Semiotics

Signifying the Transition from Modern to Post-Modern Schooling... 9

of flexible skills (genericism), rather than any coherent body of knowledge (Sarakinioti,
Tsatsaroni and Stamelos, in press).

c. The social Relationships Established
In contrast with the programs of the first ideal type, the knowledge transmission process
in this case is based on innovative pedagogies, according to which the educator shares part of
his/her power (in the form of expertise) with the learners. Learners are regarded not as passive
receivers of ready-made knowledge packages, but as responsible and resourceful individuals
who are capable of contributing to the learning procedure according to their experiences and
skills in a creative way. This differentiated perspective leads to implicitly hierarchical social
relationships between: a) different subjects, b) whole programs and c) persons-representatives
of different knowledge forms. The implicitness of the social relationships is due to the fact
that unlikely to what happened in the programs of the first ideal type, the differential
epistemic status of the various knowledge forms has ceased to exist. This basis has been
replaced by the assessment of the utility of the various knowledge forms for dealing with the
practical problems arising in the contingent contexts of the public domain. Therefore, it
follows that the carriers (persons, subjects, programs) of the corresponding knowledge forms
share power on a more equal basis. This does not imply by any mean that control over the
learning process is taken over by the learners; it only means that the latter have more
apparent control over it and its social base.^ In practice, this ideal type of schooling promotes
forms of transmission pedagogy that combine teachers‘ strict control over selection,
sequencing and pacing of the educational process, with students‘ ̳active‘ engagement in a
more socially equivalent basis though specific methods, e.g., ̳project work‘.
Table 1 summarises the most important differences of the two ideal types, analyzed in the
preceding sections.
In order to describe the structural differences between the two aforementioned types of
schooling in a theoretical language that allows the juxtaposition of the shifts in education with
the shifts in other related fields of cultural reproduction we draw on the key notions of
classification and framing borrowed from the seminal work of Basil Bernstein in the field of
sociology of education.^1

Table 1. The characteristics of the two ideal types of schooling

Modern schooling

(aftermath of second world war-mid

seventies)

Post modern schooling

(mid seventies-today)

Content Selection Epistemic criteria Social or Market criteria

Objectives Knowledge based Skills based

Assessment model Competence model Performance model

Social Relationships Explicitly hierarchical Implicitly hierarchical

(^1) The theoretical language of Bernstein allows the analysis of various fields of cultural practices and the
corresponding social relationships enacted through these fields in a comparable way. Thus, it is very suitable
for analyzing shifts in the history of social institutions such as schooling in our case, in the context of a
broader cultural milieu. In particular Bernsteinian theory is suitable for analyzing fields with a pedagogic
rationale within which relations of pedagogic nature could be developed such as those between
parents/children, teachers/pupils, doctors/patients, social workers/clients, but the analysis can be further
extended so as to include the social relations of the work contexts of industry or commerce.