Bernsteinian sociologists and Hallidayan linguists engage in dialogue here, using the tools of their theories to develop a common metadiscourse about education (see also Pedagogy and the shaping of consciousness, Frances Christie (ed.), Continuum, 1999). Their focus is the status of knowledge, furthering attention to Bernstein’s notion of horizontal and vertical discourses. Horizontal discourses construe everyday knowledge, while vertical discourses are the discourses of education, construing knowledge that is systematically and more or less explicitly structured. Vertical discourse has either horizontal or hierarchical knowledge structures. With hierarchical knowledge structures, “new theories that emerge subsume and integrate past theories and aim for greater abstraction and generalizability,” while with horizontal knowledge structures, “new theories that emerge are considered incommensurable with existing theories.” Readers may take issue with these dichotomizing metaphors, as discussants in this volume do, but Bernstein’s aim was “to make visible knowledge as an object, one with its own properties and powers that are emergent from, but irreducible to, social practices and which, indeed, help shape those practices” (p. 25).

The book has three sections: “Theoretical foundations,” “Fields of discourse – disciplines of discourse,” and “Research prospects – exploring uncommon sense.” Christie’s first chapter establishes the dialogue, asking “What forms of knowledge should be taught?” and “What are the most appropriate teaching practices?” The following chapters by Karl Maton, Johan Muller, James R. Martin, and Rob Moore develop the constructs and contributions of the sociological and linguistic perspectives. The linguists explore the linguistic technology that enables (and reveals) horizontal and hierarchical discourses, while the sociologists are concerned with the distribution of knowledge.

Bernstein’s explanation of why particular social groups do less well in schools, that “the group in question may not readily be able to recognize and/or realize the code required for achievement” (17), has often been misread as deficit theory. Maton and Muller suggest that by recognizing different forms of knowledge, we can think more clearly about access to knowledge. They suggest that our view of knowledge is over-ideologized, focusing more on the “whose” than on the “what.” The status of science, they argue, is not just due to the interests it serves, but also comes from its epistemic power. They urge us to explore the forms of knowledge from which pedagogical discourse is created, and not just forms of pedagogical communication.

In section 2, systemic functional linguists explore pedagogical issues. Claire Painter describes how language that enables vertical discourse, such as generalizations independent of immediate contexts and logical reasoning from a textual premise, is made available to some children through discourse at home. Christie and Mary Macken-Horarik’s interest is in bringing “verticality” to English pedagogy, going beyond “personal growth” and “cultural studies” models through explicit attention to the linguistic tools needed to interrogate texts, including control of nominal group expansion, thematic nonfinite clauses, elaboration, and lexical and grammatical metaphor. Peter Wignell analyzes how knowledge structures can evolve over time, becoming more or less hierarchical, through exploration of the evolution of concepts such as “value” in the social sciences. Kay L. O’Halloran shows how mathematics and science are different knowledge structures that complement each other as science applies information generated by mathematics.

Section 3 breaks with the typical structure of an edited volume as Christie, Martin, Maton, and Muller engage in lively dialogue about these issues, demonstrating the dynamism of both theories and their recognition that these are not fixed concepts. Those who are concerned with the ways disciplines construe knowledge and the implications of this for curriculum structure and pedagogy are invited to engage in and contribute to the discussion.