30 Kostas Dimopoulos
Figure 10. The four identities according to Grid-Group Theory.
In the later case strong classifications and framing of the modern schooling tend to
celebrate the reproduction of the past (tradition). The condensed message promoted by the
material culture of modern school is that students should ―leave the space as they found it‖
which corresponds to the all pervasiveness of school authority (Bernstein, 1997). On the
contrary in the conditions of post-modern schooling (weak classifications and framings) there
is an interruption of a previous order and the condensed message promoted by the material
culture in this case is ―modify the space according to your personal needs‖.
This transition in the socialization process taking place in school is also evident in the
educational policy documents issued by transnational and international bodies like OECD
which reflect the new model student who should become what Kenway et al (2006) call
̳technopreneur‘. Kenway et al (2006) described the technopreneur as an ―agent that spurs
society to take advantage of existing scattered and dispersed knowledge‘ and who ̳generates
and harnesses new technological knowledge, and discovers entirely new bodies of resources
that had been hitherto overlooked‘‖ (p. 41). In its neo-liberal form, technopreneur thus
corresponds to the actions of certain techniques of self (the dispositions to mobility,
flexibility and risk taking).
The transition from modern to post-modern schooling is further in accordance with
globalization which is commonly understood as a process of ―time–space compression‖
characterized by flows of capital, goods, people, culture, and information (Harvey, 1990;
Castells, 1996; Giddens, 2002) thus having as prerequisites weaker boundaries and controls
(rules).
When considering identities one should not forget that there is always an issue of how
school culture is compared with the home culture of students. Bernstein has studied the
communication modalities enacted by families and schools for explaining class regulated
differential school success (Bernstein, 1970). The same line of argumentation can be also
transferred in the pedagogic code relayed by the material culture of homes and schools. As
many researchers have shown the coding of material environment is strongly dependent on
the social class (Baudrillard, 1972, 1996, Bourdieu, 1979, Secondulfo, 1997). For example
according to Secondulfo, (1997) in a domestic environment one can discern see two linking
patterns or "communication strategies" at work: the center-edge strategy, in which objects in
the room are always arranged according to the presence of a center, as a metaphoric image of
order and hierarchy; and the "filling-up" strategy, filling every space with objects (but in a