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Sociology

Knowledge, power and powerful knowledge re‐visited

Profile image of Johan MullerJohan Muller

The Curriculum Journal

https://doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2019.1570292
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25 pages

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Abstract

This article extends the authors' earlier work (Young and Muller 2013) exploring the concept of 'powerful knowledge'. It first examines some of the origins of the concept and goes on to a brief consideration of how sociology, political theory and economics have traditionally represented 'power' and 'knowledge'. Two key senses of power are identified and two difficulties are next identified: how to retain both senses of power in a satisfactory account of 'powerful knowledge; and how to provide a satisfactory account of the 'power' of knowledge in the Humanities. By identifying three meanings of 'powerful knowledge', and making an argument for their interrelationship, the article aims to put the concept on a firmer footing and point to its potential implications for curriculum theory

Key takeaways
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  1. Powerful knowledge (PK) differs fundamentally from knowledge of the powerful (KOTP) in educational contexts.
  2. The article clarifies the interrelationship between knowledge and power, particularly in curriculum theory.
  3. PK represents a non-zero-sum property, potentially accessible to all who acquire it, unlike KOTP.
  4. The authors identify three meanings of 'powerful knowledge' to strengthen its theoretical foundation.
  5. The discourse around PK must include both its positive potential and the power dynamics of its application.

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This is a response to two discussions of my article ‘The Weakness of Powerful Knowledge’ in London Review of.Education (2018), the first by Johan Muller and Michael Young and the second by Jim Hordern, also in LRE. It also makes brief comments on pieces on powerful knowledge in a recent LRE Special Issue (2018). The question I focus on here, as in 2018, is ‘What is powerful knowledge?’ I raise doubts about Muller and Young’s new answer to this question as well as about Hordern’s defence of Young’s position more generally. I suggest in conclusion that it would be helpful to abandon the term ‘powerful knowledge’ and use language more suitable to impartial scholarly investigations.

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The production of reason and power: Curriculum history and intellectual traditions
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Journal of Curriculum Studies, 1997

Curricula are historically formed within systems of ideas that inscribe styles of reasoning, standards and conceptual distinctions in school practices and its subjects. Further, the systems of reasoning embodied in schooling are the effects of power. That power is in the manner in which the categories and distinctions of curriculum shape and fashion interpretation and action. In this sense, curriculum is a practice of social regulation and the effect of power. The question of what is curriculum history is also a question about the politics of the knowledge embodied in disciplinary work. Two enduring assumptions of the Enlightenment inscribed in contemporary educational history and research are explored. One identi es social progress as tied to an evolutionary conception of change. The second relates to the epistemological assumption that inquiry must identify the actors as causal agents who bring or suppress social change. Both of these assumptions are, I argue, grounded in a particular doctrine of modernity and the effects of power. The essay argues for an alternative conception of intellectual work and its relation to social change. It does this through viewing intellectual work as a strategy for destabilizing the conventions of reason' that limit the consideration of alternatives.

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This paper examines the concept of 'powerful knowledge' and provides new perspectives on an important emergent theory for education. We claim that the key to attaining powerful knowledge is 'epistemic access' to the discipline, which is access of the generative principles of knowledge creation. We draw on 15 years teaching and researching a university science programme in which undergraduate ecology students are trained as researchers during the 3 years they attend university. Hence, there is close alignment between teaching students to do research and powerful knowledge. In addition, it has been suggested that the 'power' in powerful knowledge is realised in what is done with that knowledge, that its purpose is social since it allows the holder to make a better contribution to society. We argue that in addition to such an aspirational 'outcome', it can be part of the process of education and early acquisition of powerful knowledge can influence all subsequent formal and informal learning experiences as the student progresses though university. A model for powerful knowledge is presented in which there is the possibility of powerful action after graduation, but this remains in the theoretical realm while there is very little empirical evidence supporting such a hypothesis for ecology students. Powerful action also questions the limits of responsibility for a teacher.

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