Official pedagogic discourses and the construction of learners’ identities

Description/Abstract

Chapter providing an account of Basil Bernstein's concept of official pedagogic discourse and the analytic frameworks emerging from this work, and their relevance to language policy as well as its various manifestations in contemporary classrooms. The paper examines how Bernstein's ideas have been taken up subsequently and their particular relevance for the current policy environment, with references crossing USA, UK and Australia, and indicating the ways in which management and business discourses are seeping into education discourse. Its concluding section considers the challenges posed to official pedagogic discourse by the advent of new media and the internet, by changes in forms of representation in education and the transformation of modes of communication.