ABSTRACT
Disciplinary organizing principles can be theorized and expressed using the concepts of specialization codes and the specialization plane from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). But these organizing principles do not necessarily recognize or validate a plurality of ways of being, knowing and doing, or knowledges. Further, acknowledging and clarifying the ways in which knowledge and knowers are specialized within the disciplines does not necessarily invite students and lecturers to question the extent to which they maintain or change a socially unjust status quo. Chapter 3 poses the question of whether we can change the university by considering the extent to which our dominant and valued practices reinforce exclusive, limited participation in higher education and society by reproducing knowledges and knowers that maintain, rather than challenge, the status quo. Using another concept from LCT, the epistemic–pedagogic device, this chapter looks at how curricula are designed through the choices lecturers and curriculum designers make about what the valid basis for success is and is not. The analysis and discussion show you how the deeper logics and organizing principles of your own curriculum can be uncovered, theorized, and reimagined. Making different choices can create genuinely plural, diverse spaces for socially just teaching and learning.
