An approach to education that is based in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is being translated from English into four languages at the same time. LCT (short for ‘Legitimation Code Theory’) is a framework for understanding and changing education that examines the forms taken by knowledge, such as its changing complexity. LCT is now the basis of research and classroom practice in at least 44 countries around the world, including over 150 PhDs. The heart of this multidisciplinary community is the LCT Centre for Knowledge-Building in FASS. The Centre Director, Professor Karl Maton, says that:
‘LCT has been taken up rapidly over the past few years, especially in developing countries where scholars and educators are looking for a practical but theoretically robust approach to solving problems in education. But we are excited at the prospect of many more scholars and students being able to read the work in their own languages … and making it their own’.
A Spanish translation of key texts in LCT is underway by a team of Latin American scholars led by Dr Maria Andrea Vazquez Ahumada at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Pueblo. The team includes scholars from Mexico, USA, Spain, Chile and Argentina.
A Vietnamese translation is led by Dr Vinh To, University of Tasmania, and Dr Bao Thai, Australian National University. The volume of key texts is intended as part of a wider project that will involve workshops to train Vietnamese scholars and developing online teaching courses.
A Chinese translation of the founding text of LCT, Maton’s Knowledge and Knowers, by Professor Wang Zhenhua (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) will be published later this year, to be followed by a book in Chinese on LCT by Professor Liu Yi (Shenzhen University). These are part of a series of initiatives aimed at supporting the University’s strategic objective of raising its profile in China, including HDR students visiting the LCT Centre and 18 lectures by Maton at 12 Chinese universities in a year.
A ‘Nordic Network’ of LCT scholars is leading Danish translation, led by Dr Meidell Sigsgaard and Peder Holm-Pederson. Peder Holm-Pederson is hoping to visit the University of Sydney later in 2019 to work on the translation, as well as co-author papers and a grant application.
In addition, various papers are also being translated into Portuguese and, in the near future, Polish and Russian. All these translations are being conducted in collaboration with scholars at the LCT Centre and will be raising the profile of the University of Sydney. These are in addition to four books being published in the next year by Routledge for their new LCT series. On the covers of both those volumes and the translations, FASS will feature prominently as the provenance of the approach. As Maton puts it, ‘It’s already clear that as more scholars and educators engage with LCT in their own language and make it their own, they also wish to connect through the Centre with the University – it’s clearly the heart of the community. The translations will, we hope, raise that profile farther and further’.