ABSTRACT
This chapter details Bernsteins ideas about knowledge structures and the recontextualisation of knowledge, which is encapsulated in his concept of the pedagogic device. The pedagogic device is a theoretical framework that describes the principles regulating the organisation, distribution and structuring of knowledge and the conversion of knowledge into pedagogic communication. The pedagogic device also introduces a number of important issues that had been somewhat neglected in Bernstein's earlier work. A key issue was 'the question of what knowledge was: its structure and social base'. The socio-epistemic perspectives offered by Bernstein and other social realist theorists are limited to the field of knowledge production and the knowledge structure of academic disciplines themselves. Extending Bernstein's concept of recontextualisation, raises the possibility of seeing curriculum and pedagogy as a space of interaction between the different epistemic communities. Bernstein and social realism provide a theoretical basis for the place of disciplinary knowledge in the school curriculum.
