Knowledge and knowers by Karl Maton A review essay

This article outlines selected aspects of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), as presented inMaton’s book Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a realist sociology of education (2014),and considers their usefulness to the field of education research, in particular, for languageeducation. An introduction to key LCT concepts is provided highlighting their analyticpower for the investigation of the varying forms of educational knowledge structures,knower roles and what forms of pedagogic practices promote or inhibit cumulative learning.The notion of ‘context’, in relation to LCTs concept of semantic gravity anddecontextualised knowledge forms, is considered alongside Cummins’ notions ofcontextualised and decontextualised language. The importance of further research into whatis meant by ‘context’ in relation to pinpointing the nature of contextualised anddecontextualised knowledge, and the nature of forms of cumulative learning is raise