface of epistemology and the sociology of knowledge; ● makes explicit links between theoretical issues and practical/policy questions; ● offers a clear focus for the future development of the sociology of education as a key field within educational studies. This compelling and provocative book will be essential reading for anyone involved in research and debates about the curriculum as well as those with a specific interest in the sociology of education. Michael F.D. Young is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, and in the Department of Education at the University of Bath, UK. Bringing Knowledge Back In From social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education Michael F.D. Young First published 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Taylor & Francis Inc 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2008 Michael F.D. Young All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Every effort has been made to ensure that the advice and information in this book is true and accurate at the time of going to press. However, neither the publisher nor the authors can accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. In the case of drug administration, any medical procedure or the use of technical equipment mentioned within this book, you are strongly advised to consult the manufacturer’s guidelines. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Young, Michael F.D. Bringing knowledge back in : from social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education / Michael F. D. Young. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Educational sociology. 2. Education–Curricula. 3. Constructivism (Education) I. Title. LC191.Y568 2007 306.43–dc22 2007017238 ISBN 0-203-07366-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN-10: 0–415–32120–4 (hbk) ISBN-10: 0–415–32121–2 (pbk) ISBN-10: 0–203–07366–5 (ebk) ISBN-13: 978–0–415–32120–4 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978–0–415–32121–1 (pbk) ISBN-13: 978–0–203–07366–7 (ebk) For my daughters Alice and Elinor ‘WHAT is Truth?’ said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer... ... Truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the Inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. (Francis Bacon (1597) Essays) Contents Foreword xi Acknowledgements xiii Introduction xv PART 1 Theoretical issues 1 1 Rescuing the sociology of educational knowledge from the extremes of voice discourse 3 2 Knowledge and the curriculum in the sociology of education 18 3 Durkheim, Vygotsky and the curriculum of the future 35 4 ‘Structure’ and ‘activity’ in Durkheim’s and Vygotsky’s theories of knowledge 65 5 Curriculum studies and the problem of knowledge: updating the Enlightenment? 81 6 Education, knowledge and the role of the state: the ‘nationalization’ of educational knowledge? 93 7 Rethinking the relationship between the sociology of education and educational policy 103 PART 2 Applied studies 119 8 Contrasting approaches to qualifications and their role in educational reform 121 9 Conceptualizing vocational knowledge 137 10 Professional knowledge and the question of identity: an analytical framework 151 x Contents 11 Academic/vocational divisions in post-compulsory education and the problem of knowledge 159 12 Further education and training (FET) college teachers in South Africa and England: a knowledge-based profession of the future? 172 13 Experience as knowledge? The case of the recognition of prior learning (RPL) 181 14 The knowledge question and the future of education in South Africa 186 PART 3 Next steps 195 15 Truth and truthfulness in the sociology of educational knowledge (with Johann Muller) 197 Endword – Basil Bernstein: a personal appreciation 219 Notes 221 References 229 Original sources of previously published papers 239 Index 241 Foreword Ever since the publication of Knowledge and Control in 1971, Michael Young has played a major role in debates within the sociology of education. His writing, both theoretical and applied, has crossed the borders between epistemology and social theory. In this book he tackles some of the most important educational questions of the day: the academic vocational divide that has so troubled educationists and policy makers, the legitimacy of qualifications frameworks, the nature of profes- sional educational knowledge, the status and legitimacy of policies in relation to the recognition of prior learning, and most importantly of all the role of knowl- edge and curriculum in today’s test-driven competency-based approaches to education. At times he links topics such as the nature of professional knowledge with the critique of test- and market-driven education in a novel account of what he calls ‘the nationalization’ of education. This book also gains from the compar- ative dimension he is able to bring from his study of educational developments in South Africa. He has been a keen observer and participant in South African edu- cational policy and the themes that are developed in the book are brought into sharp relief by his experience there. This discussion, by a writer of Michael Young’s stature, will ensure that the book is widely read but it is a far more ambitious work than it first appears because there is a common framework underlying the issues he tackles. While, in his earlier years, he could be interpreted as a relativist in that he viewed knowledge and the curriculum as a manifestation of power rather than having secure grounds in a defensible view of knowledge, he has now moved on. His project is to recognize that knowledge is socially produced but that it also requires warrant independent of social interests and the related dynamics of power. To this end he develops what he calls a social realist account of knowledge: social because it recognizes the role of human agents in the production of knowledge and realist because he wishes to stress the context independence of knowledge and, crucially for his views on the curriculum, the discontinuities between knowledge and common sense. In order to mark out this social realist account of knowledge, he needs to address a series of tensions: the first is that between the ‘social’ and the ‘realist’. Since the social world is subject to change, it follows that conceptions of what constitutes knowledge rather than opinion are also subject to change; this raises problems about the criteria by which knowledge is determined. At the same time, xii Foreword the idea that there is context-independent knowledge (realism, in Young’s terms) suggests that there is some skilful negotiation necessary through the waters of an empiricist foundationalism on the one hand and the relativism that he now rejects on the other. At root this comes down to a tension between stability and change. Empiricist accounts of knowledge were stable because the foundations of knowl- edge were rooted in a naive view of observation and the truth-preserving qualities of induction and later deduction. Once such foundations are considered untenable the crucial epistemological question turns on the judgements we make between competing knowledge claims, or more precisely, theories.