Problems of curricular and disciplinary knowledge

This chapter explores questions of disciplinary knowledge and identity, focussing in particular on Michael Young's theory of powerful knowledge. I argue that different subjects don't map to or consist in different types of personal knowledge (since all personal knowledge is embodied practical skill). Talk of disciplinary knowledge is misleading, as it can encourage just such a misstep (from different subjects to different “types” of knowledge); instead, we do better to talk of disciplinary identity, which can be easily defined as follows: disciplines are what their practitioners do. The only questions, then, following from this definition, are: who's to count as a practitioner, on what basis, according to whose authority?