LCT is being used to look at a range of issues in schooling, including:
- educational technology across the curriculum
- Music
- English
- History
- biology
- mathematics
- special education
- school choice
EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY ACROSS THE CURRICULUM
A major evaluation of the Australian federal government’s Digital Education Revolution is being undertaken for the Department of Education and Training of New South Wales by Sarah Howard, University of Wollongong.
This project has Specialisation at its heart, with a series of survey questions that develop those created by Lamont and Maton for their studies of subject choices and school Music. It involves a large survey of schoolchildren and schoolteachers, as well as case studies. The survey alone will create the largest dataset ever generated within social realist sociology of education.
Howard, S. & Maton, K. (2011) Theorising knowledge practices: A missing piece of the educational technology puzzle, Research in Learning Technology 19(3), 191-206.
Howard, S. & Maton, K. (2010) A missing piece of the technology puzzle: The role of knowledge practices in the Digital Education Revolution, paper presented at Australian Association for Research in Education Annual Conference, Melbourne, Dec.
See also (in Educational technology):
Bennett, S. & Maton, K. (2011) Intellectual field or faith-based religion: Moving on from the idea of 'digital natives', in Thomas, M. (ed) Deconstructing Digital Natives: Young people, technology and the new literacies. New York, Routledge, 169-185.
Bennett, S. & Maton, K. (2010) Beyond the ‘digital natives’ debate: Towards a more nuanced understanding of students’ technology experiences, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26(5): 321-331.
Bennett, S., Maton, K. & Kervin, L. (2008) The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence, British Journal of Educational Technology 39(5): 775-786.
MUSIC
A series of studies are focusing on why school Music is an unpopular choice as a qualification, specifically focusing on the British GCSE qualification. The studies bring together documentary analysis, quantitative survey data and focus group interviews, and uses LCT(Specialisation) as a means of providing an integrating approach for the sociology of music education. These studies are an interdisciplinary collaboration between Alexandra Lamont (Keele University, UK) and Karl Maton.
Lamont, A. & Maton, K. (2010) Unpopular music: Beliefs and behaviours towards music in education, in Wright, R. (Ed.) Sociology and Music Education. London, Ashgate, 63-80.
Lamont, A. & Maton, K. (2008) Choosing music: Exploratory studies into the low uptake of music GCSE, British Journal of Music Education 25(3): 267-282.
Maton K. (2007) Knowledge-knower structures in intellectual and educational fields, in Christie, F. & Martin, J. (Eds.) Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy: Functional linguistic and sociological perspectives. London, Continuum, 87-108 (page numbers marked).
There are also a growing number of PhD studies looking at a range of issues in Music:
Jonathan Lilliedahl (PhD) Music and Pedagogic Discourse: Recontextualisations and codes, School of Music, Theatre and Art, Örebro University, Sweden
Trish Weekes (PhD) Thesis on music (details to follow), University of New England, Australia
ENGLISH
Bringing together LCT with systemic functional linguistics, this research examines school English. Of particular interest is exploring how to enable cumulative learning through the English curriculum.
Maton, K. (2009) Cumulative and segmented learning: Exploring the role of curriculum structures in knowledge-building, British Journal of Sociology of Education 30(1): 43-57.
Christie, F. (2010) Making sense of ‘The Journey’: a case study in segmental pedagogy in senior secondary school subject English, paper presented at Sixth Basil Bernstein International Symposium, Brisbane, June-July
Christie, F. (2011) Keynote paper - Knowledge structures and school literacy studies, International Systemic Functional Congress 38, Lisbon, July.
Guo, L., Gong, W. & Huaqing, H. (2011) Cumulative and segmented learning in secondary mathematics and English: an exploratory study, International Systemic Functional Congress 38, Lisbon, July.
HISTORY & BIOLOGY
A major interdisciplinary study has explored how to build integrated, cumulative knowledge through a secondary school curriculum. This research brought together LCT with systemic functional linguistics and interaction analysis. The case studies were of biology and history. The project was being directed by Peter Freebody, Jim Martin and Karl Maton at the University of Sydney and funded by an ARC Discovery Project grant: Disciplinarity, Knowledge and Schooling: Analysing and improving integrated, cumulative learning in classrooms.
3 March 2012: Disciplinarity in Schools: Building knowledge through writing, University of Sydney
- a national symposium to present the major findings and showcase teaching from the project, featuring Peter Freebody, Karl Maton, Jim Martin, Erika Matruglio, Lucy Macnaught, and a cast of teachers
Maton, K. (2011) Semantic waves: How to help students experience cumulative learning, ERIN Lecture Series of Senior Educational Researchers, Newcastle University, Australia, Oct. This includes audio and slides for a summary talk on the project.
Matruglio, E., Maton, K. & Martin, J.R. (2011) Waves through time: Temporality and the semantic wave, Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association National Conference, University of New England, Armidale, Sept.
Macnaught, L., Matruglio, E., Maton, K. & Martin, J.R. (2011) Jointly constructing the semantic wave in teacher training, Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association National Conference, University of New England, Armidale, Sept.
Martin, J.R. (2011) Keynote paper - Embedded literacy: Knowledge as meaning, Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association National Conference, University of New England, Armidale, Sept.
Martin, J., Maton, K. & Matruglio, E. (2010) Historical cosmologies: Epistemology and axiology in Australian secondary school history, Revista Signos 43(74): 433-463.
Martin, J.R. & Matruglio, E. (2010) Ancient History is bringing me down: Interdisciplinary analysis at work, 4th Annual International Free Linguistics Conference, University of Sydney, October.
Martin, J. & Matruglio, E. (2010) Flights of fancy: A functional linguistic interpretation of semantic gravity and semantic density in secondary school history teaching, paper presented at Sixth Basil Bernstein International Symposium, Brisbane, June-July.
Martin, J.R. & Matruglio, E. (2009) The logogenesis of knowledge: teaching history, paper presented at ALSFAL (Latin American Systemic Functional Linguistics Association) Annual Conference, Mar del Plata, Argentina.
See also: Matruglio, E. (2008) Semantic gravity meets Appraisal: What knowledge in schools?, Disciplinarity, Knowledge & Language: An international symposium, University of Sydney, Dec.
Freebody, P., Maton, K., & Martin, J. (2008) Talk, text and knowledge in cumulative, integrated learning: A response to ‘intellectual challenge’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 31: 188-201.
MATHEMATICS
Guo, L., Gong, W. & Huaqing, H. (2011) Cumulative and segmented learning in secondary mathematics and English: an exploratory study, International Systemic Functional Congress 38, Lisbon, July.
Thornton, S. (2008) Speaking with different voices: Knowledge legitimation codes of mathematicians and mathematics educators, in: M. Goos, R. Brown, & K. Makar (Eds.), Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia. MERGA.
See also such papers as:
Morgan, C., Tsatsaroni, A. & Lerman, S. (2002) Mathematics teachers’ positions and practices in discourses of assessment, British Journal of Sociology of Education 23(3), 445-461.
Lerman, S. & Tsatsaroni Surveying the field of mathematics education research
Lerman, S., Xu, G. & Tsatsaroni, A. (2002) Developing theories of mathematics education research: the ESM story, Educational Studies in Mathematics 51(1-2), July.
SPECIAL EDUCATION
Students with Asperger's Syndrome typically achieve extremely well at such subjects as science and computing, but struggle at English and History. These preliminary papers, a collaboration between Deslea Konza and Karl Maton, propose LCT as offering a fresh and potentially productive perspective on enabling students with Asperger's Syndrome to achieve more widely across the curriculum.
Konza, D. & Maton, K. (2006) Increasing the capacity of students with Asperger’s Syndrome to achieve across the curriculum. Australian Association of Special Education Annual Conference, Canberra, Sept-Oct.
Maton, K. & Konza, D. (2006) The curious incident of the Asperger’s student in the classroom: Theorising inclusion and differential subject achievement. British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Warwick University, September
SCHOOL CHOICE
Sharon Aris (PhD, current) What Knowledge, Which Knowers: How parents choose high schools for their children, Department of Sociology & Social Policy, University of Sydney, Australia.