Journal of Curriculum Studies

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tcus20

Analysing micro-credentials in higher education: a

Bernsteinian analysis

Leesa Wheelahan & Gavin Moodie

To cite this article: Leesa Wheelahan & Gavin Moodie (2021) Analysing micro-credentials in
higher education: a Bernsteinian analysis, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 53:2, 212-228, DOI:
10.1080/00220272.2021.1887358

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2021.1887358

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa

UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group.

Published online: 23 Apr 2021.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 10527

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 10 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tcus20
JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES
2021, VOL. 53, NO. 2, 212–228
https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2021.1887358

Analysing micro-credentials in higher education: a Bernsteinian

analysis
Leesa Wheelahan and Gavin Moodie
Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of
Toronto, Canada

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This paper critiques the emergence of micro-credentials in higher educa­ Bernstein; social realism;
tion. It argues that micro-credentials build on the discourse of employ­ micro-credentials; 21st
ability skills and 21st century skills within human capital theory, and that century skills; higher
education; Didaktik tradition
they increase the potential of human capital theory to ‘discipline’ the HE
curriculum to align it more closely with putative labour market require­
ments. The paper is situated within the social realist school in the sociol­
ogy of education, and it draws primarily on the sociology of Basil Bernstein
to develop this critique, while also drawing on the Continental Didaktik
tradition. It analyses the nature of the person envisaged in curriculum, the
homo economicus of human capital theory. This self is a market self who
uses micro-credentials to invest in this or that set of skills in anticipating
labour market requirements. The paper uses a range of Bernstein’s con­
cepts to analyse the links between what is to be taught, to whom is it
taught, and how is it taught in micro-credentials. It focuses on the prin­
ciple of recontextualization which comprises instructional and regulative
discourses, to examine the ways in which notions of the person and
human motivation are reshaping relations of classification and framing
in HE curriculum.

Introduction
The hype about micro-credentials in higher education policy in 2020 is similar to the hype about
massive open online courses (MOOCs) in 2012 (Moodie, 2016). Micro-credentials are industry-aligned
short units of learning that are certified or credentialed, and they can (mostly) ‘stack’ or count
towards a higher education qualification. While variations of micro-credentials have existed in
vocational education for many years, they have now moved from vocational education to the centre
of higher education policy. They are the newest tool used by governments to re-orient higher
education towards a narrow focus on preparation for work. Micro-credentials are the latest con­
tribution to the discourse of ‘genericism’ in which individuals have to be ready for perpetual
‘trainability’, divorced from a core disciplinary or occupational focus and their associated identities
(Bernstein, 2000). They are an extension of ‘21st century skills’ and the discourse of employability in
higher education. And, like these, they draw on the language of progressivism, opportunity and self-
realization as a key aspect of their legitimation. While micro-credentials were gaining momentum
before 2020, Covid-19 has accelerated their introduction in many jurisdictions, as governments have
sought to respond to the surge in unemployment as a consequence of quarantining measures, and
universities sought to develop new markets, in part in response to the decline in enrolments by
international students who could no longer travel to their host countries.

CONTACT Leesa Wheelahan Leesa.Wheelahan@utoronto.ca Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
 JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES 213

This paper argues that while micro-credentials are an extension of the discourse of employability
skills, their potential to ‘discipline’ the higher education curriculum to align it more closely with
putative labour market requirements is more far-reaching than hitherto. This is because micro-
credentials weaken relations of classification of knowledge and framing (the pacing, sequencing
and evaluation) of knowledge more than other previous innovations in higher education curriculum.
The paper provides a framework for analysing micro-credentials. It is primarily situated in the social
realist school within the sociology of education, but it also draws from the Continental Didaktik
tradition. Each can contribute to the other, and in the process make an important contribution to
theorizing about the nature of educational knowledge in higher education. Such a dialogue can help
to overcome problems of disciplinary fragmentation in theorizing the nature of curriculum and
educational knowledge in Anglophone traditions (Biesta, 2007; Furlong & Whitty, 2017).
This paper uses social realism to address questions asked by the more hermeneutic Didaktik
traditions in Continental Europe. The main ‘hermeneutic’ question addressed here concerns the
nature of the person envisaged in curriculum. In responding to these questions, the paper uses social
realism to theorize the nature of educational knowledge in higher education to show that the person
envisaged in higher education is the homo economicus of human capital theory (Maton & Moore,
2010; Muller, 2000; Wheelahan, 2010b; M. Young, 2008). Social realism is heavily indebted to the
sociology of Basil Bernstein, and in this paper, we draw on a range of Bernsteinian tools in develop­
ing our analysis, including the classification and framing of knowledge; singulars (‘pure’ disciplines),
regions (‘applied’ disciplines), genericism (competencies), and the principle of recontextualization.
These conceptual tools are used to analyse the links between what is to be taught, why it is to be
taught, to whom it is taught, and how it is taught, questions which underpin the Didaktik tradition. It
uses Bernstein’s distinction between the instructional and the regulative discourse within the
principle of recontextualization to demonstrate how the regulative principle of human capital theory
‘disciplines’ the curriculum in the academic disciplines and professions, notwithstanding academic
autonomy in universities. In developing this analysis, the paper demonstrates the potential for social
realism to contribute to the development of ‘powerful knowledge’ which is able to analyse con­
temporary changes in higher education curriculum.1
The first section of this paper explains what micro-credentials are, where they come from, and
how they have moved to the centre of higher education policy in many countries. The second
section analyses why there is a gap in theorizing educational knowledge in higher education to help
explain the relative lack of opposition to micro-credentials, and it contrasts Anglophone traditions
with Didaktik traditions. It draws on the latter to consider questions that should be asked in
theorizing about curriculum in higher education. This section then explores the state of theorizing
about educational knowledge in higher education to show that the distinction between curriculum
on the one hand, and pedagogy or teaching and learning on the other, contributes to instrumental
discourses about the purposes of, and outcomes from, higher education. The next section draws on
social realism and Basil Bernstein to assemble the tools needed to analyse micro-credentials and
their precursors, employability skills and 21st century skills. It shows how the instrumental discourses
that underpin curriculum construction are able to co-opt the language of progressivism in legitimat­
ing the rational, instrumental, self-maximizing actor of human capital theory. These assembled tools
are then used to analyse micro-credentials in the final section of this paper. It illustrates how a theory
of educational knowledge can be used to analyse the curriculum and its outcomes.

Micro-credentials, 21st century skills and employability skills

Covid-19 has provided the impetus for the rapid implementation of micro-credentials by govern­
ments in several jurisdictions. There is not yet a common understanding let alone the definition of
micro-credentials, as we discuss later. For the purposes of this discussion, we understand micro-
credentials to be educational awards for learning from around 10% to up to a full academic year but
less than a conventional educational award or credential. Micro-credentials have moved from the
214 L. WHEELAHAN AND G. MOODIE

urgings of policy-think tanks and international government organizations (OECD—Kato et al., 2020,
p.8; see also, UNESCO—Chakroun & Keevy, 2018; European Commission—MicroHE Consortium, n. d.;
Commonwealth of Learning—Rossiter & Tynan, 2019) to the centre of policy in several countries. For
example, the New Zealand Qualifications Framework now includes micro-credentials (New Zealand
Qualifications Authority, 2018) and the Australian government, in response to the 2020 Covid-19
pandemic, introduced an entirely new type of qualification called an ‘under-graduate higher educa­
tion certificate’ which is of six months duration (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020). The Australian
Government’s action is broadly representative of other governments in marketized Anglophone
systems where there is pressure to make universities more ‘responsive’ to the market and more
oriented to work, two claims which are made for the importance of micro-credentials (Oliver, 2019).
For example, the Business Council of Australia (2018) argues in its policy advocacy for micro-
credentials that they can meet the unique needs of individuals and employers. The provincial
government of Ontario in Canada says that:

A greater focus on micro-credentials will allow increased flexibility and responsiveness to student and employer
needs. Micro-credentials will allow Ontarians to upgrade their employment-related skills quickly and efficiently
and remain competitive in the workforce, while at the same time accommodate the demands of work and
family. (Government of Ontario, 2020)

Several states in the United States are incorporating micro-credentials into their professional devel­
opment programmes for teachers as part of their compliance with the federal ‘Every Student
Succeeds Act’ (Hunt et al., 2020), and systems such as the State University of New York have
introduced micro-credentials as a part of their suite of credentials or qualifications (State
University of New York, 2020). Micro-credentials are offered by providers such as Coursera, EdX,
Udacity and FutureLearn, often in partnership with prominent universities in the UK and elsewhere
(Horton, 2020). And, many prominent universities, particularly in Anglophone systems, are offering
micro-credentials in their own right.
International government organizations such as UNESCO (Chakroun & Keevy, 2018), and the
OECD (Kato et al., 2020) are focusing on micro-credentials, as is the European Commission, with the
European MOOC Consortium launching a Common Microcredential Framework ‘to create portable
credentials for lifelong long learners’ (Konings, 2019). The Lumina Foundation (J. R. Young, 2018), the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and a range of other philanthropic trusts are funding numerous
projects designed to embed micro-credentials within different jurisdictions (Greene, 2019).
There is lack of coherence and consistency in defining micro-credentials and this is the subject of
intense policy work to establish a common language as the basis of a ‘common currency’ in the post-
secondary education credentials market. While micro-credentials differ in the way they are defined
and what they include or exclude, a generally shared assumption is that a micro-credential can
‘count’ towards a ‘parent’ qualification such as a diploma, bachelor degree or higher-level qualifica­
tion (Kato et al., 2020). Depending on how they are structured, authorized and quality assured, micro-
credentials may or may not be broken down further and include badges and industry-recognized
certificates. It is becoming clearer that micro-credentials are substantive ‘enough’ to be included in
national qualifications frameworks, while in turn, they may comprise smaller units such as digital
badges, digital credentials and micro-certifications (Pichette & Rizk, 2020). The development of
micro-credentials and their relationship to other ‘micro’ forms of learning such as badges is still in
flux (Kato et al., 2020). Their development has been facilitated by the development of digital
platforms that can safely record, store and transmit these micro-units of learning between institu­
tions (Keevy et al., 2019). Through these means, micro-credentials can be authenticated as being
issued by an authoritative source, and added and stacked to make different combinations of
qualifications.
The development of micro-credentials to the point where they are being included in national
policy frameworks such as qualifications frameworks shows that these international policy flows are
now embedded within national contexts. Wahlström and Sundberg (2018) draw on discursive
 JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES 215

institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008) to explain the ways in which international policy flows are con­
stituted by policy actors in international government organizations, think tanks and other policy
actors (which includes philanthropic trusts).2 These policy actors engage with national policy actors
through ‘to and fro’ processes as these discourses undergo processes of recontextualisation to reflect
national specificities. Wahlström and Sundberg refer to these discourses as ‘coordinative discourses’,
while ‘communicative discourses’ mediate discourse between policy actors and the public. The
former provides the basis for the ‘public philosophy’ that underpins policy intentions (in this case
the individual as constituted by human capital theory), while the latter provides the ‘persuasive’
discourse to underpin policy development and change.
Micro-credentials are strongly shaped by ‘common sense’ understandings of the role and purpose
of higher education, particularly in supporting people to attain the skills needed for work. In other
words, the public philosophy that underpins them has become naturalized as common-sense. Micro-
credentials build on graduate attributes, employability skills and 21st century skills, and take these to
their logical conclusion, which is that learning is about work, that the purpose of learning is to
prepare individuals for the labour market, and that this can be achieved in small bite-sized chunks.
Challenging this discourse requires challenging the public philosophy that it is based upon. This is
difficult to do in Anglophone traditions which separate theorizing about education, including higher
education, into different disciplines. And, the complexities in challenging this public philosophy are
further accentuated by the tendency to distinguish between curriculum and pedagogy so that the
‘problem’ is one of how to teach, not what we are teaching or the link between the two (Muller,
2014). The Didaktik tradition is helpful in thinking through these problems.

Comparing different traditions and the state of educational knowledge in higher

education
In his historical analysis of the study of education and the difference between the Anglophone and
the Continental Didaktik tradition, Biesta (2011) explains that in Anglophone traditions the study of
education as an object and the field of education studies has been fragmented between the ‘four
contributing disciplines’—history, philosophy, sociology and psychology, with psychology being the
dominant discipline. As a consequence, educational theory has been described memorably as
‘undifferentiated mush’ (Peters, 1967, p. 155); it is not an autonomous construction generating its
own theoretical knowledge and criteria for judging knowledge claims, relying instead on its ‘parent’
disciplines to do this. The education field is thus subject to intra and inter-disciplinary disputes which
make it difficult to establish education as a shared object of study with at least some shared
assumptions about the defining features of that object or the field (Barrett & Hordern, in press)
Biesta (2011) contrasts Anglophone traditions to the field of educational studies in the
Continental Didaktik tradition, which takes education as a field in its own right that involves ‘forms
of theory and theorising that are distinctively educational’ rather than just being ‘generated through
other disciplines’ (p. 176). These traditions are characterized by hermeneutical approaches that
explore and link the aims of education, what is to be taught and how, the relationship between
a ‘parent’ discipline and its educational subject (for example, the discipline of physics and how that
should be ‘pedagogised’ into a subject that is taught), the ‘student-content relation’ and the
‘student-teacher relation’ (Johansen, 2007, pp. 250–251). As Doyle (2017) explains, rather than seeing
curriculum as the unproblematic rendering of taken-for-granted knowledge to curriculum, the
Didaktik tradition provides ‘tools for teachers to come to pedagogical terms with the contents
they teach’ (p. 219). The Didaktik tradition includes a debate about the normative purposes or
goals of education, including the nature of the human being as the outcome of education (Biesta,
2011).
In contrast, the disciplinary divisions in Anglophone traditions mean that no single ‘founding
discipline’ is able to ask the range of questions asked by the Didaktik tradition. This fragmentation
makes it difficult to ask such normative questions about the nature of human beings, and this in part
216 L. WHEELAHAN AND G. MOODIE

makes it possible for the ‘market’ model of the individual to be the default and dominant goal of
educational policy. The dominance of this discourse is reflected in the pervasive and long-standing
emphasis in policy on so-called generic and employability skills in vocational education and so-called
graduate attributes in higher education, most recently dressed up as 21st century skills (World
Economic Forum & Boston Consulting Group, 2015). 21st century skills are underpinned by human
capital notions of the individual as one who possesses agency in a market, who is ‘market ready’ and
able to enact a ‘market performance’ (Brown & Souto-Otero, 2020). Deng (2020) explains that these
competency frameworks ‘are not educational, curricular concepts—but managerial concepts that
originate from the field of human resource management’ (p. 92). They reinforce policies of the last
40 years or so that subordinate education to the needs of the labour market and economy.
This is the default setting of educational policy which posits the rational, instrumental, self-
maximizing actor as the normative and taken-for-granted end-goal of education (Moodie et al.,
2019; Wheelahan, 2010a). Challenging this default setting is the reason why the development of
educational knowledge is urgent in all sectors of education, including in higher education. We follow
Deng (2018) who argues that the Didaktik tradition can inform curriculum theorizing in schools in
Anglophone countries, and Hodge (2018) who argues this for vocational education. That is, we argue
for theorizing about educational knowledge as educational knowledge and applying this analysis to
higher education. This goes beyond theorizing about educational knowledge from the vantage of
the four founding disciplines, or about the applied purposes of educational knowledge as prepara­
tion for teachers and teaching. Educational knowledge about education would ask broad questions
about the nature of education, its different purposes, how it is constituted to reflect these different
purposes, and how it is to be taught based on an understanding of its origins, nature, and purpose,
and of the nature of students.

How did we get here? The ‘curriculum’ problem in higher education—what works
Hordern (2019b) explains that in education faculties, particularly in Anglophone traditions, knowl­
edge about education has been differentiated from knowledge for education and conceptualized as
a distinction between theory and practice. Faculties of education are accused of being irrelevant, not
focused on practice, and not evidence-based (Hordern & Tatto, 2018). This separation is coupled with
the relative isolation of faculties of education within universities in Anglophone traditions, with their
primary purpose being the preparation of school teachers so that the ‘context for the study of
education is teacher education’ (Biesta, 2011, p. 180). Consequently, faculties of education have not
had a great impact on the university more broadly in thinking through the nature of educational
knowledge for higher education. Moreover, the relative institutional autonomy of universities and
notions of academic freedom have shielded them to some extent from debates about education and
curriculum in the schools and vocational education sectors, as if the problem of curriculum in those
sectors were not a problem for universities. In theory, academic freedom means that individual
academics within universities are ‘free’ to teach whatever they think matters in their field, within
limits defined by disciplinary norms (Shils, 1991). In traditional constructions of academic freedom,
the nexus between teaching and research is primary, with this assumed to be all that is needed to
teach in one’s area of expertise.
However, educational theorizing for higher education is not entirely absent in the academy. There
is research by scholars who have shown that there are differences in the way different disciplines
approach the way in which knowledge is translated to curriculum and taught (Ashwin, 2012;
A. Jones, 2009; McLean et al., 2017; Muller, 2009; Neumann et al., 2002).3 And, there has been
considerable theorizing about the nature of knowledge and the professions, particularly in consider­
ing the possibility of ‘powerful knowledge’ in ‘regions’ which are at the interface between the
professions and the academy (Case, 2017; Clegg, 2016; Hordern, 2016; M. Young & Muller, 2014).
But there has been less theorizing about the nature of educational knowledge for higher educa­
tion, which includes principles for constructing curriculum, and the relationship between forms of
 JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES 217

disciplinary and applied disciplinary knowledge and pedagogy.4 What knowledge consists of, what
knowledge matters, and how higher education provides epistemic access to different forms of
knowledge is reduced to pedagogic and not epistemic problems. Knowledge is thus taken for
granted, and the problem is reduced to translating this knowledge to pedagogy. Muller (2014,
p. 260) explains that in the voluminous literature on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL)
in higher education, that the problem has been recast as one which ‘lies with the practices of
teaching and learning rather than with the logic of the knowledge or its curricular recontextualisa­
tion.’ The emphasis on, and focus of, SoTL is for example, what has allowed medical faculties to
implement problem-based learning and competency-based models of curriculum untroubled by any
critiques about these educational practices and the extent to which they facilitate students’ access to
the theoretical knowledge needed to solve particular problems; and, the extent to which they
provide students with access to the disciplinary criteria that they need to judge knowledge claims.
Higher education has largely been indifferent to critiques of competency-based training in voca­
tional education where it originated (Wheelahan, 2010b) because higher education largely ignores
vocational education, except when pressed as a source of potential students.5
However, while the mechanisms for supervision and coercion are much greater and more overt
for vocational education in most countries, universities have also been the subject of reforms to
produce similar (if not as tightly prescribed) outcomes. Universities are now required to ensure that
their programs produce graduates for the labour market. They must be competitive in markets to
ensure that they are responsive to market needs, and be quality assured through mechanisms of
external evaluation (Slaughter & Leslie, 2007). Policies for learning outcomes link all levels of the
academy, as a mechanism for governance at the broadest level, right down to learning outcomes in
individual courses or subjects (Lassnigg, 2012).6
This process is not restricted to Anglophone systems or those systems shaped by the colonial
imposition of Anglophone models. Magnússon and Rytzler (2019) argue that the Bologna process
and the establishment of the European Higher Education Area in Continental Europe has shifted the
emphasis of curriculum towards learning outcomes and resulted in homogenized, goal-oriented and
standardized curriculum that has resulted in the separation of what is to be taught, from how it is to
be taught. They argue that this has separated what is to be taught from the disciplines.7 The sleight
of hand here is that pedagogy is pedagogy, that there is no difference between disciplines. However,
arguably, each field has its distinctive pedagogy which is related to its knowledge and mechanisms
for justification.

A Bernsteinian framework
In this section, we explain Bernstein’s concepts of singulars and regions, classification and framing,
and the principle of recontextualisation, which refers to how knowledge is recontextualised from the
field in which it is produced and translated into curriculum. Our use of Bernsteinian concepts is
necessarily selective given the rich and interconnected nature of his theoretical framework.
Bernstein’s (2000) key insight was that the structure of knowledge and how this is recontextualised
for curriculum and pedagogic practice is the relay for relations of power as much as the content of
pedagogic discourse. It is this insight that explains how apparently ‘student-centred’ pedagogic
practices and progressive discourses of human empowerment within curriculum can contribute to
instrumental human capital discourses of employability. And it is this insight which explains how the
‘pure’ academic disciplines are disciplined to focus on employability, and not just the disciplining of
the applied disciplines that prepare students for an occupational field of practice.
Classification refers to the boundaries between different forms of knowledge, whereas framing
refers to the selection, pacing, sequencing and evaluation of that knowledge in curriculum.
Classification is the ‘voice of power’ because it specifies what counts and what matters, and
what is included and excluded (for example, this is sociology, but that is psychology). Framing
regulates the forms of interaction and the locus of control over who can speak, and the pace,
218 L. WHEELAHAN AND G. MOODIE

sequence and form of this interaction. This is the ‘how’ of knowledge and it shapes the way the
voice of power is expressed. Framing is thus the carrier or the ‘message’ of power. Relations
between classification and framing can vary. Strongly classified knowledge means that there are
strong boundaries between different forms of knowledge, whereas weakly classified knowledge
means that these boundaries are more opaque and permeable. In curriculum that consists of
strongly classified knowledge structures, students can for example, ‘recognize’ the distinction
between different structures of knowledge (for example, sociology and psychology, or chemistry
and biology), whereas in curriculum where knowledge is weakly classified (such as in programs
that emphasize inter-disciplinarity), this may be more difficult. Strongly framed knowledge refers
to strong control over the selection, pacing, sequencing and evaluation of knowledge by the
teacher, whereas weakly framed knowledge invests greater apparent control of these processes in
students.
Bernstein distinguishes between singulars, regions and genericism as modes of knowledge.
Singulars describe the academic disciplines, while regions describe education that is oriented to
a field of practice (such as engineering or social work) rather than a singular body of knowledge.
Genericism also prepares people for a field of practice, but it relies more on the principle of market
relevance for selecting knowledge for occupational preparation.
Singulars (academic disciplines) are strongly classified and internally oriented, with strong
boundaries between them and other areas of knowledge. Singulars are specialized knowledge
structures or discourses which have a unique name (for example, physics or sociology), with
specialized languages with rules that stipulate what is included as knowledge, how knowledge is
to be created, specialized texts, rules of entry, and rewards and punishments (Bernstein, 2000 p. 52).
Socialization (and hence personal identity) is expressed through a commitment to loyalty to the
academic discipline, to its ‘otherness’ and as a consequence identities and orientations are focussed
inwards (Bernstein, 2000 p. 54). So, for example, one becomes (is) a historian, philosopher, econo­
mist, physicist or biologist.
In contrast to singular forms of knowledge, regions of knowledge face inwards towards the
disciplines that form the knowledge base of their practice, and outwards towards the field of practice
itself. Regions include the applied disciplines. Bernstein (2000 p. 52) explains that the process of
regionalizing knowledge occurs through:

. . . recontextualising singulars into larger units which operate both in the intellectual field of disciplines and in
the field of external practice. Regions are the interface between disciplines (singulars) and the technologies they
make possible.

Regions draw on, integrate and recontexualise multiple singulars using the principle of the demands
of the field of practice. The classification of knowledge within regions is consequently weaker,
because the principle of selection of knowledge and its translation to curriculum is the field of
practice and not the structure of knowledge itself (and its disciplinary classification). While this is so,
knowledge in the regions can be more or less strongly classified and more or less strongly framed.
So, curriculum may be structured so that students have access to the disciplines that underpin their
practices (such as psychology in early childhood education), or engaged in curriculum that makes
these distinctions between the disciplines and the criteria they use to judge knowledge claims more
opaque, such as in problem-based learning.
Beck and Young (2005) distinguish between the ‘old’ regions of the traditional professions (such
as medicine, engineering and law), and the ‘new’ regions of new vocationally oriented higher
education (such as social work and teaching). They elaborate and develop Bernstein’s analysis to
argue that strong forms of inner dedication to professional identity arose in traditional regions
because of the strong links between the profession and the academy. This includes the historical
links between the professions and their knowledge bases (the singulars); their emphasis on collegi­
ate autonomy and collegiate control over training and admission to the profession; through defining
the boundaries of their knowledge base; the development and enforcement of codes of conduct;
 JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES 219

and, socialization within the profession, or in other words, ‘the creation of a professional habitus’ (Beck
& Young, 2005, p. 188). So, again for example, one becomes (is) a lawyer, medical doctor, or engineer.
In contrast to the traditional regions, Hordern (2016) explains that the newer regions often have
weaker communities that underpin collegiate autonomy and are also characterized by stronger
market and bureaucratic logics that shape their development in the academy, and their practice in
the field. Bureaucratic logics are often associated with ‘welfare’ professions such as teaching and
social work in which attempts to ‘control’ professional knowledge are by external regulation
(Hordern, 2016) because of their importance as mechanisms of social control in shaping citizens
and workers. Consequently, matters to do with teacher education are of strong interest to the state.
But even with these strong forms of external regulation, one becomes (is) a teacher or social worker.

Genericism
Bernstein identified a third principle for distinguishing and organizing knowledge in the late 20th
century which he described as genericism, or as the generic mode. This has had a strong impact on
the new regions that have arisen since the massification of higher education began apace in the
1970s and took off in the 1980s (Trow, 2010). These new regions such as hospitality, tourism,
business studies and information science rely more strongly on market relevance as the principle
for selecting knowledge for fields of practice and have a tenuous connection to a knowledge base
(Muller, 2009). Muller (2009) explains that in these fields, ‘the profession itself is generally more
diffuse, fluid and less organised, and consequently sends out more ambiguous, frequently contra­
dictory signals about professional requirements to the academy’ (p. 214). Forms of identity are also
more fluid. One ‘works in’ hospitality or tourism or business administration, and occupational
identities are more fluid and contingent, reflecting in part the nature of employment in those fields.
In generic modes, identity is shaped by the requirements of the market and less by an inner
orientation to a field of knowledge or a field of practice. The impact of generic modes is felt on all
forms of higher education, including singulars, traditional and newer regions, and broad fields of
practice. The impact of generic modes may be felt differentially within these fields, with stronger
singulars and regions more able to resist the imposition of genericism. Nonetheless, all are required
to ‘produce’ graduates who are ‘economic citizens’ able to function in a market society where
contingent forms of employment have become more pervasive and where we are all expected to
be ‘entrepreneurs of the self’ (Sayer, 2015, p. 18).
Arguments about the perpetual pace of change and the need to constantly reskill drive human
capital discourses about continual investment in the self. Bernstein (2000, p. 59) explains that the
current human capital discourse within the ‘official’ education and training field is based on
a concept of work and life in which every area of life is perpetually transformed, and that the
concept of trainability is now the key principle governing the construction of curriculum and
pedagogy. He explains that the process of perpetual re-formation ‘Is based on the acquisition of
generic modes which it is hoped will realise a flexible transferable potential rather than specific
performances’ (Bernstein, 2000: 59). He says that in this way knowledge is divorced from knowers,
and ‘from their commitments, their personal dedications’ (Bernstein, 2000: 86). The new principle
governing the way knowledge is classified is oriented outwards, but to markets and not to a field of
practice, and this severs the link between the regions and disciplines and changes the relationship
between knower and knowledge. The knowledge and capacities ‘that matter’ are oriented to the
market, and to the market’s demands and accountabilities because markets endure while knowledge
and occupations change. Bernstein (2000, p. 59) asks if identities are to be formed in and through
markets, then:

. . . how does the actor recognise him/herself and others? By the materialities of consumption, by its distributions,
by its absences. Here the products of the market relay the signifiers whereby temporary stabilities, orientations,
relations and evaluations are constructed.
220 L. WHEELAHAN AND G. MOODIE

Ball (2003, p. 217) explains that ‘working on the self’ is shaped by a regime of accountability and audit
which leads to the development of subjectivities in which individuals are:
. . . encouraged to think about themselves as individuals who calculate about themselves, ‘add value’ to
themselves, improve their productivity, strive for excellence and live an existence of calculation.

The principle of recontextualisation

It is important at this point to distinguish between singulars and regions on the one hand, and
curriculum intended to induct students into these knowledge forms on the other. When knowledge
and skill is selected from the field in which it is produced and implemented (say in singulars such
physics or regions such as early childhood education) and recontextualized in curriculum, it is always
selected according to assumptions about what is important, what students need to know, and what
they need to do. This is regardless of whether the curriculum is for school, vocational education or
higher education, although the process may differ in each sector, along with the actors. This process
of selection is exemplified both through the official and hidden curriculum, and both structure the
curriculum as practised. Neither the discipline of physics nor the field of early childhood education
can be reproduced in its entirety in the curriculum even in a university, and there must be a process
of selection which is used to delocate knowledge from the field in which it was produced and
practised and relocate it in curriculum (Bernstein, 2000, pp. 113–114). The recontextualizing principle
mediates the way knowledge is classified through disciplinary or non-disciplinary frameworks, and
the way in which it is framed through competing perspectives about human nature and the purpose
of education. When knowledge is selected and reshaped through curriculum, it is always through
principles that differ from the way in which it was produced.
Bernstein refers to the principle used to select knowledge for curriculum as the recontextualizing
principle. The recontextualizing principle mediates the production of pedagogic discourse and
underpins relations of classification and framing in curriculum. Bernstein (2000, p. 33) explains that
‘Pedagogic discourse is constructed by a recontextualizing principle which selectively appropriates,
relocates, refocuses and relates other discourses to constitute its own order.’ He says the recontex­
tualizing principle encapsulates ‘expectations about conduct, character and manner’ (Bernstein,
2000, p. 13). The recontextualizing principle is made of up two parts: a regulative discourse and an
instructional discourse. The instructional discourse is the curriculum, but the selection, sequencing,
pacing, and evaluation of the instructional discourse is shaped in part by the regulative discourse.
The regulative discourse limits what can be said in the instructional discourse and how it is said; this
is because ‘the instructional discourse is always embedded in the regulative discourse, and the
regulative discourse is the dominant discourse’ (p. 13). Relations between these discourses can vary
so that, for example, there can be ‘weak framing of regulative discourse and strong framing of
instructional discourse’ (p. 13).8 A strong regulative discourse imposes definitive notions about the
nature of the individual, for example, in school education, that students are patriotic, respect
authority and so forth. In vocational education and higher education, a strong regulative principle
may be that graduates are ‘employable’ and have the dispositions required by employers.
This distinction between instructional and regulative discourses, and the emphasis on the
regulative discourse, helps us to understand three things: the first is the dominance of human
capital discourses in higher education curriculum; the second is the way in which the instrumental
discourses of human capital theory appropriate apparently progressive discourses of individual
empowerment; and, the third is the way in which relations of framing (the message of power) can
impact classification (the voice of power).
First, the regulative principle is shaped by an understanding of the nature of the individual
and in current policies, the purpose of education is to prepare the economic citizen, one who is
not dependent on the state.9 The economic citizen emerges from neo-liberal beliefs intrinsic to
human capital theory about human nature that argue that human beings are by nature rational
 JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES 221

self-interested actors who base their decisions on instrumental calculations about likely returns
(Harvey, 2007). Participation in markets is natural because it is the means through which
individuals pursue their goals through relations of exchange, and it is the role of governments
to facilitate markets (Friedman & Friedman, 1982). The skills individuals need are market skills
given the rise in contingent employment and informal labour markets, and this helps explain
the emphasis on employability skills, graduate attributes (Allais, 2015), 21st Century skills and
now, micro-credentials.
In many ways, 21st Century skills are the epitome of the colonization by human capital
theory of all aspects of our lives because they are exhaustive, focusing not just on what we
can do, but also who we are. They include foundational literacies (literacy, numeracy, scien­
tific literacy, ICT literacy, financial literacy and cultural and civic literacy); competencies
(critical thinking/problem solving; creativity; communication; and, collaboration); and, char­
acter qualities (curiosity; initiative; persistence/grit; adaptability; leadership; and social and
cultural awareness) (World Economic Forum & Boston Consulting Group, 2015, p. 3). These
apparently ‘neutral’ terms assume a common-sense and consensual understanding of skills
‘required of any job’ that are ‘stripped of academic clutter’ (Hickox & Moore, 1995, p. 53), but
are steeped in human capital discourses of agency in markets and skills required for work. In
many countries variations of these types of putative skills underpin qualifications frameworks
and institutional quality assurance frameworks elicit compliance with the emphasis on
employability skills.
Second, 21st Century skills and their predecessors mobilize the language of agency and
empowerment while colonizing our beings in the process. Jones and Moore (1995) explain
that educational policy must be located within the political context in which it arises. The
regulative discourse (in this case human capital theory) is used to selectively appropriate
concepts from the borrowed discourse (in this case progressivism with the language of
empowerment) and reassemble it in a policy discourse. The developmental language of
empowerment is tied to the ‘project of the self’, but it is a self that is constructed as
a market identity using ‘the products and services which the market provides’ (Hartley,
2007, p. 2). The person constructed through the higher education system is one who is
able to position themselves in the market, acquire knowledge and skill in response to
external signals and invest in themselves appropriately. Maintaining one’s human capital is
now a duty of citizenship and future wellbeing may well depend on it, and this will require
investing in skills over the course of a lifetime (Mounier, 2001).
Third, the relations of framing (message of power) can have an impact on classification
(voice of power) of knowledge. Bernstein explains that classification determines what can be
expressed, but framing determines how it can be expressed. In other words, whilst relations
of power are established through the classification of boundaries, the way in which social
practices operate within these boundaries has the potential to alter the relations of power.
Arguably, framing through learning outcomes, employability skills, graduate attributes and
21st century skills has the potential to weaken relations of classification. So, even in strongly
classified fields that are strongly oriented towards the field of knowledge and underpinned by
strong communities, institutional imperatives in quality assurance processes require programs
to meet homogenized requirements in programme reporting, all couched within the dis­
course of skills and employability. They must all have learning outcomes and demonstrate
how these produce employable graduates. Micro-credentials take this one step further, as is
discussed in the next section.

The regulative discourse underpinning micro-credentials

n this section, we apply the assembled Bernsteinian conceptual tools to analyse micro-credentials or
micro-qualifications. The promise of micro-credentials is that they will enable individuals to keep up
222 L. WHEELAHAN AND G. MOODIE

with the relentless pace of change in the knowledge society and meet the future needs of work, and
provide disadvantaged people with access to credentials that will recognize their skills and lead to jobs
(Ifenthaler et al., 2016). They are also legitimated by progressive discourses of student-centred learning
that focus on self-regulated learning, self-efficacy, personalization, and self-realization (for example, see
Wills & Xie, 2016). They are subject to the same transformative rhetoric as other reforms such as 21st
century skills and MOOCs that seek to transform education so that it is more responsive to work (for
a critique of the latter, see Moodie, 2016). For example, Ellis et al. (2016) in their overview of digital
badges and micro-credentials say: ‘As with most changes of this magnitude, principles, philosophies,
beliefs, and attitudes that have existed for decades and even centuries are being challenged’ (p. 19).
Micro-credentials start with the requirements of work tasks and roles, not even whole occupa­
tions. They go beyond requiring programs and their individual courses or subjects to be based on
learning outcomes, to breaking the nexus between micro-credentials and the broader discipline or
field of practice. They change the relations of classification within programs for professional pre­
paration within universities so that the focus is on parts of an occupation.10 Figure 1 shows the
relationship between the regulative and instructional discourses, and how they shape the classifica­
tion and framing of knowledge in curriculum. The original principles of classification and the
boundary relations between different forms of knowledge are reconstituted, but on the basis of
a different principle altogether—employability or jobs. In so doing, micro-credentials are seeking to
convert disciplinary knowledge into everyday knowledge using the workplace as the organizing
principle, not the system of relations within disciplines and applied disciplines. Micro-credentials
reflect the regulative discourse of human capital which shapes the instructional discourse, and they
also fragment the curriculum and in this way change the relations of classification. The discourse of
micro-credentials has rules of accumulation where credentials are stackable, additive, and commu­
tative so that the order of acquisition is irrelevant. This is constructed in a way that does not allow the
hierarchical construction of knowledge and thus micro-credentials undermine notions of sequence,
hierarchy and coherence. Knowledge moves from being in the form of ‘a coherent, explicit and
systematically principled structure’ (Bernstein, 1999, p. 159) organized in the disciplines or applied
disciplines to everyday knowledge which is organized by being relevant to a particular context.
Students don’t have access to disciplinary systems of meaning; instead, they are provided with
access to contextually specific applications of knowledge organized by its relevance to tasks and
roles, or parts of jobs. Exemplification of Bernstein’s concepts in micro-credentials.
Programs that were constructed as coherent wholes can be disaggregated into components and
‘stacked’ together (Fong & Janzow, 2017), a process which, once commenced, suffers from further
processes of atomization. A more granular example than micro-credentials is badges and other very
small parts of learning offered by publicly funded universities which may also ‘count’ towards a formal
qualification. One example is the suite of ‘employability credentials’ offered by two Australian uni­
versities that have discrete credentials for each ‘soft skill’ or ‘transferable skill’ such as communication,
critical thinking, and problem-solving.11 Each of these is offered independently and in a context-free
way even though to engage in ‘problem-solving’ one needs to be able to mobilize the knowledge
underpinning practice in that domain. For example, the knowledge needed to ‘problem solve’ putting
out a fire on an oil rig is completely different to that required to manage a room of three-year-old
children having a meltdown in a childcare centre. In this example, the disciplinary knowledge that
underpins each is different, and problem-solving is not transferable from one domain to another.

Figure 1. Exemplification of Bernstein’s concepts in micro-credentials.

 JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES 223

Micro-credentials, badges, and other ‘alternative credentials’ that focus on small components of
learning, are based on a behaviourist approach imported from the vocational education sector
where it originated in which qualifications can be disaggregated into components and unproble­
matically reassembled. Micro-credentials are premised on methodological individualism in which the
sum is the total of the parts. The outcomes of learning are assumed to be observable, unproblematic,
and transferable. Micro-credentials extend the human capital premises in higher education by
requiring individuals to second-guess the requirements of employers and if they don’t guess
correctly, then they have made a bad investment. They shift the costs of internal training from
employers to individuals, where individuals are required to always be ‘market ready’ and ‘enact
a market performance’ (Brown & Souto-Otero, 2020). They help to strengthen the regulative
discourse of human capital theory, which in turn exerts an influence on the instructional discourse.
They contribute to undermining the relations of classification and framing in higher education
through a human capital discourse based on the homo economicus model of human motivation.
This is the normative model that drives the regulative discourse in higher education, and it is
a particularly narrow understanding in contrast to broader conceptions of human agency, motiva­
tion and reflexivity (Archer, 2000).

Conclusion
We must move beyond the disjunction between pedagogy and curriculum endemic to the literature
on the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education. There is not ‘good’ pedagogy
identified by ‘what works’ (Gov.UK, n.d.; U.S. Department of Education, n.d.) and ‘bad’ pedagogy that
are independent of what is to be taught. What is to be taught must be the starting point for
considering pedagogy. Continental hermeneutic traditions have much to offer Anglophone tradi­
tions in considering the role of knowledge in curriculum, how that is related to pedagogy, the
relationship between the student and the content that is to be taught, and the relationship between
the student and the teacher.
A focus on the nature of educational knowledge in higher education would result in deeper
analyses of the principles that shape curriculum and the impact of these principles on relations of
classification and framing in curriculum. Bernstein’s conceptual tools provide us with the tools we
need to begin this investigation. They perhaps do not take us the whole way, and we need further
dialogue with other traditions such as in the Didaktik tradition (Biesta, 2011; Deng, 2018, 2020;
Magnússon & Rytzler, 2019) and other traditions, such as the Confucian tradition (Hayhoe, 2005).
However, Bernstein’s tools do provide us with a starting point in higher education in understanding
the nature of the human being envisaged in the regulative discourse, and how this regulative
discourse impacts relations of classification and framing. These are issues considered in the
Didaktik tradition, and provide the basis for dialogue between the two. So too do questions about
relations between ‘parent’ singulars and how they are recontextualized in curriculum, relations
between students and knowledge and relations between students and teachers. While these ques­
tions can be asked in all sectors of education, the way they are answered in each sector may differ
because relations of power differ in the schools, vocational education and higher education sectors.
This paper applied Bernstein’s tools to analyse micro-credentials. The novelty of the paper is
twofold. First, it shows how the use of Bernsteinian tools, particularly the relationship between the
instructional and regulative discourses which constitute the recontextualising principle, can be
a powerful way to dissect contemporary changes in higher education curriculum. The regulative
discourse is the dominant discourse, and it is this that is contributing to restructuring curriculum in
the image of homo economicus, the individual in the market place who chooses to invest in this or
that skill, and the employer who seeks to purchase them. Second, in using these tools, it shows that
micro-credentials are contributing to changing the nature of classification and framing in higher
education curriculum and this demonstrates that it is not just the content of curriculum that matters,
but how it is structured matters. The paper demonstrates that micro-credentials are a strong tool for
224 L. WHEELAHAN AND G. MOODIE

‘disciplining’ curriculum in higher education so that it is more aligned with the putative requirements
of the workplace. Micro-credentials build on and extend discourses of employability and 21st Century
skills in higher education and they break the nexus between contextually specific applications of
theoretical knowledge and the relational system of meaning in which they are embedded. They
undermine principles of coherence, sequence and hierarchy in the disciplines, and they contribute to
fragmenting the knowledge base of practice in the applied disciplines. Micro-credentials also
contribute to fragmenting occupations by disaggregating components from the whole. They are
based on a human capital perspective in which individuals invest in themselves by second guessing
the requirements of the labour market, and are increasingly a form of currency which is exchanged.
They are subject to multiple processes of atomization, so micro-credentials can themselves be
comprised of smaller components such as badges. This is the type of analysis that can inform
practice and has implications for what we teach, as well as how we teach.

Notes
1. We are grateful to one of the reviewers who drew this implication to our attention and helped us to position it
more clearly than we may have otherwise done.
2. While discursive institutionalism is helpful in this context in analysing policy flows, it would be stronger if it
were grounded on a stronger realist ontology such as critical realism (a notion the authors explicitly reject),
rather than its current constructivist premise. Such a debate is, however, beyond the scope of this article.
3. See also the work of scholars associated with Legitimation Code Theory (https://legitimationcodetheory.com/).
4. Exceptions are the work of Young and Muller (2014), Hordern (2016, 2019a, 2019c), McLean et al. (2013), (2017),
and Clegg (2016) in the UK, and scholars in South Africa (see Luckett, 2009; Luckett & Shay, 2020; Muller, 2009;
Muller & Young, 2014). In contrast, there has been substantial theorizing about the role of knowledge in the
vocational education sector, in part in response to competency-based training models of curriculum, although
there is still a marked disjuncture between the scholarly literature and policy (see Allais, 2014; Gamble, 2016;
Wheelahan, 2015).
5. For a clear example of this arrogance by higher education scholars about vocational education, see Lewis and
Lodge (2016, p. 46).
6. For example, as is common in university quality assurance processes in the Westminster Anglophone systems,
this is exemplified by the need to produce a program quality assurance report which includes a demonstration
of how learning outcomes at the course or subject level are linked to program learning outcomes, which are
then connected to the department, faculty and university missions.
7. They cite the dominance of John Biggs’ model of Constructive Alignment (Biggs & Tang, 2011) in programs for
university teachers in Europe (and arguably also in many Anglophone systems) as a pedagogic model that offers
one homogenized framework for understanding the nature of teaching and learning.
8. And this is a key reason why it is mistaken to confuse a curriculum that it strongly classified and framed with
strong signalling to students about content, selection, pace, and evaluation as antithetical to a student-focused
approach. Strong framing of the instructional discourse may provide working-class students with access to the
boundaries between different forms of knowledge and the principles of their construction.
9. The demonization of those on welfare is, of course, a key component of neoliberal discourse from the 1980s
until now at the time of writing, in 2020. However, attitudes may shift, given the widescale implementation of
state-funded welfare for the whole population in many countries necessitated as a result of the Covid-19
Pandemic.
10. As an illustration, an example of a new six month higher education certificate in Australia is an under-graduate
certificate in aged care support which is offered fully online. See: http://handbook.westernsydney.edu.au/
hbook/course.aspx?course=7173.1.
11. For examples, see: https://credentials.deakin.edu.au/credentials/ and https://www.rmit.edu.au/creds.

Acknowledgments
We are very grateful to the two reviewers and to the associate editor for their very helpful and perceptive comments
which helped us to sharpen the focus of this paper and our argument.
 JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES 225

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Leesa Wheelahan is a professor and William. G. Davis Chair in Community College Leadership in the Department of
Leadership, Higher, and Adult Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. Her research interests include relations
between colleges and universities, tertiary education policy, and the role of knowledge in curriculum.
Gavin Moodie is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Leadership, Higher, and Adult Education at the University of
Toronto, Canada, and Adjunct Professor in Education at RMIT University, Australia. His research interests include
relations between college and university education in developed countries; relations between postsecondary education
and work; and, postsecondary education policy.

ORCID
Leesa Wheelahan http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7981-9710
Gavin Moodie http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4718-7306

References
Allais, S. (2014). Selling out education: National qualifications frameworks and the neglect of knowledge. Sense Publishers.
Allais, S. (2015). Livelihoods and skills. In T. McCowan & E. Unterhalter (Eds.), Education and International Development: An
Introduction. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 237–256.
Archer, M. S. (2000). Homo economicus, homo sociologicus and homo sentiens. In M. Archer & J. Q. Tritter (Eds.), Rational
ChoiceTheory Resisting Colonization. Routledge, pp. 36–56.
Ashwin, P. (2012). Analysing teaching-learning interactions in higher education: Accounting for structure and agency.
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Ball, S. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215–228. https://doi.
org/10.1080/0268093022000043065
Barrett, B., & Hordern, J. (in press). Rethinking the foundations: Towards powerful professional knowledge in teacher
education in the USA and England. Journal of Curriculum Studies.
Beck, J., & Young, M. (2005). The assault on the professions and the restructuring of academic and professional identities:
A Bernsteinian analysis. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 26(2), 183–197. https://doi.org/10.1080/
0142569042000294165
Bernstein, B. (1999). Vertical and horizontal discourse: An essay. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(2), 157–173.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01425699995380
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity (2nd ed. ed.). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Biesta, G. (2007). Why “what works” won’t work: Evidence-based practice and the democratic deficit in educational
research. Educational Theory, 57(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.2006.00241.x
Biesta, G. (2011). Disciplines and theory in the academic study of education: A comparative analysis of the
Anglo-American and Continental construction of the field. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 19(2), 175–192. https://doi.
org/10.1080/14681366.2011.582255
Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university: What the student does (4th ed. ed.). SRHE & Open
University Press.
Brown, P., & Souto-Otero, M. (2020). The end of the credential society? An analysis of the relationship between
education and the labour market using big data. Journal of Education Policy,35(1), 95–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/
02680939.2018.1549752
Business Council of Australia. (2018). Future-proof: Australia’s future post-secondary education and skills system. In (pp. 61
p.).
Case, J. (2017). Higher education and social justice: Engaging the normative with the analytical. Working paper series,
Centre for Global Higher Education, Institute of Education, University College London. <http://www.researchcghe.
org/publications/higher-education-and-social-justice-engaging-the-normative-with-the-analytical/> viewed 2 July
2017
Chakroun, B., & Keevy, J. (2018). Digital credentialing: Implications for the recognition of learning across borders. https://
unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000264428
Clegg, S. (2016). The necessity and possibility of powerful ‘regional’ knowledge: Curriculum change and renewal.
Teaching in Higher Education, 21(4), 457–470. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2016.1157064
226 L. WHEELAHAN AND G. MOODIE

Commonwealth of Australia. (2020). Addendum no. 3 to AQF Second edition January 2013 additional AQF qualification:
Undergraduate certificate. https://www.aqf.edu.au/sites/default/files/aqf_addendum_-_undergraduate_certificate.
pdf
Deng, Z. (2018). Contemporary curriculum theorizing: Crisis and resolution. Journal of Curriculum Studies 50(6), 691–710.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2018.1537376
Deng, Z. (2020). Knowledge, content, curriculum and didaktik: Beyond social realism. Routledge.
Doyle, W. (2017). The didaktik/curriculum dialogue: What did we learn? In M. Uljens & R. M. Ylimaki (Eds.), Bridging
educational leadership, curriculum theory and didaktik: Non-affirmative theory of education (pp. 219–227). Springer
International Publishing.
Ellis, L. E., Nunn, S. G., & Avella, J. T. (2016). Digital badges and micro-credentials: Historical overview, motivational
aspects, issues, and challenges. In D. Ifenthaler, N. Bellin-Mularski, & D.-K. Mah (Eds.), Foundation of digital badges and
micro-credentials: Demonstrating and recognizing knowledge and competencies. Springer, pp. 3–23.
Fong, J., & Janzow, P. (2017). Demographic shifts in educational demand and the rise of alternative credentialing,
changes from 2016 to 2017, UPCEA/Pearson. https://upcea.edu/upcea-pearson-survey-demographic-shifts-in-
educational-demand-and-the-rise-of-alternative-credentialing-changes-from-2016-to-2017/
Friedman, M., & Friedman, R. (1982). Capitalism and freedom. University of Chicago Press
Furlong, J., & Whitty, G. (2017). Knowledge traditions in the study of education. In G. Whitty (Ed.), Knowledge and the
Study of Education an international exploration (pp. 13–57): Symposium Books.
Gamble, J. (2016). From labour market to labour process: Finding a basis for curriculum in TVET. International Journal of
Training Research, Early Online. https://doi.org/10.1080/14480220.2016.1254367 14 3 215–229
Gov.UK. (n.d.). About what works, Government of the United Kingdom. https://whatworks.blog.gov.uk/about-the-what-
works-network/
Government of Ontario. (2020). A path forward for advanced education, research and science in Ontario [Press release],
Government of Ontario. https://news.ontario.ca/en/backgrounder/57153/a-path-forward-for-advanced-education-
research-and-science-in-ontario
Greene, P. (2019, 16 February). Education micro-credentials 101: Why do we need badges? Forbes. https://www.forbes.
com/sites/petergreene/2019/02/16/education-micro-credentials-101-why-do-we-need-badges/#6d39dfec2419
Hartley, D. (2007). Personalisation: The emerging “revised” code of education? Oxford Review of Education, 33(5),
629–642. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054980701476311
Harvey, D. (2007). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press.
Hayhoe, R. (2005). Universities, women, and the dialogue among civilizations. In G. A. Jones, P. L. McCarney, &
M. L. Skolnik (Eds.), Creating knowledge, strengthening nations: The changing role of higher education. University of
Toronto Press, pp. 67–80.
Hickox, M., & Moore, R. (1995). Liberal-humanist education: The vocationalist challenge Curriculum Studies 3(1), 45–59.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0965975950030103
Hodge, S. (2018). Standardised curriculum and hermeneutics: The case of Australian vocational educators. Journal of
Curriculum Studies, 50(50), 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2016.1278042
Hordern, J. (2016). Regions and their relations: Sustaining authoritative professional knowledge. Journal of Education
and Work, 29(4), 427–449. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2014.958653
Hordern, J. (2019a). Higher expertise, pedagogic rights and the post-truth society. Teaching in Higher Education, 24(3),
288–301. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2018.1532957
Hordern, J. (2019b). Knowledge, evidence, and the configuration of educational practice. Education Sciences, 9(2), 70.
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1220377
Hordern, J. (2019c). Knowledge, practice and workplace learning. In S. McGrath, M. Mulder, J. Papier, & R. Suart (Eds.),
Handbook of Vocational Education and Training: Developments in the Changing World of Work. Springer, pp. 1121–
1134.
Hordern, J., & Tatto, M. T. (2018). Conceptions of teaching and educational knowledge requirements. Oxford Review of
Education, 44(6), 686–701. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2018.1438254
Horton, A. P. (2020). Could micro-credentials compete with traditional degrees?. The Future of Work, BBC. https://www.
bbc.com/worklife/article/20200212-could-micro-credentials-compete-with-traditional-degrees
Hunt, T., Carter, R., Zhang, L., & Yang, S. (2020). Micro-credentials: The potential of personalized professional
development. Development & Learning in Organizations, 34(2), 33. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=
true&AuthType=sso&db=edb&AN=142717202&site=eds-live&scope=site&custid=s2775460
Ifenthaler, D., Bellin-Mularski, N., & Mah, D.-K. (Eds.). (2016). Foundation of digital badges and micro-credentials:
Demonstrating and recognizing knowledge and competencies. Springer.
Johansen, G. (2007). Didaktik and the selection of content as points of departure for studying the quality of teaching and
learning. Quality in Higher Education, 13(3), 249–271. https://doi.org/10.1080/13538320701800159
Jones, A. (2009). Redisciplining generic attributes: The disciplinary context in focus. Studies in Higher Education, 34(1),
85–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070802602018
Jones, L., & Moore, R. (1995). Appropriating competence: The competency movement, the new right and the ‘culture
change’ project. British Journal of Education and Work, 8(2), 78–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/0269000950080206
 JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES 227

Kato, S., Galán-Muros,, & Weko, T. (2020). The emergence of alternative credentials. http://www.oecd.org/officialdocu
ments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=EDU/WKP(2020)4&docLanguage=En
Keevy, J., & Chakroun, B. (2019). Beyond qualifications as we know them today: Digital credentials and interoperability.
In E. CEDEFOP, UNESCO (Ed.), Global inventory of regional and national qualifications frameworks 2019, Volume I:
Thematic chapters. European Training Foundation, pp. 26–33.
Konings, L. (2019). EMC launches common microcredential framework [Press release] European Commission. https://
epale.ec.europa.eu/en/content/emc-launches-common-microcredential-framework
Lassnigg, L. (2012). ‘Lost in translation’: Learning outcomes and the governance of education. Journal of Education and
Work, 25(3), 299–330. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2012.687573
Lewis, M. J., & Lodge, J. M. (2016). Keep calm and credential on: Linking learning, life and work practices in a complex
World. In D. Ifenthaler, N. Bellin-Mularski, & D.-K. Mah (Eds.), Foundation of digital badges and micro-credentials:
Demonstrating and recognizing knowledge and competencies (pp. 41–54). Springer.
Luckett, K. (2009). The relationship between knowledge structure and curriculum: A case study in sociology. Studies in
Higher Education, 34(4), 441–453. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070902772018
Luckett, K., & Shay, S. (2020). Reframing the curriculum: A transformative approach. Critical Studies in Education, 61(1),
50–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2017.1356341
Magnússon, G., & Rytzler, J. (2019). Approaching higher education with didaktik: University teaching for intellectual
emancipation. European Journal of Higher Education, 9(2), 190–202. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2018.1515030
Maton, K., & Moore, R. (Eds.). (2010). Social realism knowledge and the sociology of education: Coalitions of the mind.
Continuum.
McLean, M., Abbas, A., & Ashwin, P. (2013). The use and value of Bernstein’s work in studying (in)equalities in under­
graduate social science education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 34(2), 262–280. https://doi.org/10.1080/
01425692.2012.710007
McLean, M., Abbas, S., & Ashwin, P. (2017). Quality in undergraduate education: How powerful knowledge disrupts
inequality. Bloomsbury Academic.
Moodie, G. (2016). Universities, disruptive technologies, and continuity in higher education: The impact of information
revolutions. Palgrave Macmillan.
Moodie, G., Wheelahan, L., & Lavigne, E. (2019). Technical and vocational education and training as a framework for
social justice: Analysis and evidence from world case studies. https://issuu.com/educationinternational/docs/2019_
eiresearch_tvet
Mounier, A. (2001). The three logics of skills in French literature. https://www.voced.edu.au/content/ngv%3A30542
Muller, J. (2000). Reclaiming knowledge. social theory, curriculum and education policy. RoutledgeFalmer.
Muller, J. (2009). Forms of knowledge and curriculum coherence. Journal of Education and Work, 22(3), 205–226. https://
doi.org/10.1080/13639080902957905
Muller, J. (2014). Every picture tells a story: Epistemological access and knowledge. Education as Change, 18(2), 255–269.
https://doi.org/10.1080/16823206.2014.932256
Muller, J., & Young, M. (2014). Disciplines, skills and the university. Higher Education, 67(2), 127–140. https://doi.org/10.
1007/s10734-013-9646-4
Neumann, R., Parry, S., & Becher, T. (2002). Teaching and learning in their disciplinary contexts: A conceptual analysis.
Studies in Higher Education, 27(4), 405–417. https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507022000011525
New Zealand Qualifications Authority. (2018). Micro-credentials system launched. In News. Government of New Zealand.
Oliver, B. (2019). Making micro-credentials work for learners, employers and providers. Deakin University <http://dteach.
deakin.edu.au/2019/08/02/microcredentials/> viewed 6 August 2019
Peters, R. S. (1967). The place of philosophy in the training of teachers. Paedagogica Europaea, 3(1967), 152–166. https://
doi.org/10.2307/1502318
Pichette, J., & Rizk, J. (2020). Micro mania: Making sense of microcredentials in Ontario. Higher Education Quality Council
of Ontario. http://blog-en.heqco.ca/2020/03/jackie-pichette-and-jessica-rizk-micro-mania-making-sense-of-
microcredentials-in-ontario/
Sayer, A. (2015). Why we can’t afford the rich. Polity Press.
Schmidt, V. A. (2008). Discursive institutionalism: The explanatory power of ideas and discourse. Annual Review of
Political Science, 11, 303–326. 1 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.060606.135342
Shils, E. (1991). Academic freedom. In P. G. Altbach (Ed.), International higher education: An encyclopedia, Vol. 1 (pp. 1–22).
Garland.
Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. L. (2007). Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. John Hopkins
University Press.
State University of New York. (2020). Micro-credentials at SUNY. State University of New York, https://system.suny.edu/
academic-affairs/microcredentials/
Trow, M. (2010). Reflections on the transition from elite to mass to universal access. In M. Burrage (Ed.), Martin Trow:
Twentieth-Century Higher Education: Elite to Mass to Universal (pp. 554–610). John Hopkins University Press.
U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). Doing what works. U.S. Department of Education. https://www2.ed.gov/nclb/
methods/whatworks/edpicks.jhtml
228 L. WHEELAHAN AND G. MOODIE

Wahlström, N., & Sundberg, D. (2018). Discursive institutionalism: Towards a framework for analysing the relation
between policy and curriculum. Journal of Education Policy, 33(1), 163–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2017.
1344879
Wheelahan, L. (2010a). Tertiary education as insurance against risk – What are the outcomes? For whom? In G. Marston,
J. Moss, & J. Quiggin (Eds.), Risk, Welfare and Work (pp. 165–184). Melbourne University Press.
Wheelahan, L. (2010b). Why knowledge matters in curriculum: A social realist argument. Routledge.
Wheelahan, L. (2015). Not just skills: What a focus on knowledge means for vocational education. Journal of Curriculum
Studies, 47(6), 750–762. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2015.1089942
Wills, C., & Xie, Y. (2016). Toward a comprehensive theoretical framework for designing digital badges. In D. Ifenthaler,
N. Bellin-Mularski, & D.-K. Mah (Eds.), Foundation of digital badges and micro-credentials: Demonstrating and recogniz­
ing knowledge and competencies (pp. 261–271). Springer.
World Economic Forum, & Boston Consulting Group. (2015). New vision for education – unlocking the potential of
technology. World Economic Forum. <http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA_NewVisionforEducation_
Report2015.pdf> viewed 15 May 2019
Young, J. R. (2018). Why the lumina foundation is betting big on new kinds of credentials. EdSurge. https://www.
edsurge.com/news/2018-05-15-why-the-lumina-foundation-is-betting-big-on-new-kinds-of-credentials
Young, M. (2008). Bringing knowledge back in: From social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education.
Routledge.
Young, M., & Muller, J. (Eds.). (2014). Knowledge, expertise and the professions. Routledge.