Reclaiming Knowers: Advancing Bernstein’s sociology of knowledge.

A key feature through the development of Basil Bernstein’s sociological framework has been to reclaim knowledge as an object of study: his earlier work brought the structuring of educational knowledge to the fore (1975); the ‘pedagogic device’ analysed the ways in which this educational knowledge was constructed (1990); and his later work analysed the ‘knowledge structures ’ of intellectual fields subject to this pedagogising process (1999). In this paper I illustrate how Bernstein’s theoretical framework is being advanced. This cumulative development, codified as ‘Legitimation Code Theory ’ (LCT), maintains and builds on the gains made by Bernstein’s approach by exploring further the underlying principles structuring knowledge and their effects on practices and experiences. However, it also brings to light a dimension of intellectual and educational fields that remains secondary in Bernstein’s framework: knowers. This is not to say Bernstein analysed knowledge and LCT analyses knowers, but rather that LCT analyses knowledge and knowers (Maton 2010b). How this approach is advancing Bernstein’s sociology can be illustrated by his mode