Best-bernstein Agency Structure

8/20/2019 Best-bernstein Agency Structure

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/best-bernstein-agency-structure 1/19

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

This article was downloaded by: [Best, Shaun]

On: 19 December 2009

Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 777255576]

Publisher Routledge

Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-

41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Education Knowledge and Economy

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t741771148

Basil Bernstein: agency structure and linguistic conception of class

Shaun Best a

a University of Manchester,

To cite this Article Best, Shaun(2007) 'Basil Bernstein: agency, structure and linguistic conception of class', Education,Knowledge and Economy, 1: 1, 107 — 124

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/17496890601128233

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17496890601128233

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial orsystematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply ordistribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contentswill be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug dosesshould be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directlyor indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t741771148

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17496890601128233

http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17496890601128233

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t741771148



Education, Knowledge & Economy

Vol. 1, No. 1, March 2007, pp. 107–124

ISSN 1749-6896 (print)/ISSN 1749-690X (online)

© 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/17496890601128233

REKE1749-68961749-690XEducation Knowledge and Economy,Vol. 1, No. 1, February 2007: pp.1–34Education, Knowledge & Economy

Basil Bernstein: agency, structure

and linguistic conception of classBasil BernsteinS.Best

Shaun Best*University of Manchester

The paper outlines an interpretation of Bernstein’s contribution to the sociology of education that

stands in contrast to the common interpretations of Bernstein’s work. It is commonly assumed

that Bernstein constructed a simplistic ‘deficit model’ of educational failure, or alternatively, that

Bernstein was a structuralist who did not give any significance to human agency within his theoris-

ing. In addition, many authors argue that Bernstein had little original to say about social class. In

this paper a much greater emphasis is placed upon Bernstein’s radical reading of Durkheim, that

shaped Bernstein’s conception of agency, the role of agency in the formation of codes, frames and

discourse, and the way in which the agent draws upon language as a resource in the processes of

class formation. In the course of which Bernstein explains that all—classification and framing—are

social facts. Although in his later works, Bernstein had an epistemological break from the central

role of human agency in the process of social construction and embraced a more explicitly Marxian

form of social analysis in which all discourse is assumed to have a material base.

Keywords: Bernstein; Durkheim; Human agency; Structure; Discourse

It is common to open any discussion of Bernstein’s work by claiming that he was one of the

most misunderstood sociologists of the twentieth century, as Moss and Erben explain:

No other British sociologist has been so poorly understood and, often, so willfully misrep-

resented as Basil Bernstein. This has been especially true of those parts of his work which

have touched on language, most notably the question of elaborated and restricted codes

(Moss & Erben, 2000, p. 1).

In the mid 1970s Bernstein wrote a short journalistic piece in the magazine New

Society with the title ‘Education Cannot Compensate for Society’. The article gave a

very short highly simplistic account of the central thesis running through his Class,

Codes and Control project. However, the short piece was interpreted as Bernstein giv-

ing a cultural deficit account of working-class educational underachievement. In

*School of Education, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.

Email: [email protected]



108 S. Best

addition, almost all textbook accounts reproduced again and again this simplistic

deficit account.

In this paper I want to explore a number of more ambitious readings of Bernstein,

initially by rejecting a number of common misconceptions, notably that Bernstein’s

work was based upon a ‘cultural deficit’ model of educational failure.Secondly, that Bernstein was a structuralist who did not give space to human

agency within his theories and research; Atkinson (1985), for example, in his percep-

tive and sympathetic account of Bernstein argues that: ‘Bernstein is to be seen as one

of the very few original British contributors to the tradition of thought in the ‘human

sciences’ known as structuralism’ (p. 5). Atkinson assumes that cultural transmission

for Bernstein is expressed through language codes that exist independently of the

people who use them. Moreover, because the social actor is absent from structuralist

approaches, then according to Atkinson (1985) it follows that:

It is undoubtedly true that in Bernstein’s general approach there is little or no room orconcern for the perspectives, strategies and actions of individual social actors in actual

social settings (Atkinson, 1985, p. 32).

In addition, Atkinson goes on to suggest that:

Bernstein’s notion’s of language, discourse and structure imply that social actors and

meanings are constituted by the ‘codes’ rather than the reverse … that the codes have an

autonomous status: it is the code which ‘positions’ and constitutes the subject, rather

than the reverse (Atkinson, 1985, p. 180).

in other words that Bernstein was a structuralist who ignored the role of the human

agent.Thirdly, I want to suggest that Bernstein had a radical conception of class forma-

tion, again in contrast to Atkinson’s point that ‘there was nothing unique about his

portrayal of class differences in everyday life (as opposed to the inference he drew

from them)’ (Atkinson, 1985, p. 49).

Taking his lead from Atkinson (1985) and Atkinson et al . (1995), Sadovnik

(1991) argues that: ‘Bernstein attempts to connect macrolevel class and power rela-

tions to the microlevel educational processes of the school’ within ‘his overall struc-

turalist sociological project’ (Sadovnik, 1991, p. 48).

Sadovnik (1991, 1995) emphasizes the undervalued role of the human agent in hisaccount of Bernstein by regularly uses the word ‘evolution’ within the context of out-

lining what Bernstein has to say, for example ‘the shift from collection to integrated

curriculum codes represents the evolution from mechanical to organic solidarity’

(Sadovnik, 1991, p. 52). In addition, Sadovnik (1991) views the reproduction of

social class in evolutionary terms (p. 51).

Even more recent sympathetic and perceptive reviews of Bernstein’s work such as

Moss (2000) also significantly undervalue the role of the human agent in Bernstein’s

analysis, for example when she suggests that:

discourse seeks to replicate itself elsewhere. It looks outside the confines of schooling,only to find confirmation of what it already is (Moss, 2000, p. 51).



Basil Bernstein 109

James Collins (2000) comments on Bernstein’s ‘skepticism about interactionist

theories of the social order’ (p. 66) and argues that Bernstein’s work faces the classic

problem of all structuration theories that ‘socially structured mechanisms or schema,

constitutive of individual and collective subjectivities [are] not part of conscious

identities’ (p. 70).It is only very occasionally that agency gets a mention in commentaries of

Bernstein’s work, such as in the case of Davison (2005) who suggests that

‘Bernstein’s visible and invisible pedagogies and Gee’s discourses can themselves be

seen as multiple and shifting social constructions, not unitary, pre-determined and

immutable, but shaped by the different socio-cultural and historical identities of those

who interact with them’ (p. 225). Or in the case of Lemke (1995) who suggests that:

Our meanings shape and are shaped by our social relationships, both as individuals and as

members of social groups. These social relationships bind us into communities, cultures

and subcultures. The meanings we make define not only our selves, they also define ourcommunities … (and) the relationships between communities … all of which are quintes-

sentially political relationships (Lemke, 1995, p. 1).

The human agent may ‘seek to replicate’, ‘look outside’ or attempt ‘to find confir-

mation’ but codes, discourse and language do not, they are merely the product of the

situated activities of human agents. Language codes do not have ‘agency’, only

people have agency. Language codes do not ‘determine’ or ‘shape’ because speech,

language and language codes do not exist independently of the people who use

them. Languages rely for their very existence on the people who use them. Through

their speech and their choice of language people bring language into existence, main-

tain it and distribute it to others in a variety of forms and by the use of variety of

mediums. Language is a human invention and in themselves, language codes exist

only at a conceptual level, as a memory trace or a reference in a book that people can

draw upon as a resource in an effort to communicate, if and when they wish to do so.

This paper gives a full account of Bernstein’s Class, Codes and Control project, with

particular reference to Bernstein’s radical reading of Durkheim’s account of the

relationship between agency and structure and how Bernstein developed these

Durheimian insights into a linguistic conception of inequality and class exploitation.

However, the 1990s saw an epistemological break in Bernstein’s work; this paper

traces the shift in emphasis, away from the linguistic conception of class and towardsa more traditional Marxian conception. The paper also identifies a major epistemo-

logical break in Bernstein’s project in 1990, and suggests some reasons for

Bernstein’s drift towards a Marxian analysis.

Bernstein’s early volumes of Class Codes and Control examine the relationship

between practice, culture, class and power, linked by a central notion of a linguistic

conception of class structuration. Bernstein rejected the simple essentializing theories of

class that were popular at the time, such as Bowles and Gintis (1976) in which the sys-

tem of classes is given and the education service merely places people into the ‘empty

space’ of an appropriate class position. In contrast, Bernstein’s focus was on the ability

of the human agent to create and maintain a system of classes as a series of contested



110 S. Best

fluid linguistic formations. On the basis of its highly novel and radical character,

Bernstein’s understanding of the process of class formation was difficult for many people

working in the field to accept. Many commentators at the time were unable or unwilling

to accept the consequences of what Bernstein had to say. Edwards (2002) cites,

amongst others, Musgrove (1979), saying that Bernstein’s work was ‘highly abstract andlargely unintelligible’. In Bernstein’s early work, classes do not simply exist, they are not

treated as ‘given’ but are a practical accomplishment of situated human agents; classes

are created by the by the intended and unintended actions of people involved in a range

of struggles, some of which are within the field of education. How we think about class,

and how we articulate class division and class conflict, are central elements in the main-

tenance class relations. However, in the 1990s Bernstein chose to revise his theoretical

orientation substantially; many of his central concepts maintained their same names:

code, classification, frame, etc., but the content was radically different.

In volume one of Class, Codes and Control (1971) Bernstein explains that many of

the major research errors within the sociology of education at the time could be

traced to the under-development of the theories. Bernstein’s own theoretical starting

point was with the work of Emile Durkheim:

I did not care that he was a naughty functionalist with an over-socialized concept of man,

that he neglected the institutional structure and the sub-strata of conflicting interests, that

his model of man contained only two terms, beliefs and sentiments (Bernstein, 1971, p. 3).

What attracted Bernstein to Durkheimian analysis was ‘the social bond and the

structuring of experience’ (Bernstein, 1971, p. 3).

Cook (1973) in his contribution to the second volume of Class, Codes and Control argues that for Durkheim society can only exist by and through its members, people

work cooperatively to generate the social order that constrains their future social

action. However, there is still an issue of concern for Cook, in that Durkheim does

not pay attention to ‘the way in which social order is achieved in the daily life of indi-

viduals composing the society’ (Cooke, 1973, p. 298); without this element, claims

Cook, Durkheim’s conception of the social order is ‘vulnerable’. Bernstein devised

the concept of ‘code’ to provide a mechanism for bridging the gap that Cook had

identified in Durkheim’s analysis.

As is now well known, in Class, Codes and Control Bernstein identified two distinct

speech variants; each variant was underpinned by a code: firstly a restricted speech variant

that was dependent upon the context in which the speaker and listener coexist. This

restricted variant gave rise to particularistic orders of meaning. In contrast, elaborated

speech variants were independent of the context in which the speaker and listener find

themselves. As such, elaborated variants give rise to universalistic orders of meaning, in

which the principles of language are explicit and elaborated. As such the two variants

have distinct grammar and linguistic features and the people who use these variants

have differing access to grammar and linguistic resources in the processes of sentence

construction and speech. Codes could never be directly observed, as they were

unstated ‘regulative principles that controlled the form of linguistic realization’ (Bernstein,1971, p. 15, italics in the original). In contrast, variants could be observed because



Basil Bernstein 111

they constitute the surface structure of language, unlike the codes that are found at the

deep level of meaning. Pre-linguistic individuals are socialized into family structures, a

central element of the socialization process is the self-coming to internalise socio-lin-

guistic codes. These codes establish a set of ‘linguistic determinist’ (Bernstein, 1971,

p. 61) structural boundaries within the self that shape and structure our experienceand our ability to describe our subjective intentions. Our family structure modifies our

social perception. For the middle class, claims Bernstein, the typical dominant mode

of speech becomes ‘an object of special perceptual activity and a “theoretical attitude”

is developed towards the structural possibilities of sentence organisation; this speech

mode facilitates the verbal elaboration of subjective intent’ (Bernstein, 1971, p. 61). In

contrast, working class speech is in a form ‘which discourages the speaker from ver-

bally elaborating subjective intent and progressively orients the user to descriptive,

rather than abstract, concepts’ (Bernstein, 1971, p. 62). As a consequence of this:

‘The working class child has to translate and thus mediate middle-class language struc-

ture through the logically simpler language structure of his own to make it personally

meaningful’ (Bernstein, 1971, p. 15, italics in the original).

For Bernstein it is possible to identify ‘sociological determinants of perception’

and such determinants can either predispose the self to education or be the root

cause of resistance. Bernstein draws upon two concepts that were to be more

fully elaborated by Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Paul Willis over the fol-

lowing decades: notably the concepts of individuation and the mediate relation-

ship between parent and child; what Giddens was to refer to as the mediate

conception of structuration. Willis, in particular, takes up the Bernsteinian view

that language is a symbolic resource for agent’s control and resistance within anysituation:

social agents are not passive bearers of ideology, but active appropriators who reproduce

existing structures only through struggle, contestation … (Willis, 1977, p. 15).

The mediate relationship in the middle-class family often involves the parent

‘scrupulously observing’ the child and that child constantly having to justify any new

pattern of behaviour. Such a situation can be one of stress and conflict unless the

child has the ability to verbalize their definition of the situation, in such a way that is

satisfactory to the parent’s interpretation. The school supports this middle-class

mediate approach to parenting. For Bernstein our language use is both a medium

and an outcome of our educational experiences within the school. There is much

more to Bernstein than language codes to determine education success or failure

(the deficit model); in many respects, for Bernstein, language codes were a central

element in the process of class formation. At a number of points Bernstein come

close to openly suggesting that class and social control are both elements of a linguis-

tic formation ‘Social control will be based upon linguistically elaborated meanings

rather than upon power’ (Bernstein, 1971, p. 155). It was for this reason that many

textbook authors, such as Demaine (1981), found Bernstein’s conception of class so

difficult to grasp. Demaine argues that Bernstein had no ‘elaborated conception of “class”’ (Demaine, 1981, p. 39).



112 S. Best

The ‘mediate structuration’ elements of Bernstein’s (1971) analysis were more

fully researched by Hasan (1993) who investigated the ‘naturally occurring’ forms of

talk between mothers and children and found a link between mother–child conversa-

tion and the processes of class formation. Hasan concludes by saying:

If the views presented here are accepted, it would seem a tension exists in our society:

middle-class practices are geared to maintaining hierarchy by making subjugation invisi-

ble: working-class practices are geared to challenge subjugation. And it is here that we can

highlight the function of unquestioned belief in the superiority of middle-class practices

(Hasan, 1993, p. 101).

For Hasan the discourse between adults and children has an important place

in the child’s mental development and in processes of mediate structuration,

what Hasan refers to a ‘a cycle of cultural reproduction’. Such discourse often

takes the form explicit teaching, what Bernstein (1990, 1996) referred to as local

pedagogy. Mothers, in particular, share their perception of the world with theirchildren. This shared discourse of perception shapes their children’s conscious-

ness and provides the child with a map of reality and an understanding the most

effective way of managing a life. Hence there is a cycle of cultural reproduction

because the mother provides mental maps for living in the culture of the child’s

immediate community. Hasan argues in her later works (1989, 1992, 1993,

1996, 1999, 2000) that these forms of talk provide the child with a clear concep-

tion of constitutes legitimate conversation within the speakers’ community. In

this sense, such discourse between mother and child is a site for a form of invisi-

ble semiotic mediation.Williams (1995, 1999) and Cloran (1994, 1995,1999) hold similar views, that

parent–child discourse helps to reproduce, in the consciousness of the child, a

particular point of reference for understanding meaning, that also generates a

habit of mind or tendency to respond to information in ways that are qualita-

tively different from those of children whose socialization into everyday discourse

is different.

In what sense can language use be both a medium and an outcome of our educa-

tional experiences within the school? For Bernstein, language is the central resource

that the human agent can draw upon to negotiate the central elements of mediate

and proximate structuration. Bernstein explains that we use language to organizeand respond to the experiences that we have. Our use of language links personal per-

ception and psychological factors to the social structure. By the use of language we

make the personal become social . As Bernstein explains:

… the individual from an early age interacts with a linguistic form which maximizes the

means of producing social rather than individual symbols, and the vehicle of communica-

tion powerfully reinforces the initial socially induced preferences for this aspect of lan-

guage use … language reinforces a strong inclusive relationship, the individual will exhibit

through a range of activities a powerful sense of allegiance and loyalty to the group, its

forms and its aspirations, at the cost of exclusion and perhaps conflict with other social

groups which possess a different linguistic form which symbolizes their social arrange-ments (Bernstein, 1971, pp. 47–48).



Basil Bernstein 113

We draw upon language to make expectations of others in terms of role perform-

ance and authority, moreover as Bernstein explains, in a discussion of a doctor’s

authority. Our relationship to the other ‘… depends essentially on the extent to

which the patient can verbalize, or be brought to verbalize by various techniques, his

particular, discrete, personal relationships with the environment and eventually tounderstand and emotionally accept the implications of the pattern they form’

(Bernstein, 1971, p. 51).

Social structure becomes part of the individual experience for Bernstein. How-

ever, the self never loses its human agency, even the act of conforming or accepting

authority is still the work of an active human choice. One of the central themes run-

ning through Bernstein’s work, even from his earliest papers was to move away from

the ‘dualism’ of having individual person (human agent) on the one hand and the

society or social structure on the other. Bernstein attempted to bring together grand

theories of how society worked with micro theories of what motivated individual

social action. Individuals were in a constant process of creation and recreation of

social life and social structure. For many sociologists structure is looked upon as a

durable framework, rather like the metal girders within a concrete building. Struc-

ture constrains our behaviour, it is beyond our control and it is out of sight. In con-

trast, for Bernstein structure is always both enabling and constraining; defined as

rules and resources, it is the property of social systems and gives shape to social

systems. Human agents speak and as such make rules—rules form codes—agents

deploy resources by the use of codes—resources help to form structures of domination.

Codes are a central element of these processes of structuration and are viewed by

Bernstein as ‘generalizable procedures’, which apply in a range of contexts and allowfor the methodical continuation of an established sequence of speech. Codes then

are applied in the enactment/reproduction of social practices. As is well known, for

Bernstein, codes tend come in sets, and agents tend to reproduce social life with

such consistency that the codes take on an objective property. Hence, for the human

agent social life is experienced as having a high level of facticity. There is no reason to

suggest beneath or beyond the activities of the individual is any durable or perman-

ent structure that guides, programmes and directs the activities of individual people.

Language codes are a resource in our verbal planning process. As Bernstein

explained:

The codes are defined in terms of the probability of predicting which structural elements

will be selected for the organisation of meaning (Bernstein, 1971, p. 108).

In summary, Bernstein’s argument is that language and speech are a medium and

outcome of the situated activities of human agents. People can choose to speak how-

ever they wish; they can say whatever they like. If they choose to change the way they

speak, their accent, if they choose to enhance their vocabulary or use a richer array of

grammatical devices or use more foreign language words or Latin in their speech

they run the risk of ridicule, hostility or adverse comment. Oddly enough reinforcing

the verbal nature of social control, what Bernstein was to later refer to as ‘strongframes of control’. Choosing to conform to a language code that is widely accepted



114 S. Best

by peers is still the act of a thinking agent. By choosing to participate in a given

language code they perpetuate and legitimate its use within the social group. As

Bernstein (1971) made clear ‘The language does not facilitate the unique verbaliza-

tion of subjective intent. Its use reinforces solidarity with the group, its functions

roles and aims. Certain individual differences, which, if they appeared, wouldthreaten the solidarity of the group’ (p. 73) [it is these] ‘modes of self regulation

[that] reinforce the solidarity of the developing child with his peers, which in turn

reinforce the solidarity of the code’ (p. 81).

Language codes symbolize social relationships, including class relationships.

When a speaker chooses to draw upon the conventions of a language code this serves

to reinforce both the code and maintain the boundaries of the social relationship that

is served by it.

In Volume 3, Bernstein (1975) explains that class is a central category of social

exclusion and that class is always the central concept underpinning any form of clas-

sification or framing, including the insulations or boundaries of classifications systems

found in power relationships.

However, Bernstein explains that his conception of structure should not be used

to suggest ‘a mechanical or simple process of transmission and reproduction’ (1975,

p. 20). Bernstein claims such mechanical processes of reproduction: ‘understate the

power of individuals to change the terms of their encounters’ (1975, p. 51). Schools

contain patterns of ‘conflicting interests’ but the resolution of these conflicts is not

outside of the control of the individual human agent. There is always a potential ten-

sion between our ‘private beliefs and role obligations’. In the last analysis, claims

Bernstein ‘classification and framing, are social facts’ (1975, p. 87). This Durkheim-ian conception of the social fact always places at the forefront of Bernstein’s analysis

the social nature of the curriculum.

Although class is a central category of social exclusion within the Bernsteinian

scheme, classification and framing influence such things (in the Durkhemian sense)

as authority, dissemination of educational knowledge. The principles of power and

control are realized through codes.

Class formation operates at three distinct but related levels, which come together

in a process of class structuration that allows individuals to draw upon linguistic

resources in a process of class formation.

Firstly in the relationship between parent (especially the mother) and the child,

the mother is a ‘crucial agent of cultural reproduction who provides access to sym-

bolic forms’ (Bernstein, 1975, p. 124). Children are given linguistic skills and abili-

ties by parents to use as a resource in their dealing with relationships both within

school and the wider society, to place themselves in a position of their own chosen

advantage.

Class also includes ‘insulations within the division of labour’ (Bernstein, 1975,

p. 133), constructed occupational hierarchy. Individuals can place themselves in a

desired position of their own choosing by drawing upon their linguistic resources to

legitimately place themselves in the occupational hierarchy. People do this byexplaining to others the importance of their occupation. At an interview people have



116 S. Best

For Kant all moral concepts are a priori . In Durkheim’s analysis, however:

There is no rule, no social prescription that is recognized or gains its sanction from Kant’s

moral imperative or from the law of utility as formulated by Bentham, Mill, or Spencer

(Durkheim, 1973, p. 25).

Our faculties such as definition, deduction and induction that form part of the

mechanism we use to ‘… construct, project, and localize in space our representations

of the tangible world’ (Durkheim & Mauss, 1963, p. 3). We have no reason to sup-

pose that the human mind contains within it a framework for classification. No such

framework was given by nature, these mechanisms had to be formed from a combi-

nation of elements drawn from a range of sources. In addition, people have to be

educated into the nature of the categories, and how to use them: ‘… humanity in

the beginning lacks the most indispensable conditions for a classificatory function’

(Durkheim & Mauss, 1963, p. 7).

Taking this view as his point of departure, Bernstein argues in the first three vol-umes that any system of classification is ‘extra-logical’. There is no given or precon-

ceived logic for classification. Classification is hierarchical and involves looking for

arrangements between categories, but this is not a spontaneous process based upon

abstract reasoning, it is the product of a human process of classification. The reasons

why we developed such a system of classification may have been forgotten, but the

categories still continue and new ideas are assimilated into existing categories. How-

ever, it is perfectly legitimate to ask why have we classified the world in this way. As

Durkheim made clear:

We have no justification for supposing that our mind bears within it at birth, completely

formed, the prototype of this elementary framework of all classification (Durkheim &

Mauss, 1963, p. 8).

Durkheim argued that ideas are organized on a model that is contained within the

conscience collective. Once the conscience collective is established, it exercises a con-

straint upon people, which can inhibit future change within or between the catego-

ries. Hence, Durkheim argues that there is a close link ‘between the social system

and this logical system’ (Durkheim & Mauss, 1963, p. 41). However, the system of

classification can change. In Primitive Classification, Durkheim and Mauss give the

example of the decline of ‘totemism’ on the islands of the Torres Straits.However, again as Bernstein pointed out, Durkheim is often presented as a naive

pre-curser to a caricature of Parsonian Functionalism. For Bernstein, this view

ignores the ontological status of Durkheim’s central ideas in relation to the social

bond. Durkheim was primarily interested in social facts, which are not ‘absolute’

facts and have a very different ontological status rooted in the practical ideas and

perceptions of human agents.

For Durkheim, classification is simply about the concepts that we use to

describe the relations between things. Everything is labelled and given a place

within an integrated system: ‘Classification are thus intended, above all, to con-

nect ideas, to unify knowledge …’ (Durkheim & Mauss, 1963, p. 81). The classes



Basil Bernstein 117

and the relationship between the classes are social in origin. Concepts are collec-

tive representations; they are ideas about the shared ways of doing things or prac-

tice. The relationship between the idea and the activity is like the relationship

between the rules of a game of football and the activity of playing a game. The

rules were clearly made by people, and people can change them if they so wish.However, in order to avoid an extreme relativist position, Durkheim argued that

the collective representation was a social fact that exercised a constraint upon

people. It is important to note that the external constraint of the social fact is

totally dependent upon the internal constraint of the human agent upon itself. We

possess both agencies and are aware of this shared perception; we can then choose

to behave in the way that other do in similar circumstances—classifying this as the

‘right’ way. Or we can choose to behave in some other fashion of our own choos-

ing. Excessive individualism, as the root of Durkheim’s conception of egoistic sui-

cide, would not be possible otherwise. One cannot have the Durkheimian

conception of ‘egoistic suicide’ without the ability of the human agent to place

itself outside of the expectations of others.

Many commentators assume that if the human agent chooses to reproduce an

existing collective representation, and behave in the same as others, then the person

is not exercising their agency. This ‘reciprocal imitation’ is a psychological factor

that is highly social in nature ‘since it is co-operative elaboration of a common

sentiment’ (Durkheim, 1952, p. 130).

One of the questions that Bernstein addressed in his early work was why do people

conform to a given language code? In a Durkheimian fashion Bernstein assumes that

people have a psychological need for attachment, because this increases our chancesof survival. As Durkheim made clear ‘… since morality determines, fixes, regularizes

man’s conduct, it presupposes a certain disposition in the individual for a regular

existence—a preference for regularity’ (Durkheim, 1973, p. 34). The more active

people are in their interactions with each other, the more intense will be the collec-

tive life of the society. However, Durkheim makes clear that ‘ whatever is social in us

is deprived of all objective foundation’ (Durkheim, 1952, p. 213). People participate

within the social because of the direct benefits that such reciprocity can give them.

From this close reading of Durkheim, Bernstein generates a conception of human

agency that has the following elements. The human being has biological needs and

security needs, but does not have the skill to survive without the cooperation of others.

Hence, the Bernsteinian human agent has a practical consciousness. The practical

consciousness for both Bernstein and Durkheim appears to have three elements to it:

• A collective expression, the person may choose to carry out an action which is of

benefit to others without itself, in order to enhance a communal response in

others. As Durkheim explained: ‘… behaviour … directed exclusively toward the

personal ends of the actor does not have moral value’ (1973, p. 57).

• A reflective expression, the person may choose behave in a way which is accept-

able within the community, this will reduce feelings of ‘otherness’ and enhancefeelings of solidarity: ‘To act morally is to act in terms of the collective interest’



118 S. Best

(Durkheim, 1973, p. 59) and: ‘If a man is to be a moral being, he must be devoted

to something other than himself’ (1973, p. 79).

• A reasoning expression, the person may choose to limit their own independence

choosing to follow a collective representation. A central element of morality for

Durkheim is self-mastery.

However, as Durkheim so clearly outlined in his study of suicide, the individual

human agent has a need for independence and a need for the security of regulation;

these must be kept in balance. Hence in the first three volumes of Class Codes and

Control the human being is an agent for Bernstein, it make decisions in every situ-

ation that it finds itself in.

From Durkheim, Bernstein took the idea that for any aspect of human behaviour

to be called ‘moral’ it must be common in the sense that it involves a relationship

between the consciousnesses of sentient beings and conform to pre-established rules.

This means that morality has an element of ‘duty’ about it. The function of morality

is then to limit the behaviour of the individual to the expectations of the wider soci-

ety. However, such rules that do exist are general prescriptions and do not apply

exactly in every situation: ‘It is up to the person to see how it applies in a given situ-

ation’ (Durkheim, 1973, p. 23). In addition, the person has to have an understanding

that moral authority is something which Durkheim would call sui generis and not

simply another name for our own personal habits.

Durkheim presupposes that people have the capacity to choose how to behave and

that individuals are capable of behaving in a similar fashion in similar circumstances.

The purpose of morality then, is to:

• determine conduct;

• fix conduct; and

• eliminate individual arbitrariness.

Morality is characterized by its ‘regularity’ it is ‘internalized’ by the person as

‘accumulated experience’ but expressed ‘externally’. As Durkheim made clear ‘irreg-

ular behaviour is morally incomplete’ (1973, p. 31). Beyond ‘regularity’ we have

rules; rules prescribe ways of behaving, we behave according to the rules not because

we have some innate force at work, or because we like to behave in that particular

way but because we are subject to a regulating moral authority.

In what Durkheim termed ‘simple’ societies, morality tended to be religious in

nature. However, as things change, human duties and the roles that people perform

whilst performing their duties, become more clearly defined and placed in a human

context of moral transgression rather than sin. We start to experience the moral

order as an autonomous order independent of the people:

… morality is a totality of definite rules; it is like so many moulds with limiting boundaries,

into which we must pour our behaviour (Durkheim, 1973, p. 26).

In a nutshell, morality has several elements in Durkheim’s analysis:



Basil Bernstein 119

• to respect discipline/to accept the rules;

• to be committed to a social group; and

• to have knowledge of why people behave in the way that do and to have self mastery

over our own behaviour.

For Durkheim, ‘structures’ are the situated activities of human agents, they are

formed from practice and are not outside of time or space. As Durkheim explains:

Collective representations are the result of an immense co-operation, which stretches out

not only into space but into time as well … (1915, p. 16).

In Rules of the Sociological Method , Durkheim clearly states in his discussion of

social facts that ‘It results from their being together, a product of the actions and

reactions which take place between individual consciousness …’ (1966, p. 9).

In Suicide, at several points, Durkheim (1952) states the relationship between

agency and structure, as he did in each of his works. Replying to a critique from

Tarde, Durkheim explained:

We clearly did not imply … that society can exist without individuals, an obvious absurd-

ity we might have been spared having attributed to us. But we did mean: 1. that the group

formed by associated individuals has a reality of a different sort from each individual con-

sidered singly; 2. that collective states exist in the group from whose nature they spring,

before they affect the individual as such and establish in him a new form a purely inner

existence. (Durkheim, 1952, p. 320)

This theme is perhaps more clearly stated in Moral Education (1973), where

Durkheim states that:

… because men live together rather than separately, individual minds act upon one

another; and as a result of the relationship thus established, there appear ideas and

feelings that never characterized these minds in isolation (1973, p. 62).

The social fact then, for Durkheim, has all the essential principles that you would

expect to find in a set of a priori conceptions, but is empirical in nature.

Society for Durkheim is expressed in and through the individual. Society is out-

side of us and is experienced as a ‘constraint’, but at the same time society is within

us we experience sociality as part of our nature. Mentally we make use of ideas and

sentiments from the wider society that allows us to carry out our practices as people

with a degree of confidence. Society is then both constraining and enabling at the

same time. There is nothing ‘metaphysical’ in the nature of this relationship between

the individual and society, which can be seen in the fact that ‘morality’ as a set of

collective representations varies from society to society, as it is a social product.

The social fact can consist of ways of acting and/or ways of thinking which have a

degree of power or coercion over the individual. Even within unorganized crowds

there are collective sentiments which are present and which put pressure upon indi-

viduals to conform to the crowd behaviour. It is when people internalize new habits

that the constraint is no longer felt, because new collective representations are atwork.



120 S. Best

In Durkheimian analysis, to live in society means to live under the domination of

the commonly held ideas or beliefs that form the conscience collective. It is often the

case that even though people formulate the collective representations that help to

create the conscience collective, people are unaware that they are following common

ways of behaving.In summary, taking his point of departure from the interpretation of Durkheim

given above, Bernstein’s early work, attempted to move away from the ‘dualism’ of

having individual person (human agent) on the one hand and the society or social

structure on the other. Bernstein attempted to bring together grand theories of how

society worked with micro theories of what motivated individual social action, a dis-

tinct conception of ‘structuration’, in which individuals were in a constant process of

creation and recreation of social life and social structure. This structure is always

enabling and constraining; defined as rules and resources, it is the property of social

systems and gives shape to social systems.

Codes are viewed as ‘generalizable procedures’ but have to be understood in a

neo-Durkheiman sense that apply in a range of contexts and allow for the methodi-

cal continuation of an established sequence of speech. Codes then are applied in the

enactment/reproduction of social practices. As is well known, for Bernstein, codes

tend come in sets, and agents tend to reproduce social life with such consistency that

the codes take on an objective property. Hence, for the human agent social life is

experienced as having a high level of facticity. There is no reason to suggest beneath

or beyond the activities of the individual is any durable or permanent structure that

guides, programmes and directs the activities of individual people.

Bernstein’s epistemological break with Durkheim

What is most surprising in Bernstein (1990) is the total absence of any justification

for the relegation of the radical Durkheimian concept of class structuration as a lin-

guistic construction. Neither a rationale nor an outline of his reasons is presented.

However, one can speculate that the epistemological break was an attempt by

Bernstein to demonstrate his rejection of as cultural deficit approach. At many

points in the Class, Codes and Control project, Bernstein draws upon his own personal

experience and the experiences of his students to demonstrate how passionate he

was about challenging the arbitrary nature of class inequality. The continual misrep-

resentation of his work as a simplistic deficit approach, blaming working-class par-

ents for passing on ineffective ways of speaking to their children must have made

Bernstein very unhappy indeed.

Bernstein was writing in a distinctly ‘modern’ intellectual climate, well before the

influence of postmodernism and before any willingness of academics and students to

consider ‘discourse’ as a possible foundation of inequality. People were unwilling or

unable to grasp Bernstein’s reading of Durkheim, and unwilling to comprehend his

argument linking a context of power within a linguistic construction. In contrast,

Althusser’s reconception of the Marxian conception of ideology—with its capacity tograsp ideology operating at a level that was relatively autonomous from the forces



Basil Bernstein 121

and relations of production—gave the possibility of inequality having a linguistic

component. In a similar fashion Bourdieu’s conception of habitus, that Bernstein

also draws upon in his post 1990s writings, such Marxian theorising gives the

impression of freeing the human agent from the deterministic elements of the eco-

nomic base and allows the possibility of the processes of inequality formation havinga linguistic element. However, Althusser was always keen to state that in the last

analysis the economic base was dominant. Unlike Bernstein’s Durkheimian intellec-

tual influences that were both misunderstood and caricatured as at best ‘highly

abstract and largely unintelligible’ (Musgrove, 1979) or at worst as knee jerk func-

tionalism with no ‘elaborated conception of “class”’ (Demaine, 1981, p. 39), the

class-based reputations of Althusser or Bourdieu that were never in question.

In Volume IV of Class, Codes and Control , Bernstein embarks upon an evolution of

his central concepts ‘a rewriting of the original definitions’ (1990, p. 15); this rewrit-

ing involves a distinct epistemological break from the forms of theorising found in

the first three volumes. There is shift towards Marxian and neo-Marxian forms of

analyses that squeeze out the role of the human agent in the process of structuration.

Althusser’s conception of ideology becomes the basis for the new definitions of

classification, code and frame. Human agency is only mentioned in relation to the

function it performs in relation to modes of cultural reproduction, notably its passive

role as ‘acquirer’. For Bernstein (1990) ‘Discourse, as we shall see, has a material

base’ (p. 22). Codes are derived from the economic base and ‘ideology inheres in

and regulates modes of relation’ (Bernstein, 1990, p. 13). Class regulates power rela-

tions and in turn class place the individual within classifications; the insulation of

these classifications is also class determined. Even ‘the strategies for challenging thecode are given by the code’s principles’ (Bernstein, 1990, p. 39).

As Bernstein explains, ‘It is the case that the individual is not conceptualised as

the basic unit the analysis. The basic unit of analysis is the social relation of trans-

mission and acquisition, and the focus is upon its control’ (Bernstein, 1990, p. 7).

The mode of production shapes the division of labour and determines who has

access to elaborated codes: ‘In as much as the relations within and between education

and production are class-regulated, then code acquisition regulates cultural repro-

duction of class’ (Bernstein, 1990, p. 21, italics within the original).

Agency operates at macro level in volume IV, and is found in a range of institu-

tions outside of the sphere of influence of the individual; Bernstein defines these

institutions in terms of the roles they perform as regulators; repairers; reproducers; con-

structing the consciousness of individual human agents, who become passively dom-

inated. Agency resides within the social division of class and is defined by its material

base. Individuals are defined solely in terms of their role as ‘acquirer’. Somewhat

surprisingly, even in the last chapter of volume IV on the social construction of dis-

course, where Bernstein addresses some of the criticisms of his work, he explains

that there are a number of critiques that he does not intend to address, such as:

‘These theories of cultural reproduction are morally repugnant because they are so deter-

ministic’. I am not concerned with this criticism (Bernstein, 1990, p. 169).



122 S. Best

Bernstein’s (1996) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity forms the fifth and final

volume of the Class, Codes and Control series. The volume is concerned with under-

standing the modalities of ‘symbolic control’ that transform consciousness and

desire into specific forms. In other words, the formal and informal processes that

link power to discourse; power relations are transformed and become increasinglyunder state control. Power relations define individuals within given categories of

agency; create, reproduce, maintain and legitimise the boundaries of class, race and

gender and defines the discourse that is legitimate for people within these categories

to use. Social division is also found within the consciousness of the individual human

agent: ‘Within the individual, the insulation becomes a system of psychic defences

against the possibility of weakening of the insulation’ (Bernstein, 1996, p. 21).

Power relationships define what constitutes a legitimate form of consciousness for

the individual human agent, as classification establishes the limits of discourse. This

is most clearly seen in what Bernstein refers to as the ‘rules of discursive order’: ‘The

rules of discursive order refer to selection, sequence, pacing and criteria of the know-

ledge’ (Bernstein, 1996, p. 28). What Bernstein terms as ‘recognition rules’ are cent-

ral to understanding how the individual human agent comes to understand the

context in which they find themselves: ‘The realization rule determines how we put

meanings together and how we make them public’ (Bernstein, 1996, p. 32). In addi-

tion to realizations rules, there are distributive rules that ‘regulate the relationship

between power, social groups, forms of consciousness and practice’ (Bernstein,

1996, p. 42) and ‘recontextualizing rules’ that regulate the formation of discourse.

The code ceases to be a ‘practical accomplishment’ of the individual human agent

and takes on a life of its own as a product of class determinism, as Bernstein (1996)argues ‘code modalities construct different structuring structures’ (Bernstein, 1996,

p. 190). It is for this reason that the individual human agent is referred to as the

‘acquirer’ in Volume V.

The Althusserian conception of ideology has a central role to play in Bernstein

(1996), it forms the basis by which codes are acquired and without a conception of

ideology Bernstein argues ‘then it is not possible to understand how codes bias con-

sciousness’ (p. 106), ‘meanings have a direct relation to a material base’ (p. 44) and

‘No discourse ever moves without ideology at play’ (p. 47).

Bernstein makes this position as clear as possible by stating ‘Discourses and

knowledge are not only “regimes of truth” but are also differentiating and stratifying

rituals. As differentiating and stratifying rituals they create specific classifications and

framings of consciousness, identity and relation and this way specialize habituses’

(Bernstein, 1996, pp. 174–175). In Bernstein’s later work on horizontal and vertical

discourse social class has a central determining role in the individual’s readings and

realizations. However, what people choose to say and how they choose to speak is

not a simple reflection of bourgeois material interests. In Bernstein (1996), unlike in

Volumes I, II and III, the production of codes take place in a different space from

the location of their use. The later volumes provide no ‘empty’ space in which the

individual human agent can form or challenge the domination of such classificationsand framings of consciousness.



Basil Bernstein 123

Conclusions

Even though Durkheim’s analysis has flaws, especially in terms of his attempt to

‘sociologize’ Kant, Bernstein’s earlier neo-Durkhemian analysis is much more effect-

ive in terms of its understanding of the relationship between agency and structure.

The Althusserian neo-Marxian assumptions of Volumes IV and V assume that the

human agent is passive, has little or no ability to create or resist class domination and

is under the domination of ideology. Bernstein assumes in these last two volumes

that the ruling class can make use of the curriculum to manipulate the ideas and

worldview of working class children, so that they become simple acquirers. In the

Marxian conceptions of ideology and habitus that Bernstein moves towards the

bourgeoisie are assumed to have the ability to take any idea or any object and give it

a new meaning or new representation within the consciousness of the working class

child. This new representation is supportive of capitalism and against the very inter-

ests of the person who holds the idea in their own head. Bernstein does not attemptto explain what happens at a cognitive level to cause working class children to reject

their own economic interests so fully and totally. The ideological construction and

continual reconstruction of the consciousness of the individual human agent, so that

they can become passively ideologically dominated is left unstated and unexplained

in Bernstein’s later works, because in the last analysis Bernstein always knew that his

radical Durkheiman approach was must better suited to the purpose.

References

Atkinson, P. (1985) Language, structure and reproduction: an introduction to the sociology of Basil

Bernstein (Methuen, London).

Atkinson, P., Davies, B. & Delamont, S. (Eds) (1995) Discourse and reproduction: essays in honor of

Basil Bernstein (Hampton Press, Inc., Cresskill, NJ).

Bernstein, B. (1971) Class, codes and control: Volume I Theoretical studies towards a sociology of

language (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London).

Bernstein, B. (1975) Class, codes and control: Volume III Towards a theory of educational transmission

(Routledge and Kegan Paul, London).

Bernstein, B. (1990) Class, codes and control Vol IV: The structuring of pedagogic discourse (Routledge,

London).

Bernstein, B. (1996) Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research, critique (Taylor andFrancis, London).

Bowles, S. & Gintis, H. (1976) Schooling in capitalist America: educational reform and the contradic-

tions of economic life. (Basic Books, New York).

Cloran, C. (1994) Rhetorical units and decontextualisation: an enquiry into some relations of con-

text, meaning and grammar. Monographs in systemic linguistics (Nottingham University:

School of English Studies, Nottingham).

Cloran, C. (1995) Defining and relating text segments: subject and theme in discourse, in: R. Hasan &

P. H. Fries (Eds) On subject and theme: a discourse functional perspective (John Benjamins, Amsterdam).

Cloran, C. (1999) Contexts for learning, in: F. Christie (Ed.) Pedagogy and the shaping of conscious-

ness (Cassell, London).

Collins, J. (2000) Bernstein, Bourdieu and the new literacy studies, Linguistics and Education,11(1), 65–78.



124 S. Best

Cook, J. A. (1973) Language and socialization: a critical review, in: B. Bernstein (Ed.) Class, codes

and control Volume II Applied studies towards a sociology of language (Routledge and Kegan Paul,

London).

Davison, C. (2005) Learning your lines: negotiating language and content in subject English, Lin-

guistics and Education, 16, 219–237.

Demaine, E. (1981) Contemporary theories in the sociology of education (Macmillan, London).Durkheim, E. (1915) The elementary forms of the religious life; translated [from the French] by Joseph

Ward Swain (Allen & Unwin, London).

Durkheim, E. (1952) Suicide: a study in sociology, translated [from the French] by John A. Spaulding &

George Simpson (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London).

Durkheim, E. (1966) The rules of sociological method , translated by Sarah A. Solovay & John H.

Mueller (Free Press, New York).

Durkheim, E. (1973) Moral education: a study in the theory and application of the sociology of

education, translated by Everett K. Wilson & Herman Schnurer (Free Press of Glencoe,

New York).

Durkheim, E. & Mauss, M. (1963) Primitive classification, translated by Rodney Needham (Cohen

& West, London).Edwards, T. (2002) A remarkable sociological imagination, British Journal of Sociology of Education,

23(4), 527–535.

Hasan, R. (1989) Semantic variation and sociolinguistics, Australian Journal of Linguistics, 9(2),

221–276.

Hasan, R. (1992) Rationality in everyday talk: from process to system, in: J. Svartvik (Ed.) Corpus

inguistics: Proceedings of Nobel Symposium, Stockholm, 4–8 August 1991 (Mouton de Gruyter,

Berlin).

Hasan, R. (1993) Contexts for meaning, in: J.E. Alatis (Ed.) Georgetown round table on language,

communication, and social meaning (Georgetown University Press, Washington DC).

Hasan, R. (1996) Literacy, everyday talk and society, in: R. Hasan & G. Williams (Eds) Literacy in

society (Longman, Harrow).Hasan, R. (1999) Speaking with reference to context, in: M. Ghadessy (Ed.) Text and context in

functional linguistics (John Benjamins, Amsterdam), pp. 219–328.

Hasan, R. (2000) The uses of talk, in: S. Sarangi & M. Coulthard (Eds) Discourse and social life

(Longman, London).

Lemke, J. L. (1995) Textual politics: discourse and social dynamics (Taylor & Francis, London).

Moss, G. (2000) Informal literacies and pedagogic discourse, Linguistics and Education, 11(1), 47–64.

Moss, G. & Erben, M. (2000) Introduction to the linguistics and education: special issue on

knowledge, identity, and pedagogy: themes from the work of Basil Bernstein, Linguistics and

Education, 11(1), 1–5.

Musgrove, F. (1979) School and the social order (John Wiley, Chichester).

Sadovnik, A. (1991) Basil Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic practice: a structuralist approach, Sociologyof Education, 64(1), 48–63.

Sadovnik, A. R. (Ed.) (1995) Knowledge and pedagogy: the sociology of Basil Bernstein (Ablex Publishing,

Norwood, NJ)

Williams, G. (1995) Joint book-reading and literacy pedagogy: a socio-semantic interpretation,

CORE , vol 1, 19(3); Vol 2, 20(1).

Williams, G. (1999) The pedagogical device and the production of pedagogic discourse: a case

example in early literacy education, in: F. Christie (Ed.) Pedagogy and the shaping of conscious-

ness (Cassell, London).

Willis, P. (1977) Learning to labour: how working class kids get working class jobs (Saxon House,

London).

Best-bernstein Agency Structure

Documents

Transcript of Best-bernstein Agency Structure