ABSTRACT
Recontextualization, in Bernstein’s theory, is a form of mediation which points to the transformation of knowledge between sites or groups of people. This chapter focuses on the recontextualization of knowledge that takes place between the education institution and the children within it. A key feature of the theory is that the social organization of the school conceals different approaches to knowledge and to the kind of learner or citizen that the child is expected to become. But competing beliefs about the purpose of education and the relationship between the individual and the state can result in these models of knowledge and its relations with persons becoming highly contested. Social organizations in which the creative impetus of the individual is privileged above state regulation are characterized in terms of weak classification and framing (Bernstein 1971, 1974, 1990, 1996). In this case the recontextualization of knowledge between sites or groups is relatively open and leaves room for negotiation and different points of view. Social organizations in which state regulation is privileged above individual initiative are characterized in terms of strong classification and framing, and the transmission rather than the negotiation of knowledge is paramount. Underlying these opposing pedagogic modes, which in his later work Bernstein (1996: 52) referred to as competence and performance modes, are competing notions of the person and competing notions of the purpose of education.
