LCT is a practical theory: it is developed through and for empirical research and practice. The book Knowledge-building includes useful accounts of how to enact LCT in:
- qualitative research, including how to develop ‘translation devices’ that clearly relate theory and data
- mixed-methods research, by developing quantitative instruments
- praxis, by embedding LCT tacitly into learning environments such as laptop programs
- multi-disciplinary research with other theories, such as systemic functional linguistics
LCT and its use are discussed in many different blogs and websites, and you can find us on social media too!
Learning is social: find a possible supervisor and contact a group!
Downloadable guides
A glossary setting out how concepts relate together: Maton, K. (2016) Starting points: Resources and architectural glossary, in K. Maton, S. Hood & S. Shay (eds) Knowledge-building: Educational studies in Legitimation Code Theory. London, Routledge.
This ‘handy guide to conventions’ is a useful one-page reminder of how to correctly use the names and symbols of concepts in LCT.
A list of terms in Spanish: Quiroz, B. (2017) , Glosario inglés-español: terminos en TCL y LSF, Onomázein, March: 227–242.
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 or profile, 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 semantic plane: Maton, K. (2014) Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a realist sociology of education, London: Routledge, page 131.
Three semantic profiles: Maton, K. (2013) Making semantic waves: A key to cumulative knowledge-building, Linguistics and Education 24: 18–22, page 13.
The autonomy plane: Maton, K. & Howard, S. K. Taking autonomy tours: A key to integrative knowledge-building, LCT Centre Occasional Paper 1 (June), 1–35, page 6.
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.
Misconceptions
Misreadings are inevitable, though sometimes intentional. Here we note several obvious errors.
“LCT is positivist / scientistic / technicist”
LCT is founded on a post-positivist ontology and epistemology (see Knowledge and Knowers, chapter 1). LCT is anything but technicist: in chapters 2–5 of Knowledge-building, Maton and colleagues emphasize and illustrate the craft of enacting LCT in research and practice.
“LCT fits students to the status quo by teaching them the rules of the game”
LCT can be enacted to make explicit the ‘rules of the game’ (what constitutes achievement). This offers mastery over those ‘rules of the game’, allowing choices to be made. One can choose to consciously change the rules of the game, with greater understanding of the effects such a change may have. One can choose to teach existing or adapted or changed bases of achievement to agents whose previous experiences have not privileged them with a ready understanding of and ability to act in ways viewed as successful. One can choose to critique those rules of the game. LCT gives agency.
“LCT is sociolinguistics / linguistics / derives from linguistics”
In numerous publications (‘Making semantic waves’, Knowledge & Knowers, ‘Building powerful knowledge’), Maton makes clear the sociological genesis and nature of LCT. Only by removing concepts from the framework which gives them meaning can LCT ideas be described as anything other than sociological. Chinese scholars often encounter LCT via systemic functional linguistics (SFL), leading some to believe LCT is part of SFL (a misconception not helped by one paper whose authors fabricated quotes by Maton to make it appear that ‘semantic waves’ derives from SFL). Some Latin American scholars have similarly encountered LCT via SFL, with one paper describing LCT as a ‘subtheory’ of SFL and part of Appraisal despite drawing from a book in which a whole chapter discusses how the two different theories can be used together. These portrayals can only be maintained by not reading any LCT.
“LCT supports knowledge codes and attacks knower codes”
Several chapters (5, 6 and 9) of Knowledge and Knowers, as well as various studies, make clear the value of knower codes and problems created by knowledge codes. No single code, insight or gaze is always the answer.
“LCT believes disciplinary knowledge / theory is better than other modes of knowledge”
The notion of ‘semantic waves’ emphasizes that ‘power’ is not intrinsic to one form of knowledge but rather resides in agents’ semantic range and capacity to wave between and weave together different forms of knowledge. The concepts of ‘axiological-semantic gravity’ and ‘axiological-semantic density’ make clear that ‘epistemic’ is not the only form of ‘power’ to be found in knowledge practices. The misconception may arise from eliding LCT with the rapidly diverging positions of some ‘social realists’ for whom only academic knowledge and disciplines are powerful.