ABSTRACT
Code theory, pedagogic discourse, and symbolic control are components of the theoretical and empirical project of the late British sociologist Basil Bernstein (1924-2000). For over four decades, Bernstein was a centrally important and controversial sociologist, whose work influenced a generation of sociologists of education and linguists. From his early works on language, communication codes, and schooling, to his later works on pedagogic discourse, practice, and educational transmissions, Bernstein attempted to produce a theory of social and educational codes and their effect on social reproduction. Although structuralist in its approach, Bernstein's sociology drew on the essential theoretical orientations in the field, Durkheimian, Weberian, Marxist, and interactionist, and provides the possibility of an important synthesis.
