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Conceptualising knowledge for access in the sciences: academic development from a social realist perspective

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Abstract

Whilst arguing from a social realist perspective that knowledge matters in academic development (AD) curricula, this paper addresses the question of what knowledge types and practices are necessary for enabling epistemological access. It presents a single, in-depth, qualitative case study in which the curriculum of a science AD course is characterised using Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Analysis of the course curriculum reveals legitimation of four main categories of knowledge types along a continuum of stronger to weaker epistemic relations: disciplinary knowledge, scientific literacies knowledge, general academic practices knowledge and everyday knowledge. These categories are ‘mapped’ onto an LCT(Semantics) (how meaning relates to both context and empirical referents) topological plane to reveal a curriculum that operates in three distinct but interrelated spaces by facing towards both the field of science and the practice of academia. It is argued that this empirically derived differentiated curriculum framework offers a conceptual means for considering the notion of access to ‘powerful’ knowledge in a range of AD and mainstream contexts.

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Notes

  1. Becoming and being a successful participant in an academic practice (Morrow 2009).

  2. Race, as a social construct, continues to be a defining feature in the South African society. Terminology in this regard is in keeping with the standard report such as the CHE Report (2013): African (black), Indian, coloured (mixed descent) and white.

  3. The approach to scientific and language literacies is informed by the New Literacy Studies movement (see Gee 2012) which acknowledges that literacy is a social practice and that there are multiple literacies in society and within an individual’s repertoire.

  4. The process of transforming original knowledge (usually produced at universities, but in this case, at the workplace) to taught knowledge (usually in a curriculum; Bernstein 2000).

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Acknowledgments

Professor Chrissie Boughey is sincerely thanked for her contribution to this work. The study was supported in part by funding from the National Research Foundation (Grant no: 92685) and Rhodes University.

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  1. Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning (Extended Studies Unit), Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

    Karen Ellery

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  1. Karen Ellery
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Correspondence to Karen Ellery.

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Ellery, K. Conceptualising knowledge for access in the sciences: academic development from a social realist perspective. High Educ 74, 915–931 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-0085-x

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