© Kamla-Raj 2016 J Sociology Soc Anth, 7(2): 118-125 (2016) Interrogating the Social Class Assumptions and Classroom Implications of Bernstein’s Pedagogic Discourse of Visible and Invisible Pedagogies Edmore Mutekwe Vaal University of Technology, Faculty of Human Sciences, South Africa E-mail: edmorem@vut.ac.za KEYWORDS Classification. Codes. Control. Curriculum. Framing. Pedagogy ABSTRACT Herein the argument that there are social class assumptions and classroom implications for Bernstein’s pedagogic discourses of visible and invisible pedagogies is advanced. The paper unpacks the assumptions implicit in Bernstein’s conceptual framework of visible and invisible pedagogies in relation to the educational experiences and outcomes of pupils from the middle and working class backgrounds. The paper’s thesis is that Bernstein’s work on pedagogic discourse offers important insights for classroom practices, for educators in their production, distribution and reproduction of official knowledge and how that knowledge is related to structurally determined power relations. The argument in this paper does not only show how Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse is concerned with the description of the production and transmission of knowledge but also how it unravels consequences for such knowledge for different social groups in society. In doing this, the paper looks at the process and content of what happens inside schools and classrooms to unmask the effects of the various rules of pedagogic discourse and how they affect the content’s transmission (pedagogy) by acting selectively on pupils from the different social class backgrounds. It is for these reasons that the social class assumptions and consequences of forms of pedagogic practices, visible and invisible pedagogies are examined. The paper thus unfolds with a brief overview of Bernstein’s socio-linguistic code theory and the theory of pedagogic discourse before examining the distinction between visible and invisible pedagogies and the social class assumptions implicit in each of these pedagogies. INTRODUCTION Overview of Bernstein’s Socio-linguistic Code and Pedagogic Discourse Theories British sociologist Basil Bernstein (1924- 2000) made a significant contribution to the study of communication with his sociolinguistic theo- ry of language codes. Within the broader cate- gory of his socio-linguistic code theory are elab- orated and restricted codes (Moore 2010). The term code, in Bernstein’s pedagogic discourse refers to a set of organizing principles behind the language employed by members of a partic- ular social group. Littlejohn (2012) suggests that Bernstein’s theory shows how the language people use in everyday conversation both re- flects and shapes the assumptions of a certain social group. Furthermore, relationships estab- lished within the social group affect the way that group uses language, and the type of speech that is used. Atherton (2012) argues that, the construct of restricted and elaborated language codes was introduced into educational practice by Bernstein in 1971 wherein as an educator, he was interested in accounting for the relatively poor performance of working-class students in language-based subjects, when they were achieving scores as high as their middle-class counterparts on mathematical topics. In his so- ciolinguistic code theory Bernstein asserts that there is a direct relationship between social class and language codes. In one of his popular works on Class, Codes and Control, Bernstein (2008) cogently argues that the forms of spoken lan- guage used by learners from the middle and working class backgrounds in the course of their learning initiate, generalize and reinforce special types of relationship with the environment and thus create for the individual particular forms of significance That is to say that the way language is used within a particular societal class affects the way people assign significance and mean- ing to the things about which they are speaking. Littlejohn (2012: 178) agrees and states, people learn their place in the world by virtue of the language codes they employ. The code that a person uses indeed symbolizes his or her social identity (Bernstein 2008; Broadfoot 2013) Bernstein asserts that in the context of a school or classroom the restricted code is suit- able for insiders who share assumptions and understanding on the topic, or subject whereas the elaborated code does not assume that the