pedagogic discourse and practice: strong and weak classification
"The concept of classification is at the heart of Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse and practice. Classification refers to ‘the degree of boundary maintenance between contents’ (Bernstein 1973a, p. 205; 1973b, p. 88) and is concerned with the insulation or boundaries between curricular categories (areas of knowledge and subjects). Strong classification refers to a curriculum that is highly differentiated and separated into traditional subjects; weak classification refers to a curriculum that is integrated and in which the boundaries between subjects are fragile."
(Alan R. Sadovnik, 2001)
Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education (Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education), vol. XXXI, no. 4, December 2001, p. 687-703. UNESCO: International Bureau of Education, 2001
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
A house is a symbolic place that regulates privacy
"A house is a symbolic place combining paradoxical concepts that can easily be identified as 'binary codes.' Internal and external, private and public, female and male, sacred and profane, clean and dirty are binary codes used to explain roles and activities of people in spaces (Lawrence, 1990; Ünlü, 1999). The spatial configuration of house layouts may be different in different periods, regions, cultures, and societies. Societies establish order in their livelihood spaces and reflect their personalities in these spaces.
There is a mutual relationship between space and human relations. The differences in social systems reveal morphological diversity in house layouts. The family contains the socio-economical structure of society; although it is a small element, it is the cornerstone that forms the future of society. The family needs a specific space, a house, to achieve this function based on their characteristics and the desired level of privacy (Sungur and Çagdas, 2003).
Privacy is a dynamic topological property of space; therefore, it should be approached in an analogous manner. Spaces could be categorized not only depending on their degree of privacy, but also according to their capacity to regulate privacy. At the same time, complementary approach counters the strict categorization of spaces into either public or private. According to that point of view, architectural space and its various elements should act as regulators of privacy. Space and its elements should be able to increase or decrease privacy according to the customized needs of its occupants (Georgiou, 2006).
Robinson (2001) identified different zones of privacy within a single Midwestern house and pinpointed their importance for the individual. Robinson argues that through a series of spaces with different degrees of privacy, the autonomy of the resident within a small social group is provided. Furthermore, the individual is granted a large measure of control over time, space, activity, and social interaction."
(Faris Ali Mustafa, Ahmad Sanusi Hassan and Salahaddin Yasin Baper, August 2010)
Faris Ali Mustafa, Ahmad Sanusi Hassan and Salahaddin Yasin Baper (2011). 'Institutional Space, Domestic Space, and Power Relations: Revisiting territoriality with space syntax', Asian Social Science, Vol. 6, No. 8, ISSN 1911-2025 (Online), Canadian Center of Science and Education
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Retrospective Identities: unambiguous, stable, intellectually impervious and collective
Retrospective "identities use as resources narratives of the past which provide exemplars, criteria, belonging and . ... This provides for an unambiguous, stable, intellectually impervious, collective identity. This consumes the self in all its manifestations and gives it a site outside of current and future instabilities, beyond current ambiguities of judgement, relation and conduct. In some contexts it produces a strong insulation between the sacred and profane, such that it is possible to enter the profane world without either being appropriated or colonised by it. Islamic fundamentalism enables the appropriation of western technologies without cultural penetration. Nearer home orthodox Jews in the 1920s, and even earlier, occupied small shops and business slots in the economy and retained their identity through strict orthodox practice. In the 1960s and onwards many British [Central] Asian Moslems occupied a similar economic and cultural context. The problem here for such retrospective identities is their reproduction in the next generation, and here we might expect a shift to prospective or even therapeutic positions. Age may well influence the expression of the retrospective identity through differential selection of resources. It may well be that the young are attracted to the current revival of charismatic Christianity with its emphasis upon the subjective, the emotional, upon intense interactive participation and upon oppositions to institutional orthodoxes. On a more anecdotal level I have been impressed with the revival of student fraternity rituals in Portugal, Norway and Germany. Finally we can consider nationalism and populism as subsets of retrospective fundamentalism, drawing on mythological resources of origin, belonging, progression and destiny (rise of the extreme right). Any weakening of the collective resource on which the fundamentalist identity draws and which minutely regulates conduct, belief and participation, as is likely in inter-generation reproduction, may entail a shift to re-centring identities on the part of the young."
(Basil Bernstein 2000, p.74)
Bernstein, Basil. (2000). 'Pedagogy Symbolic Control and Identity, Theory Research Critique'. Oxford, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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The Constellations ProjectSHARE
