Designing Postgraduate Pedagogies: Connecting Internal and External Learners

Abstract

Learning is the new resource driving the knowledge economy. Now everyone is expected to make themselves available to learn -> un-learn -> re-learn. Much has been written about new modes of learning, as well the new technologies that promise to deliver information 24/7. Paradoxically, however, in the field of educational sociology there has been little systematic theorisation of the pedagogies designed to facilitate learning in the knowledge economy. Nor have there been systematic efforts to connect macro economic, technological and social changes to state official policies and institutional pedagogic practices. The Bernsteinian theoretical corpus models the power and control relations generating pedagogic discourses, practices and identities from the macro level of policy formation to the micro level of pedagogic interactions. It is therefore useful in examining the new pedagogies designed to generate the learning resources of the knowledge economy. In this paper, we draw on and extend Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse and identities to analyse the design and implementation of a postgraduate unit in educational research. This unit aimed to be: rigorous in disciplinary knowledge, technologically innovative, cost efficient; and responsive to diverse student needs and market contingencies.