ABSTRACT
This chapter explores one context of curriculum restructuring in higher education and focuses on a study which looks at how academics in two South African universities have responded to national curriculum policy, and in terms of the implications for academic identities and forms of academic organization. It outlines the South African higher education curriculum policy context. The chapter draws on the work of educational sociologist Basil Bernstein to propose an interpretive frame for the study, illustrating this with some examples. It presents a case study of attempts to change curriculum in response to the policy which illustrates issues of identity and social organization, and which — in conclusion — proposes conditions under which significant curriculum change can be achieved. One of the arguments advanced for curriculum reform are claims about the changing nature of knowledge, and where and how it is produced. The transmission views knowledge as money.
