It’s been a hard week's night

I can’t believe a week has passed by. It’s been a productive week although in retrospect I wish I had done more. I still feel as if I’m continually trying to play catch up with all the readings on my floor and scores of others that I have yet to discover, but which are undoubtedly, even though they are unseen, absolutely crucial to my understanding of my research topic. Speaking of research topic; I can happily say I am moving forward in this respect and today wrote up a somewhat skeletal attempt to articulate what I think my research is about. 

The most important insight has been how I want to use the sociology of education work of Basil Bernstein in my research. At the most simplistic sense I will be using a layered approach to frame my analytical framework. While the academic literacies perspective is my primary conceptual and analytical lens, I will subject my data to a second reading using what I have called ‘theories of context’ to undercover the structural aspects that inform the pedagogic encounter. In this way while the academic literacies perspective will allow me to ask the important what and how questions; e.g. What are the student academic literacies practices used to gain access to the x disciplinary/professional contexts? and How do students negotiated meaning in the x disciplinary contexts using the academic literacies practices? The theories of context and in particular Bernstein’s concepts will allow me to ask a crucial why question; Why are certain academic literacy practices privileged in the pedagogic encounter? 

These questions focus specifically on the knowledge constructs that inform the curricula structures that in turn inform the pedagogic and overall academic experience of students. Hopefully this provides a more holistic view of how students in the selected vocational higher education courses negotiate access to the disciplinary and professional domains, evidenced most crucially through the assessment text they produce. And through this progress start to unpack the power and control dimensions inherent in our educational systems that regulate the differential access accorded to students. 

Grand ideals hey! Well, we all have to chip away slowly, but surely, at that huge wall of discrimination and injustice is our own ways.

The graphic I’ve included is meant to illustrate this layered approach to my conceptual and analytical frameworks, how it relates to my focus of analysis and the outcomes of the secondary reading of data collected. Of course my proposal for combining these two theoretical approaches requires critical scrutiny of its validity (especially epistemologically) along with the construction of a plausible argument, complete with the necessary supporting evidence, before I can be completely confident about its research viability and sleep easy at night, she says cheekily!