Knowledge, power and powerful knowledge re-visited

Abstract

This article extends the authors’ earlier work (Young & Muller 2013) exploring the concept of ‘powerful knowledge’. It first examines some of the origins of the concept and goes on to a brief consideration of how sociology, political theory and economics have traditionally represented ‘power’ and ‘knowledge’. Two key senses of power are identified and two difficulties are next identified: how to retain both senses of power in a satisfactory account of ‘powerful knowledge; and how to provide a satisfactory account of the ‘power’ of knowledge in the humanities. By identifying three meanings of ‘powerful knowledge’, and making an argument for their interrelationship, the article aims to put the concept on a firmer footing and point to its potential implications for curriculum theory.

Keywords:

• Power
• knowledge
• powerful knowledge
• curriculum theory

Disclosure statement

There are no potential conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Johan Muller

Johan Muller is professor emeritus of Curriculum in the School of Education, and senior research scholar at the University of Cape Town. He is a visiting professor at University College London, Institute of Education, and extraordinary professor in the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology at Stellenbosch University. He is a sociologist of education and has published in the area of curriculum theory and policy, focusing on schooling as well as higher education. His most recent book, Curriculum and the Specialisation of Knowledge with Michael Young, was published in 2016.

Michael Young

Michael Young BA (Cantab), BScSoc (London), MA (Essex), PhD (Joensuu) (Hon caus), FCGLI, is Professor of Sociology of Curriculum at UCL Institute of Education. He joined the IOE as lecturer in Sociology of Education in 1967 and became Head of the Post 16 Education Centre in 1986. He was appointed Professor in 1998. He has been a Visiting or Honorary Professor at the University of Bath, the Universities of Witwatersrand and Pretoria (South Africa), Capital Normal University (China), and the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and was Visiting Research Fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (South Africa). He was Research Consultant to the City and Guilds of London Institute, the International Labour Organisation, OECD, and GTZ (Germany), and Adviser on Post 16 Education to the UK House of Commons Education Select Committee. His publications include Knowledge and Control (1971), The Curriculum of the Future (1998), and Bringing Knowledge Back In (2007); with Geoff Whitty, Explorations in the Politics of School Knowledge (1976), and Society, State and Schooling (1977), with Johan Muller, Knowledge, Expertise and the Professions (2014) and Curriculum and the Specialisation of Knowledge (2016), and with David Lambert, Knowledge and the Future School (2014).