Powerful knowns and powerful knowings

ABSTRACT

The idea of powerful knowledge as a curriculum principle has led to extensive discussion. It has been framed as a way of bringing knowledge back into curriculum thinking in the light if its absence in curriculum theory. However, questions have been raised regarding powerful knowledge as a knowledge-based curriculum principle; questions about difficulties in converting it into curriculum content, as well as putting knowledge-as-an-end-in-itself above educational aims.

The focus of this article is on how powerful knowledge can be conceived of as capacity-building curriculum content, as well as how this is related to the epistemological underpinning of the idea of powerful knowledge. Knowing as the capacity-building aspect of powerful knowledge is highlighted as is a widening of the concept of knowledge to also include tacit aspects in what counts as knowledge. Through revisiting Paul Hirst’s forms of knowledge as well as his practice turn, I argue that Hirst became stuck in a tension similar to Michael Young and Johan Muller. By a shift of focus from powerful knowns to powerful knowings the tension between a knowledge and practice-based view of the curriculum can be dissolved.

KEYWORDS:

• Powerful knowledge
• powerful knowings
• epistemological practice turn
• knowing-known
• subject specific capability

Introduction

The idea of powerful knowledge as a curriculum principle was formulated against the background of ‘a neglect of the knowledge question itself and what a curriculum would be like if an “entitlement to knowledge” was its goal’ (Young, 2013, p. 107). This has exerted a strong impact in wide circles and appears to have acted as a catalyst for a long-awaited discussion of the content and meaning of education. It has also opened for a bridging of the gap between Anglo-Saxon curriculum-theoretical traditions and the Bildung-related German and other European didactic traditions (Deng, 2015a, 2015b, 2018a; Friesen, 2018). The concept of powerful knowledge has been adopted far beyond social realists in sociology of education as well as the context of ‘knowledge of the powerful’ (Hoadley, Sehgal-Cuthbert, Barrett, & Morgan, 2019).

In short, powerful knowledge refers to specialized knowledge in contrast to everyday or contextualized knowledge. It is knowledge that can help students understand and explain the world and give them certain ‘powers’ in terms of capacity to move beyond their context-bound experience (Young, 2013; Young & Muller, 2013). Access to such knowledge should be an entitlement for all students and a central function of schools should be to help students gain access to it (Young, 2013). While the efforts to bring knowledge back in have been applauded, some criticism has also been directed against Young and his co-workers for placing knowledge before aims and regarding knowledge-as-an-end-in-itself (White, 2018). Questions have been raised regarding how powerful knowledge can be transformed into curriculum content or lead to cultivation of the students (Deng, 2018a; Gericke, Hudson, Olin-Scheller, & Stolare, 2018). It concerns the transformation of disciplinary knowledge to the school context (Deng, 2018b) as well as the relationship between disciplinary knowledge and school subjects (Nordgren, 2017). Deng formulated the core issue to be that of knowledge-as-an-end-in-itself vs knowledge-as-a-means-for-cultivation-of-human-powers.

If education is centrally concerned with the cultivation of intellectual, moral, social and civic powers, then knowledge needs to be seen as an important resource for that cultivation rather than as something taught for its own end. (Deng, 2018a, p. 345)

Because of the emphasis of knowledge as such, the idea of powerful knowledge has been linked to Paul Hirst and his ‘forms of knowledge’ (Friesen, 2018; White, 2018). Hirst was preoccupied with the issue of how the idea of knowledge-as-an-and-in-itself could be compatible with the idea of liberal education and the development of a rational mind (Hirst, 1974, p. 22), that is, how we become cultivated through the acquisition of knowledge. This is also the focus in this article, i.e. how powerful knowledge can be conceived as a curriculum principle in a perspective of cultivation/formation and capacity-building.

In order to deal with the relationship between knowledge that should be transferred in school and how this knowledge can become a capacity-building content of education, a theory of knowledge is necessary (Young, 2013, p. 107; Deng, 2018a, p. 345). Assumptions regarding the concept of knowledge in powerful knowledge are expressed in different articles and several of them have been collected in ‘Curriculum and specialized knowledge’ (Young & Muller, 2016). A ‘third way’ position is formulated there, somewhere in between rationalist perception of knowledge as propositional knowledge (knowing that) on the one hand, and a practice perspective reducing knowledge to what people can do (knowing how). Although this third way is partly formulated in contrast to a rationalist position, it seems to me that the concept of powerful knowledge still carries a ballast of cartesian, rationalist thinking, giving priority to theory over practice with propositional knowledge as the most valuable and a foundation for good practical action. This rationalist bias obstructs opportunities to discuss powerful knowledge as a capacity-building knowledge.

The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion of powerful knowledge as a curriculum principle by suggesting a widening of the concept of knowledge—to also include the tacit aspects of what counts as knowledge. In relation to Dewey’s theory of knowledge-building as a transactional relation between the knowing and the known (Dewey & Bentley, 1949), powerful knowledge can be discussed in terms of its knowings as well as of its knowns. A shift of focus from the knowns to the knowings will make it easier to explore the cultivating aspects of powerful knowledge and how it can be described as Bildungsgehalt.¹

Considering the great impact of the so called practice turn in social theory (Schatzki, Knorr Cetina, & von Savigny, 2001) it seems a little odd that this does not seem to have impacted the concept of knowledge as such in educational discourse. Especially since the practice turn has exerted such a great impact on learning theory (Chaiklin & Lave, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Resnick, Pontecorvo, & Säljö, 1997). It seems as if the (lived) concept of knowledge in education is so firmly embedded in a rationalist and dualist epistemology that it is unchangeable. This, I believe is one of the reasons behind the neglect of knowledge in what Biesta has called ‘the learnification’ discourse (Biesta, 2014).

However, outside of education, the epistemology of practice has been an issue (Janik, 1996) and the revived interest in Aristoteles’ different forms of knowledge has been extensive (Clegg, Flyvbjerg, & Haugaard, 2014; Eikeland, 2008). The epistemological practice turn referred to in this text regards different approaches that emphasize the importance of understanding the practical basis of knowledge. The meaning of this turn may be described by analogy with an iceberg—while it is only the small, visible and formulated part (the tip of the iceberg) that has been considered as knowledge to be transmitted in school, we must also consider the invisible parts of what counts as knowledge.

An attempt will be made to bring these practice-based theories of knowledge into the conversation about powerful knowledge as formative and cultivating content in school. Although Muller and Young do not directly address this issue, it appears in e.g. their discussion of the meaning of power as potentia (Muller & Young, 2019). They describe power as potentia referring to Lukes (2005) and a ‘dispositional account of power, an account in terms of capacities, an account he aligns to Sen and Nussbaum’s capablities approach’ (Muller & Young, 2019, p. 7). While Muller and Young seem to link such a dispositional account of power to the structure of knowledge as knowns, I will argue that in order to explore its cultivating aspects, it should instead be linked to knowledge as knowing. The concept of knowing connects the knowns to the world of human activity.

An attempt will be made to answer three questions:

1. How can we think about powerful knowledge as formative capacity-building content in school?

2. Is it possible to dissolve the tension between a knowledge and a competence-based curriculum? And if so—how?

3. What are the implications of a shift from giving primacy to theory to giving it to practice for powerful knowledge as a curriculum principle?

Like Young and Muller, I think it is important to differentiate between every day and specialized knowledge. However, unlike them I believe that the difference should be conceived just as much in terms of their practical grounds and the knowings involved in the specialized knowledge as in terms of the structure of the knowns. Thereby one of the most cherished theses in pedagogical thinking—the idea of linking teaching to previous pupil experience—must be problematized. If the invisible parts of the knowledge icebergs also are to be included in what counts as knowledge, it is equally important for schools to offer pupils new experiences as it is to connect to the experience they already have.

What has counted as knowledge in schools? A reductionist view of knowledge

The subordination of ‘the practical’ to ‘the theoretical’ is deeply rooted in Western science and philosophy (Molander, 2015). This is also prominent in educational systems where the concept of knowledge is limited to primarily include formal (formulated and formalized) or propositional knowledge, which is considered as somehow mirroring the world and forming the necessary foundation for action. Perceiving knowledge as theoretical propositional knowledge leads to thinking about knowledge as a kind of substance that a person can have more or less of. Cook and Brown (1999) called this an epistemology of knowledge as possession and pointed out that it tends to privilege explicit over tacit knowledge. Explicit theory is treated as the basis for action. Skills are separated from knowledge and competence is perceived as something beyond knowledge. This reduction of the concept of knowledge to something mental and cognitive has been connected to cartesian dualistic thinking where the mind is separated from action, knowledge from the world, theory from practice, subject from object etc.

These different aspects are embedded in the organization of school work and integrated in an interwoven system of assumptions and actions in education. Questions and answers about education, teaching, knowledge and learning hook in both each other and the school’s practical activities and form an educational paradigm that is perceived as natural and self-evident. One example is how theoretical courses come before practical courses or that teaching most often starts with the presentation of theory to be followed by different kinds of tasks for practicing.

Reducing what counts as knowledge to formal and explicit knowledge fits well with the idea of transferring knowledge through an educational system that is perceived as decontextualized. Knowledge as general, formulated knowledge that is written down and packaged in textbooks is also in line with thinking about, and managing, student knowledge development as a step-by-step acquisition of different pieces of knowledge that together constitute the curriculum.

All this makes up a kind of implicit theory that is embedded in the social practices of education. It functions as a tacit regime or what Sartre called ‘the practical field of inertia’ (Engels, 2018). That is why e.g. social constructivism seems to dominate much educational discourse at the same time as its impact on schools can be questioned. The idea of powerful knowledge appears to fit quite well into this paradigm. Thereby the risk of subordinating it to a rationalist view of knowledge, including giving priority to theory over practice becomes obvious.

An epistemological practice turn

In contrast to cartesian rationalist epistemology, phenomenologists as well as pragmatists seek the roots of knowledge in human activity and consider not only practical but also theoretical knowledge traditions as human practices/activities. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gilbert Ryle and Michael Polanyi are key representatives of the emergence of practice-based theories of knowledge during the last century.

One important text for the critique of rationalist dualist conceptions of knowledge has been Gilbert Ryle’s ‘The concept of mind’ (1963). In the chapter ‘Knowing how and knowing that’ Ryle argued against the idea of theorizing as the primary activity and something to come before action. ‘Intelligent practice is not a step-child of theory’ (op. cit. p. 27). He opposed what he called the ‘intellectualistic myth’ of seeing intelligent actions as consisting of two processes, one mental and one actional. Being mentally and bodily active are rather two sides of the same coin. ‘When we describe a performance as intelligent this does not entail the double operation of considering and execution’ (op. cit. p. 30) Knowing that or propositional knowledge is not primary in relation to knowing how. Understanding belongs to knowing how rather than knowing that.

For Wittgenstein all knowledge rests on an unspoken and invisible taken-for-granted ground as its prerequisite (Bloor, 2001; Johannessen, 1988; Wittgenstein, 1953). He points out practice as a necessary prerequisite for knowledge. Knowledge includes knowing that and how as well as knowledge by acquaintance (Johannessen, 1992). The concept of ‘language game’ was used to grasp the unformulated constitutive regulation of practice. Through participating in practices we learn the language games and rules that are necessary for actions, communication and meaning-making in those practices. Such knowledge, by acquaintance, is not possible to formulate as propositional knowledge but may, through examples and case studies, be articulated by reflection.

The concept of ‘tacit knowledge’ was developed by Michael Polanyi in several lectures (the Terry Lectures) during the 1950s and presented in the book The Tacit Dimension (Polanyi, 1966). Polanyi introduces the concept by stating that we know a lot more than we can say or formulate. We know how to ride a bike, drive a car, swim etc. without being able to formulate our knowledge. In brief, Michael Polanyi’s theory of knowledge (Polanyi, 1962) states that all knowledge has a foreground and a background (for Polanyi gestalt psychology was an important inspiration). The foreground is what we are aware of (focal knowledge), while the background is not focused upon but experienced by our senses at the same time as we are focusing on what is in the foreground. In this manner the background is incorporated into our bodies as subsidiary knowledge. It is in the interaction between the foreground and the background that tacit knowledge is constituted. Polanyi’s concept of knowledge thus includes focal as well as tacit knowledge. What he points out is that there is always a background to our focal knowledge that gives an invisible ‘bottom’ to it. In that way our knowledge connects us with the world and functions as a tool to widen our interface with it. Although he often uses examples like swimming and cycling, his interest was just as much oriented towards scientific knowledge. Even if ‘tacit knowledge’ has often been used to distinguish certain kinds of (practical) knowledge this is not in accordance with the writings of Polanyi.

Ryle, Wittgenstein and Polanyi are exploring different tacit dimensions of knowledge—its embeddedness in action, in the practical activity as well as its embodyness. In quite different ways they relate knowledge to the world of human activity, although they all emphasize the practical foundation of knowledge and widen the concept of knowledge to include its tacit aspects. They give practice a primary position in relation to theory, but they do not replace knowledge with practice. Neither do they perceive tacit knowledge as a special kind of knowledge. Their point is rather that there are tacit dimensions in all knowledge, and that they should somehow be included in what counts as knowledge.

A relational view of knowledge

Polanyi in particular points out the relational character of knowledge. Rather than considering knowledge as something to ‘have and acquire’ by adding new knowledge to what is already known, knowledge is conceived of as expressing our relation to the world. New knowledge expands our ability to interact and reach out to the world. Through participating in practice, we become enculturated into certain ways of knowing that include visible as well as invisible aspects of knowledge; incorporating sensual experiences as subsidiary knowledge (according to Polanyi), or mastering the language game (according to Wittgenstein). Knowledge appears as a capability of discerning important aspects and dimensions; new knowledge changes our ways of experiencing the world by making it more differentiated.

This does not exclude the acknowledgement of conceptual bodies of ‘knowns’—knowledge cannot, however, be reduced to these knowns.

This implies a widening of what counts as knowledge; it includes both the visible knowns and the invisible parts; knowing that as well as knowing how but also knowledge by acquaintance (knowing what). This has far-reaching consequences for curriculum as well as for teaching. Theoretical school subjects are not theoretical only but include practical knowledge. All knowledge can be said to include theory as well as practice; Talking about school subjects as theoretical or practical is misleading. The theoretical school subjects are, however, mostly reduced to explicit bodies of ‘knowns’ while the practical aspects of these knowledge traditions most often are rendered invisible. Correspondingly, the practical school subjects are often reduced to doings, while the knowing involved in the doings remains silent.

The epistemological underpinning of powerful knowledge

In this section I will discuss some aspects of the epistemological underpinning of powerful knowledge as it has been presented by Young and Muller.²

As mentioned previously, powerful knowledge has been described as specialized and ‘relatively context-free’ knowledge (Young, 2014, p. 8). To further describe it, Young and Muller use Bernstein’s distinction between different types of knowledge in terms of how they are structured: vertical and horizontal structures of knowledge. While vertical knowledge structures are conceptually structured as well as hierarchical, horizontal knowledge structures are contextual. However, including human and social sciences, which to a large extent are horizontally structured and not conceptually hierarchical (as the natural sciences) into what counts as specialized knowledge, is to de-emphasize the hierarchical structure. Instead they focus on structures made up of concepts that are not directly connected to experience in a specific context, but instead gain their meaning in relation to other concepts/conceptual networks and a more indirect relationship to experience.

Powerful knowledge as a knowledge-based curriculum principle is described in contrast to practice-based curriculum thinking. Young and Muller link the practice-based theories of knowledge to the growth of competency-based curricula as well as to what they call the ‘hegemonic skills-talk’. This is supported by their somewhat biased descriptions of the theories of Wittgenstein, Ryle, Polanyi and Schön. They claim e.g. that Ryle gives a ‘prominent conceptual basis’ for the outcome-based move in education (op. cit., p. 185) and that for Wittgenstein ‘knowing something was doing something—usually, following a rule’ (op. cit., p. 165). However, neither Ryle nor Wittgenstein reduced all knowledge to know how. Regarding practice and ‘doings’ as a prerequisite for the development of knowledge like Wittgenstein, is not to say that knowing can be reduced to doing. Ryle criticized the intellectualist tradition and the myths about ‘theory first’ but he did not replace theory with practice. Although he called theorizing a kind of silent activity (Ryle, 1963, p. 27) this does not imply a denial of theory and propositional knowledge. Asserting that “with the Ryleans, and after Wittgenstein, we have another possibility: knowledge is a kind of skill or ability, knowledge is as knowledge can do. All ‘know that’ is a kind of ‘know how”’ (op. cit., p. 169) is, to say the least, a questionable statement.

Although I sympathize with Young’s and Muller’s aversion to the skill and outcome discourses, their description of this move as anchored in practice-based theories of knowledge does not seem reasonable. Even if the outcome-based and skills/competence-based moves are related, I think it is a mistake not to see how they have their roots in different thought traditions. But more importantly, although the orientation towards skills and competences is grounded in psychological theory, this grounding is in cognitive rather than practice-based psychological theory.³

Young and Muller struggle to avoid a rationalist position, i.e. reducing the concept of knowledge to propositional knowledge only. They describe their position as a third position—in between what they call the rational referentialists’ reducation of all knowing how to knowing that, and the inferentialists’ reduction of knowing that to knowing how (op. cit., p. 170). In line with Winch (2009) they accept the idea of a subject as consisting of propositional knowledge together with inferential as well as procedural know-how. They accept the idea that the two kinds of know-how are necessary for the acquisition and development of specialized knowledge and they acknowledge the necessity of learning to navigate in the space of reason connected to specialized knowledge areas (Brandom, 2001). The adoption of Winch’s two kinds of know-how also seems to have implied a revaluing of Ryle’s position as a midway position together with the pragmatic Ryleans (Young & Muller, 2016, p. 170).

However, although they acknowledge that specialized knowledge is developed in a social activity, they appear to place more emphasis on how this activity is based on theory rather than the other way around. And although specialized knowledge is said to consist of know-that as well as know-how, they seem to hesitate concerning whether know-how is included in what counts as knowledge. Theory is given priority and regarded as something that comes before action. Attempts to subsume the thinking about know how under Bernstein’s categories and classifications confirms this position of ‘theory comes first’. This is illustrated by e.g. quoting Bernstein ‘In the end it is theory that counts⁴’ (op. cit., p. 172). Their third way thus appears as a rationalistically-biased, knowledge-based curriculum principle. Although they emphasize the need for a dynamic exchange between the theoretical conceptual pile and contextual instances, the strong division between every-day and specialized knowledge, rooted in Durkheim’s division into the ‘profane’ and the ‘sacred’, gives the conceptual pile a godlike appearance in contrast to the for-purpose knowledge of the profane world (op. cit., p. 178).

There is a tension in this way of reasoning—between powerful knowledge as propositional knowledge and knowing how as something belonging to the process of acquiring knowledge but not belonging to knowledge as such. Although connected to the specialized knowledge it does not appear to have a specialized content. This tension is very similar to that found in Paul Hirst’s work with different ‘forms of knowledge’. However, for Hirst this tension led to him abandoning his rationalist position and the idea of a knowledge-based curriculum. Instead, he took up a practice-based position. In the next section both his forms of knowledge and his practice turn will be described as a background to discussing the possibilities of a third alternative better than that presented by Muller and Young.

Hirst’s knowledge forms and practice turn

Deng (2018a) as well as White (2018) have pointed out the similarities between the concept of powerful knowledge and Paul Hirst’s forms of knowledge (Hirst, 1974). There are several similarities. One is the knowledge-as-an-end-in-itself thinking (Friesen, 2018), that is the organization of curriculum in terms of knowledge. Another is the emphasis that the structure of knowledge is made up of concepts and conceptual relations which form student capacities. Yet another is the focus on bringing knowledge into curriculum thinking against the background of a discourse focusing on general competencies. This was the situation in the 1960s and early 1970s as it is today.⁵ In this manner, much of Paul Hirst’s writings is very timely. In this section I will look closer at how Hirst approached the issue of knowledge-based curriculum. In contrast to Muller and Young, his main texts were written in the 1960s and early 70s, that is before the practice turn in social and learning theories and he himself later became a part of that turn. Over a decade later it seems as if he had completely reversed his way of thinking (Hirst, 1998). Consequently, Hirst represents a knowledge-based, as well as a practice-based, view on curriculum making. His reversal may, however, be discussed. Although he called himself a rationalist in the 1960s he was a troubled rationalist. And even if he advocated a practice-based curriculum he did not replace knowledge with practice. The shift was a shift from regarding theory to regarding practice as the primary aspect when considering curriculum. Thus, he can be used to further explore what Young and Muller (2013) called the third way.

In contrast to Young and Muller, Hirst’s interest was clearly in how knowledge cultivated the minds of the students. The development of rational minds through acquiring various forms of knowledge as the central aim of a liberal education,⁶ was at the core of his interest. (Hirst, 1974, p. 22). His aim was to re-construct the Greek idea of paidea with a modern epistemological underpinning that he formulated as ‘ … knowledge is no longer seen as the understanding of reality but merely as the understanding of experience.’ (op. cit., p. 33).

Knowledge vs general competencies

Hirst argued against a psychology-grounded discourse about teaching general competencies, an idea that he perceived to rest on a concept of some kind of psychic machine that can be trained to work more effectively. His criticism concerned the idea of organizing the curriculum around general abilities and competences. He argued that the formulation of educational objectives should be in knowledge terms rather than in terms of psychological abilities.

To teach children to deduce is not to teach them to think along particular psychological channels, it is to teach them, whatever channels or psychological processes they use, to produce certain patterns of statements in the end (Hirst, 1974, p. 20).

According to Hirst, education should be about the development of rational minds through the individual acquisition of the collected rationality of humankind. This collected rationality he saw as differentiated into a limited number of logically-distinct forms or disciplines.⁷ Educational objectives, therefore, should be connected to these different forms of knowledge:

‘One cannot, in pursuing the ability to solve scientific problems, assume one is thereby pursuing the ability to solve moral problems or historical problems as well.’ (op. cit., p. 20).

Hirst saw the different forms of knowledge as the fundamental achievements of humankind. They are the basic articulations by which the whole of our experience has become intelligible to us. The different forms of knowledge are the result of a progressive differentiation in human consciousness and form distinguishable cognitive structures of reasoned judgements and therefore expressions of human rationality. According to him, having a rational mind basically involved having experience articulated by means of various conceptual schema. The outcome of liberal education is a greater number, and finer, distinctions in our experience.

To acquire knowledge is to become aware of experience as structured, organized and made meaningful in some quite specific way (op. cit., p. 40).

Hirst as a troubled rationalist

However, it is not enough to ‘have’ certain concepts. A proposition becomes meaningful only because concepts are used in certain ways. The development of rationality is, for Hirst, dependent on coming to recognize that there are tests of validity for arguments and tests of truth for beliefs. His way of describing this comes close to ‘navigating the space of reason’ (Young & Muller, 2016, p. 170) as well as to Schwab’s syntactic structure of knowledge (Schwab, 1978).

Although he perceived theoretical knowledge as the basis of all rational knowing and being, he also pointed out that there is more to knowledge than can be formulated in terms of concepts and truth criteria.

All knowledge involves the use of symbols and the making of judgments in ways that cannot be expressed in words and can only be learnt in a tradition. The art of scientific investigation and the development of appropriate experimental tests, the forming of an historical explanation and the assessment of its truth, the appreciation of a poem: all of these activities are high arts that are not themselves communicable simply by words. Acquiring knowledge of any form is therefore to a greater or lesser extent something that cannot be done simply by solitary study of the symbolic expressions of knowledge, it must be learnt from a master on the job. No doubt it is because the forms require particular training of this kind in distinct worlds of discourse … because they involve coming to look at experience in particular ways, that we refer to them as disciplines. They are indeed disciplines that form the mind (op. cit., p. 45).

Two decades later Hirst described his own work in the 1960s and how, although he regarded himself as a rationalist, he was struggling with certain uneasiness concerning some of its claims: ‘Much of the analytical work beloved of philosophers of education in the 1960s itself powerfully undermined the dissociation of cognitive and other mental capacities that was at times being assumed in the “rationalist” position’ (Hirst, 1993, p. 188).

Another example of how he undermined his own rationalist position is the following quote from Oakshott which he referred to as a good description of liberal education and its outcome:

As civilized human beings, we are inheritors, neither of an inquiry about ourselves and the world, nor of an accumulating body of information, but of a conversation, begun in the primeval forests and extended and made more articulate in the course of centuries. It is a conversation which goes on both in public and within ourselves […]

Education, properly speaking, is an initiation into the skill and partnership of this conversation in which we learn to recognize the voices, to distinguish the proper occasions of utterance, and in which we acquire the intellectual and moral habits appropriate to conversation. And it is this conversation which, in the end, gives place and character to every human activity and utterance.” (Oakeshott, 1962:198-9 In Hirst, 1974, p. 52)

So, there already was a tension in Hirst’s early texts. At the same time as he emphasized forms of knowledge and the primacy of theoretical knowledge over the practical, he also pointed out that in order for such knowledge to actually form our minds, we have to become acquainted with certain ways of reasoning through learning from a master in practice.

Hirst’s practice turn

Around 1990 a ‘new Hirst’ now considered the rationalist as well as utilitarian positions to be mistaken about the nature and role of reason as well as in their radical individualism, not seeing that people are basically socially constructed.

We shall never make sense of ourselves if we cannot overcome those dualisms that separate the activities and achievements of reason from those of other mental capacities, or those of mind from those of body (Hirst, 1993, p. 190).

Hirst now emphasized social practices before theoretical knowledge as a starting point for discussing the content of schooling: ‘We must shift from seeing education as primarily concerned with knowledge to seeing it as primarily concerned with social practices.’(op. cit., p.184).

His self-criticism concerned, above all, the idea of theoretical knowledge as the basis of everything else.

The main error in my position was seeing theoretical knowledge as the logical foundation of sound practical knowledge and rational personal development. Education in theoretical forms of knowledge was seen as fundamental to everything else in education (op. cit., p.197).

This new position means that it is primarily through initiation into certain substantive social practices that personal development is accomplished.

I now consider practical knowledge to be more fundamental than theoretical knowledge, the former being basic to any clear grasp of the latter … the priority of personal development by initiation into a complex of specific, substantive social practices with all the knowledge, attitudes, feelings, virtues, skills, dispositions and relationships that that involves (op. cit., p.197).

Hirst thus seemed to replace theory with practice as the primary value in education. The different forms of knowledge he now perceived as belonging to specific theoretical practices. He did not abandon the idea of different forms of knowledge but he changed his view of their meaning. It is not the propositional knowledge as such that forms the rational mind, but acquaintance with certain theoretical practices where the different forms of knowledge make sense. Different forms of knowledge thereby represent different knowledge-producing practices. This is a way of thinking that is expressed in Hirst’s later writings:

Such theoretical practices result in the achievements of different forms of theoretical knowledge which I long ago sought to distinguish by the logical features that characterize them (op. cit., p.192).

Hirst’s writings from the 1960s and 70s excluded the tacit dimensions of knowledge from the concept of knowledge. Although he took substantive as well as syntactic knowledge (Schwab, 1978) into account when identifying the seven (sometimes eight) forms of knowledge, and although he pointed out the need for training ‘in distinct worlds of discourse’ (Hirst, 1974, p. 45) he attributed the educated person’s structured experience to the formal structures of knowledge. However, his later writings point in a direction where the forms of knowledge can be reconstructed as ways of knowing in specific (theoretical) activities. Unfortunately, Hirst himself seemed to have lost interest in further developing this in favour of a more general thinking about social practice as curriculum principle.

Powerful knowns and powerful knowings

It seems as if Hirst became stuck in the same tension between theoretical and practical knowledge as Young and Muller. While Young and Muller appear to remain in the rationalistic corner, giving priority to theory, Hirst seems to have moved to the opposite corner, considering practical knowledge as fundamental. In this section an attempt will be made to dissolve the knowledge vs practice tension by shifting focus towards knowing instead of knowns and thereby identifying another way to frame the question of how knowledge as such can become a capacity-building content of education.

Dewey and Bentley described the concept of knowledge as a ‘loose.. naming’ and a ‘vague generality’ (Dewey & Bentley, 1949, p. 113). Sometimes it refers to what is known, sometimes to the knowing of this known and sometimes to the knower, i.e. to someone knowing something. In the text ‘Knowing and the known’ they explore the transactional relation between the knowing and the known when new factual knowledge is produced. They were primarily interested in science, but the relationship between knowing and the known is central to education and teaching as well. The distinction between knowledge as something that is known and knowledge as the knowing of this known opens up a new dimension as compared to the distinction between knowing that and how or between theoretical and practical knowledge. The object of teaching is to develop the pupils’ knowing of specific knowns. Unlike research, knowledge as knowing is primary in teaching, although the curriculum is traditionally organized in terms of knowns. While researchers are oriented towards the production of knowns the object of teaching is the production of knowings—the development of the pupils’ knowings of specific knowns (Carlgren, Ahlstrand, Björkholm, & Nyberg, 2015). In contrast to the known which is explicit and can stand by itself independent of anyone knowing it, the knowing refers to someone who knows. Knowing is connecting the known to a knower as well as to a context where the known is functional in some way. The knowing thus points in two directions: on the one hand to the known, and on the other to the person as well as the activity where it is used. The knowing includes the explicit knowns as well as tacit dimensions related to the activity and sensory experiences. Knowing something means not only knowing that and knowing how but also being acquainted with the context and the activity where the known becomes meaningful.

By tradition the knowns have been organizing the curriculum and the knowing has not been separated from the known. This reduction of knowledge to knowns is, however, part of the problem of polarization of knowledge and practice as curriculum principles. If the aim of education is to produce knowledgeable people, it is the knowing of the known that is primary in teaching. It is the knowing, developed in transaction with specific knowns, that is capacity-building. These subject specific knowings constitute the content of specific capabilities as dispositions for acting in the knower. The capabilities are subject or domain specific and it is the ‘subtle but foundational differences that require a depth in disciplinary knowledge’ (Slekar & Haefner, 2010, p. 9). Slekar and Haefner takes this as a reason to advocate a teaching approach that is consistent with Schwab’s syntactic knowledge, i.e. how new knowledge within the discipline come about.⁸ Does this mean that subject specific knowings is synonymous with syntactic knowledge? No, to know some specialized knowledge means to know the substantive as well as syntactic knowledge; to know that and how as well as having knowledge by acquaintance. On the other hand, it can be assumed that a teaching that is in line with the syntactic knowledge provides a basis for the development of powerful knowings.

However, while each piece of specialized knowledge can be described in terms of its knowns, it is more difficult to describe the knowings connected to the knowns since they are, to a large extent, tacit. How, then, can we consider the organization of curriculum in relation to knowings? This is of course a problem, but also a challenge. Even an expert usually finds it very difficult to describe what it is (s)he knows. To what extent and how can the tacit dimensions of such subject-specific knowings be articulated?⁹ This is an important research question and such studies of powerful knowings should be an important research area in domain-specific education studies (fach/subject didaktik). The differentiation between the knowing and the known opens to explore the knowings within different specialized knowledge areas. The question of if and how it is possible to articulate the tacit dimensions of knowing is partly an empirical question.

Knowing as the content of formation/bildung

Michael Polanyi used the concepts of knowledge and knowing interchangeably but he seemed to prefer knowing to emphasize the personal aspect of knowledge (Polanyi, 1962). This personal aspect, i.e. that knowledge is borne by people, is a prominent aspect in school and in the work of teachers. The personal aspect is also central in Bildung-related theories. While the concept of knowledge always risks ending up in a stressful relationship with the concept of Bildung, knowing combines the idea of knowledge and personal development in a way that corresponds to the two-sidedness of the concept of Bildung.¹⁰

Bildung-related theories are not prominent in Anglo-Saxon curriculum theory. Like liberal education, however, roots can be found in the Greek concept of paidea. Otto and Ziegler (2010) also point to the close relationship between Bildung and the Capability Approach developed by Sen (2007) and Nussbaum (1997, 2011)) as a way of discussing the quality of life of all people, as defined by their capabilities.

These capabilities are, however, often described in general terms—by Nussbaum as well as others. Discussing capabilities therefore runs the risk of excluding the knowledge-based content. Lambert (2014) proposes an educational capability approach in which the idea of capability development is combined with the idea of powerful disciplinary knowledge. It seems, however, that his solution is an additive solution rather than an integrative. An alternative would be to instead describe subject-specific capabilities that follow from subject-specific ways of knowing. These subject-specific capabilities correspond to the Bildungsgehalt of the school subject, i.e. to the cultivating aspects of it.

Through acquiring subject-specific knowns and knowings the pupils may develop the aimed at subject-specific capabilities provided that the activities they are given the opportunity to participate in serve as a proper basis for their knowing. By formulating educational goals in terms of subject specific capabilities, demands are made on both the organization and orientation of the teaching. If the curriculum e.g. prescribes that students should develop their capability to reason historically, this will have implications for the teaching of history.

These subject-specific capabilities will, however, vary depending on educational aims. The recontextualization of disciplinary knowledge in schools is influenced by overall educational aims (what Roberts, 1982, called curriculum emphases). Today educational aims regarding e.g. sustainability may affect knowings within several subjects. Consequently, the educational aims provide the specific knowings with a certain nuance.

Powerful knowings as a curriculum principle would include an integration with educational aims and could thereby represent a combination of knowledge-based and competency-based curriculum. A focus on capabilities that are subject-specific in contrast to more general capabilities, opens up an opportunity for the different school subjects to also be described in terms of their subject-specific knowings. In that way powerful knowledge as powerful knowings can be said to be educationally formative in itself.

In German didactics, a distinction is made between Bildungsinhalt and Bildungsgehalt. Using that we can say that powerful knowns corresponds to Bildungsinhalt and knowings to the Bildungsgehalt, and it is the latter that is the transformative content. Using this distinction, it is the specialized knowings rather than the knowns that are transformative and cultivating/capacity-building. They are not, however, to replace the knowns since they develop in transactional knowing-known relationships.

Concluding remarks

In contrast to the idea that school should imitate the same kind of experiential learning as goes on in everyday life, where the question that teachers are faced with becomes limited to ‘Is this curriculum meaningful to my students?’ Young formulated the important question to be ‘what are the meanings that this curriculum gives my students access to?’ (Young, 2013, p. 106)

This is indeed an important question, but equally important is the question of how the pupils will access these meanings. Teaching is not a neutral practice; it determines what kind of knowledge the students are given opportunities to develop. It is not uncommon that teaching practices are counterproductive (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). Thereby the design of teaching activities to enable powerful ways of knowing to develop become an important aspect of teachers’ work.

Specific experiences from specific kinds of practices are necessary for the development of specific powerful ways of knowing. A central task for the school is to offer experiences of a different kind than pupils can have in their everyday life. Not least important is the experience of theoretical work. Unlike Dewey’s ideas on how all knowledge is connected and that it is possible to gradually develop everyday knowledge into scientific, the practice-based theories of knowledge focus on how the everyday world differs from disciplinary and other expert worlds, which in turn differ from each other. Not only do the syntactic structures differentiate between the subjects but also the contexts and activities in which they arise and have a meaning.

Unlike the, sometimes one-sided, attention of previous experiences, it is therefore equally important to give the pupils new experiences as a foundation for their development of powerful knowings. Quite often previous pupil experiences do not form a good ground for the development of knowings and the acquisition of important knowns. They may lead to a knowing that is not powerful but instead more commonplace. A central task for school is therefore to provide educative practices where distinctive characteristics of powerful knowings can be experienced. These educative practices will have other objects and include tasks other than their ‘mother traditions’ while at the same time supplying synonymous knowledge cultures for students to become enculturated into. Teachers must find ways for the students to participate in these practices and transform them into learning activities (Davydov & Markova, 1982).

This way of thinking is in line with what Young and Muller outlined as a desirable scenario for curriculum development, namely a ‘curriculum based on instruction in epistemically structured concepts and their relationships with one another in a manner that differs from students’ everyday experiences.’ (Hoadley et al., 2019, p. 100).

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Notes on contributors

Ingrid Carlgren

Ingrid Carlgren is a professor emerita in education at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in education at Stockholm University. Her research interests are comparactive Didaktik and studies in subject specific ways of knowing.

Notes

1. In German Didaktik a distinction is made between Bildungsinhalt (the content of education) and Bildungsgehalt (the substance of education). It is the Bildungsgehalt that can bring about fundamental change in individual students (Deng, 2018a, p. 340).

2. This section is mainly based on Chapters 12–15 in “Curriculum and the specialization of knowledge“ (Young & Muller, 2016).

3. The project The Definition and Selection of Competencies: Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations (DeSeCo Background Paper, 2001) is strongly influenced by cognitive psychology as are several of the international competency frameworks e.g. the European key competencies (Rychen & Salganik, 2003).

4. Bernstein, 2000, p. 164.

5. A starting point for Hirst was e.g. a report entitled ‘General education in a free society.’ Report of the Harvard Committee. Oxford University Press 1946, which advocated a general aims-based curriculum. Another starting point was Phenix’ ‘Realms of meaning’(1964), which also represented competency-based curriculum thinking.

6. Although he acknowledged that educational aims include more than intellectual development all ‘forms of development with which education is concerned are related to the development of the pupil’s progress in rational understanding’.

7. Mathematics, physical sciences, human sciences, literature and the fine arts, morals, history religion and philosophy.

8. Shulman (1986) describes the syntactic structure of specialized knowledge as its grammar, determining the rules for what can and cannot be said, e.g. what kind of questions that can be asked as well as what kind of answers that are accepted.

9. Examples of how knowings and know-how can be articulated are: Björkholm (2014) about technology education and Nyberg (2014) in physical education. See also Carlgren et al. (2015).

10. The concept of Bildung is prominent in German Didaktik and also in Scandinavia. As many have pointed out there is no good corresponding concept in English. Hopmann has described it as ‘The process of unfolding individuality by learning (Hopmann, 2007, p. 115) and Deng as referring to the ‘formation of the full individual, encompassing the development of intellectual and moral powers, the cultivation of sensibility, self-awareness, liberty and freedom, responsibility and dignity’ (Deng, 2018a, p. 339)). What is important here is that knowledge is considered as a transformative tool in the perspective of the unfolding the learner’s individuality and sociability.