Abstract:
Over the past ten years the two introductory core units in education in the Diploma of Teaching (Secondary) being offered on the Kelvin Grove Campus were developed and taught as interdisciplinary issue based units. The development of the units, Teachers and Learners and School, Community and Society, was based on a particular view of knowledge arising out of much of Bernstein's (1975) early work. This paper looks at the development of these units, the philosophy inherent in their construction; the constraints and possibilities associated with their teaching over the ten year period and finally their demise in 1989. It argues that there is a nexus between pedagogic and social structures and much of the resistance to interdisciplinary programs comes about as a result of resistance to alternative social and organizational structures.