Abstract:
The case study research for this dissertation was informed by Bernstein’s (2000) theory about how schools reproduce social inequalities by providing different socioeconomic groups with different educational opportunities. Specifically this dissertation investigates the features of non-traditional Level 2 science subjects in alternative student pathways now available in New Zealand secondary schools. These subjects are intended to provide disengaged students with relevant curricula but I argue that they effectively reduce access to the generative principles of disciplinary knowledge. The schools’ alternative pathways have a tendency to conflate everyday knowledge with scientific knowledge rather than focus on developing suitable pedagogies that ensure access to scientific knowledge for disengaged groups of learners. Furthermore the tendency of the non-traditional science courses to incorporate knowledge across traditional subject boundaries – made possible by modularisation of assessment - encourages loyalty to an extrinsic reward system of credit collection at the expense of developing identities as science students. In this way students are trained to meet targets rather than be educated in the cognitive systems of meaning that allow participation in the broader scientific community and through the critical awareness developed in these cognitive processes to participate fully in democratic society.