Time: 2.00 PM to 4.00 PM
Venue: Charles Street Building, Room 12.2.10

In an era in which the credibility and confidence in knowledge is under attack, the idea that ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young, 2008) might provide reliable explanations as well as the basis for suggesting realistic alternatives to the status quo operating in society raises a number of questions for teachers and curriculum developers. Knowledge that is powerful, it is argued, enables acquirers to see beyond their everyday experience; is open to challenge; and is conceptual as well as derived from experience. This description aligns with the type of knowledge taught and learned in universities in the (inter)disciplines, and its recontextualisation in the school curriculum, and it might be said that its availability to students is a matter of epistemic justice (McClean, 2015). In this symposium the implications for powerful knowledge in the curriculum are examined, alongside the extent to which what counts as legitimate knowledge reproduces social hierarchies, while having the potential to disrupt them (Bernstein, 2000).

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Programme

Knowledge and Democratic Politics 
Professor Elizabeth Rata, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Approaches to curriculum making in a new 21st century secondary school
Dr Graham McPhail, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Theorising Teacher-led, student-led learning in a project based curriculum
Dr Richard Pountney, Sheffield Institute of Education, UK