The dimension of Specialization explores the basis of achievement underlying practices, dispositions and contexts. It conceives of practices as knowledge-knower structures whose organizing principles can be explored in terms of epistemic relations to other knowledge and objects of study, and social relations to ways of knowing and knowers. These concepts are typically articulated together to explore different specialization codes. Put very simply, knowledge codes emphasize what you know, knower codes emphasize who you are, élite codes emphasize both specialized knowledge and the right kind of knower, and relativist codes are ‘anything goes’.
Specialization codes conceptualize one dimension of the ‘rules of the game’ embodied by practices, dispositions and contexts. This provides insights into, for example, code clashes between: learners’ dispositions and pedagogic practices; education policies and subject areas; different approaches within an intellectual field; curriculum and pedagogy of a subject area; and many others.
For a general introduction to specialization codes, read Maton’s chapter here. The book Knowledge and Knowers introduces in greater detail: specialization codes, knowledge-knower structures, the epistemic-pedagogic device, gazes, and the 4-K model.
The 4-K model
The ‘4-K model’ offers a more fine-grained analysis of different kinds of each of these codes.
Epistemic relations are distinguished into: ontic relations between knowledge practices and their objects; and discursive relations between knowledge practices and other knowledge practices. These generate different kinds of insights that are being used to explore, for example, differences among knowledge-code practices, such as sciences and engineering (see work by Karin Wolff).
Social relations are distinguished into: interactional relations with ways of knowing; and subjective relations with kinds of knowers. These generate different kinds of gazes that reveal differences among knower-code practices, such as between ‘cultivated gazes’ and ‘social gazes’ (see chapter 5 of Knowledge and Knowers).
Translation devices for Specialization
Code concepts are defined at a distance from specific empirical referents so that they can be enacted to analyse a diverse range of phenomena. However, doing so defining the forms taken by code concepts within the particular object of study. LCT closes this gap between theory and data through translation devices. Chapter 2 (Maton & Chen) of Knowledge-building explains how to create specific translation devices in research projects, using the example of a study of Chinese students that enacted specialization codes.
Downloadable figures
The following figures are publisher-quality ‘png’ files. If using any, you must cite them as listed below. For permission, contact the author. If you would like an Adobe Illustrator version, so you can add data to a plane, then email the LCT Centre.
The specialization plane: Maton, K. (2014) Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a realist sociology of education, London: Routledge, page 30.
The epistemic plane: Maton, K. (2014) Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a realist sociology of education, London: Routledge, page 177.
The social plane: Maton, K. (2014) Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a realist sociology of education, London: Routledge, page 186.