Creating Knowledge and Knowers in the Undergraduate Curriculum

Abstract

This paper draws on concepts from the field known as the sociology of knowledge to identify the challenges involved in introducing research in the undergraduate curriculum. It begins by using Bernstein’s (2000) ‘pedagogic device’ to conceptualise the introduction of research as a movement from the field of reproduction to the field of production with profound implications for who students have to ‘be’ in order to engage with research as well as for classroom practices and course design more generally. It then moves to using the tool of specialization from Maton’s (2014) Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) to go one step further in exploring students as researchers.