Captured by the Totally Pedagogised Society: Teachers and teaching in the knowledge economy

This paper makes use of one of the last concepts developed by Basil Bernstein (the Totally Pedagogised Society, TPS) to understand some of the forces and contradictions underlying today's teachers' work in Spain. In his last written work, Bernstein (2001) pointed out some arguments to illustrate the emergence of a TPS. Always interested in uncovering the sociological basis of pedagogy, Bernstein refers to the TPS as a society that introduces pedagogy in all possible spheres of life. Somewhat paradoxically, the shorttermism and the constant change in the knowledge base of society, where careers are replaced by jobs, require the emergence of the TPS. The TPS appears as a crucial regulator and legitimation strategy to translate uncertainty, risk and precariousness into a socialisation characterised by endless learning. 'Trainability' is referred as the key concept through which the TPS emerges. That is 'the ability to profit from continuous pedagogic re-formations and so cope with the new requirements of work and life'. The concept of trainability colonises educational policies and practices, and has a strong power in defining students' and teachers' work and identity. Flexible and global capitalism--the social base that regulates the pedagogic discourse--requires a specific type of pedagogic expression that erodes commitment, certainty and that is therefore socially empty. Interestingly, as Bernstein argues, the weak state of the global economy requires a strong state in the pedagogic field. The TPS is state driven and state funded. The state uses different type of strategies to make and distribute new forms of pedagogic 'knowledge' through owned or controlled agencies. Cadres of pedagogues become significant agents in the symbolic control field and produce and distribute new discourses and its ways of legitimation. That is, the official field 'captures'--through practices of co-option--key agents from the pedagogic field to construct and maintain the TPS. This paper develops two aspects related with the construction of the TPS as it is being developed in Spain. Firstly, it shows the state practices in the process of designing, planning and implementing the latest Curriculum reform (ERA, 1990) to understand the relationship between the official and the pedagogic fields and to illustrate the redefinition of teaching in this reform. Secondly, using data from two research projects, it shows some of the consequences that the TPS is having on teachers' work and identities. The capturing of teachers within the TPS has a number of implications on teachers' representations of their role in the new educational mandate, their understanding of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment and their professional identities. These movements, it is argued, have significant consequences on the relationship between teachers' practices and ideology and the reproduction and legitimation of educational inequalities.