Professionally-Oriented knowledge and the purpose of Professionally-Oriented higher education

Abstract

In this paper we argue that a common-sense understanding of the purpose of professionally-oriented higher education can have unintended consequences. We draw on accounts of the distinctiveness of disciplinary and situated knowledge (e.g., Bernstein, 1999; Barnett, 2006; Gamble, 2006; Muller, 2009) to describe the knowledge resources for professional programmes, to analyse the relationship between knowledge types and to show how they are represented in curricula. We draw on a number of empirical studies in the education of health professionals, engineers, designers, information technologists and office managers. Much work has been done on the nature of disciplinary knowledge and its selection and recontextualisation in curricula. We have, however, found that it is insufficient to provide a principled account of situated knowledge equipped only with a theory of knowledge difference. Without a theoretical conception of practice-based knowledge (e.g., Scribner, 1984; Chaiklin & Lave, 1993/2003) there is a danger that situated knowledge will be undervalued in relation to disciplinary knowledge. We thus found it necessary to draw on a variety of resources to theorise key issues in disciplinary and situated knowledge. The first section of the paper problematises common-sense understandings of professionally-oriented education and provides an historical overview of the complex and difficult relationship between higher education and the world of work. The second section addresses the representation of disciplinary and situated knowledge forms in curricula, highlights the importance of epistemological access to professional knowledge, and provides a model of professional knowledge for curricular selection. The third section deals with the logic of professionally-oriented curricula. The conclusion returns to a consideration of the purpose of professionally-oriented higher education, in the light of the arguments developed. Our aim in this paper is to contribute towards an understanding of the relationship between disciplinary and situated knowledge in professionally-oriented education, and thereby to offer a theoretically consistent position on the purpose of professionally-oriented higher education.