Class, Culture, and Elite Curricula: Researching Class Reproduction in a Singapore Elite School

• In Event: 58.083 - Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: 58.083-6 - Cultural Praxis as Transformative Pedagogy

Abstract

This paper foregrounds the curriculum itself as the central mechanism in the (re)production of elites. Using Basil Bernstein’s conceptual framework of pedagogic codes, it depicts how one of the most high-status forms of school knowledge – critical thinking – is taught in an elite and a mainstream school in Singapore. It argues that precisely because the Singapore state emphasizes the teaching of critical thinking in all schools and to all students, how such knowledge is presented and performed in the curriculum becomes crucial in differentiating elites from mainstream students. Findings suggest that whereas the pedagogic code in the mainstream school invokes rationalities that are instrumental and focused on market exchange, in the elite school these are instead inward-looking, personalized and narcissistic.

Author

• Leonel Tze-Wei Lim, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University