Positioning pupils: cultivating values in community and family studies

This paper shows how Legitimation Code Theory and Systemic Functional Linguistics can be used together to analyse classroom discourse, illuminating the way course content and examinations become charged with values. A visible curriculum provides the best learning environment, however the values underpinning subjects often remain part of the ‘hidden curriculum’. This paper explores how classroom dialogue builds values in one senior secondary subject in the Australian state of New South Wales, Community and Family Studies. The sociological concept of constellations and the linguistic concept of mass are used to analyse lessons where the teacher is preparing students for their final examination. Analysis demonstrates values clustered around certain core concepts to form axiological constellations with which students must align to demonstrate their knowledge. In so doing, it makes visible the axiological nature of the subject and provides a basis upon which the values might be taught, discussed and challenged. It also demonstrates how values accumulate around examination procedure, positioning students as certain kinds of knowers in relationship to the writing they must do for examination. The results have important social justice implications given the overall performance of students studying the subject.