Powerful knowledge, transformations and the need for 

empirical studies across school subjects
Article (Accepted Version)

Gericke, Niklas, Hudson, Brian, Olin-Scheller, Christina and Stolare, Martin (2018) Powerful
knowledge, transformations and the need for empirical studies across school subjects. London
Review of Education, 16 (3). pp. 428-444. ISSN 1474-8460

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Powerful knowledge, transformations and the need for
empirical studies across school subjects

Niklas Gericke1 ; Brian Hudson1,2 ; Christina Olin-Scheller1 & Martin Stolare1

1
Karlstad University, Sweden
2
University of Sussex, United Kingdom

Abstract
In this paper, we explore the concept of ’powerful knowledge’ that from a Curriculum Studies
perspective refers to the aspects of content knowledge towards which teaching should be
oriented. We then consider how the concept of ‘powerful knowledge’ can be developed and
operationalized as a research framework within studies in subject-specific didactics across the
curriculum by relating it to the analytical concept of ‘transformation’. Transformation is
perceived in this case as an integrative process in which the content knowledge is transformed
into knowledge that is taught and learned through various transformation processes outside
and within the educational system. We argue that powerful knowledge cannot be identified
based on the discipline alone, but needs to consider the transformation processes and be
empirically explored. A variety of theories and frameworks developed within the European
research tradition of didactics are described as ways to study transformation processes related
to powerful knowledge at different institutional levels as well as between different subjects
and disciplines. A comparative research framework related to subject specific education is
proposed around three research questions.

Keywords: curriculum theory, powerful knowledge, school subjects, subject didactics,

transformation

Introduction
From the perspective of subject didactic research, which we also refer to as “research on
subject specific education 1” we outline an empirical research framework building on the
concepts of powerful knowledge and transformation across school subjects. Powerful
knowledge as an idea was coined by Michael Young (2009) to re-establish the importance of
knowledge in teaching and curriculum development. Powerful knowledge is defined by
Young as a subject specific coherent conceptual disciplinary knowledge that when learnt will

1
The term research on subject specific education (ROSE) was selected to communicate and frame the
interdisciplinary research area of subject didactics at Karlstad University, https://www.kau.se/en/rose

1
empower students to make decisions, and become action-competent in a way that influence
their lives in a positive way.

In this article we develop the concept of powerful knowledge in two important ways. First,
instead of only discussing powerful knowledge as an idea related to educational practices, we
take a research position suggesting that powerful knowledge could be used as a framework in
educational research related to subject specific education. In doing so we, in line with Deng
(2015), propose to align the curricular concept of powerful knowledge to the European
research tradition of didactics in general, and subject didactics in particular. Second, we
develop the concept of powerful knowledge by refuting the dichotomization suggested by
Young (2015b, p. 104) that curriculum (‘what to teach’) can be separated from pedagogy
(‘how to teach’). Instead we view these two questions as interrelated in didactical research.

We suggest an expansion of the concept of powerful knowledge by using the analytical

concept of transformation as a key concept in describing powerful knowledge in different
disciplines, institutions and school subjects. The reason for this is that the concept of
transformation takes into consideration the didactization of the disciplinary knowledge, i.e.
how it is transformed into something that is teachable and relevant for students. Thus, the
criteria for selecting powerful knowledge to be adopted should reflect its relationship to the
transformation process, e.g. what is possible for students to learn, what is relevant for
students, what is part of the curriculum? Transformation is in this paper defined as an
integrative process in which the content knowledge is transformed into knowledge that is
taught and learned through various transformation processes outside and within the
educational system in relation to individual, institutional and societal level. Here, we
understand ‘content knowledge’ in a wider conceptual sense not only referring to factual
knowledge. Such processes of transformation are apparent in concepts related to a number of
different frameworks including: ‘transposition’ (Chevallard 1989; 2007), ‘omstilling’
(Ongstad 2006) and ‘reconstruction’ (Duit et al. 2012) and are also reflected in the work of
Bernstein (1971) in relation to the concept of ‘re-contextualisation’. Our definition of
transformation is purposely broad and inclusive in order to make it possible to relate to these
various concepts representing different frameworks. In this paper there is no possibility to
elaborate on how these frameworks relate to each other, but we will rather focus on the
relationship between powerful knowledge and transformation. The school subject is never a
simple reduction of the discipline. The content knowledge is always transformed to fit the
educational purpose of teaching. Hence, to study the concept of powerful knowledge within
school subjects we need to study its transformation processes, and address the why question
(‘why to teach’) in addition to the what and how questions.

Moreover, the concept of powerful knowledge and the transformation processes the content of
powerful knowledge undergo, must be placed in a wider context, where questions addressing
societal challenges are raised. In a changing society the argument is being made that it is not
obvious that powerful knowledge only stems from academic disciplines. For example, how
does the emerging and rapidly changing media landscape affect frames for teaching and
learning and how could powerful knowledge be understood in a connected classroom? How
should interdisciplinary topics such as sustainability and migration be taught and organized in
school? In a broad perspective, these questions can be described as powerful, while in the
same time also being of multi- and cross-disciplinary nature and therefore needing to be
approached in this way. What is powerful knowledge in such topics then emerges as a
relevant question.

2
We will first outline the concept of powerful knowledge, thereafter we will elaborate on the
different didactical theories and frameworks that address transformational processes in the
educational system − from how knowledge is transformed from society, and between
institutions into schools, and further how the knowledge is transformed within the schools and
classrooms and how this influences the idea of powerful knowledge. We will relate the two
key concepts to each other and then propose some important areas for empirical research as
part of a research framework for future studies.

Powerful knowledge
The notion of ‘powerful knowledge’ was coined by Young (2009) as a way to restore the
importance of knowledge and teaching in curriculum development and research. The concept
of powerful knowledge relates to aspects of conceptual knowledge that teaching should orient
to. In discussing the question of what knowledge school students are entitled to have access to
it is argued that ‘in all fields of enquiry, there is better knowledge, more reliable knowledge,
knowledge nearer the truth about the world we live in and to what it is to be human’ (Young,
2013, p. 107). Furthermore, it is argued that this knowledge is always fallible and open to
challenge and the difficulty of holding these two ideas together is highlighted. The concept of
powerful knowledge is based on two key characteristics, which are both expressed in the form
of boundaries. Firstly, this knowledge is specialized both in how it is produced and
transmitted and this specialization is expressed in terms of the boundaries between disciplines
and subjects which define their focus and objects of study. It is stressed that this is not general
knowledge and that the boundaries are not fixed and unchangeable (Young 2013). It is also
emphasized that cross-disciplinary research and learning depend on discipline-based
knowledge. The second characteristic is that it is differentiated from the experiences that
pupils bring to school or older learners bring to college or university. It is also stressed that
this differentiation is expressed in the conceptual boundaries between school and everyday
knowledge (Young 2013). We see this as one of the strengths of the concept of powerful
knowledge; that it highlights the importance of the disciplinary knowledge in educational
sciences in general and subject didactics in particular. Furthermore, this disciplinarly
knowledge needs to be defined, problematized and structured before teaching. After defining
how powerful knowledge is described in the work of Young, we will now elaborate on the
motives behind its formulation.

Powerful knowledge as the third way

Young identifies two main traditions or approaches in recent debates about knowledge in
educational sciences and philosophy. These traditions are extrapolated as trajectories into
possible futures. In the first tradition, denoted Future 1, knowledge is, according to Young
and Muller (2010), underpinned by an ‘under-socialized’ epistemology and defined as fixed
sets of verifiable propositions or concepts that in teaching are evaluated through standardized
testing. The second tradition, denoted Future 2, arose as a response to the first, and Young and
Muller (2010) claim that the epistemology of knowledge is ‘over-socialized’ in that the
character of knowledge is reduced to ‘who knows’ and the identification of knowers and their
practices. Both these approaches can be viewed as deficient according to Young (2015a, b).

3
Future 1 has been shown to be unable to motivate and engage students with the body of
knowledge to be learnt, and does not provide students with knowledge to tackle complex
problems of society today (Young, 2015a, b). The alternative approach, Future 2, suggests
integration of school subjects, promotion of generic skills and facilitative teaching that
according to Young and Muller: “against their best intents, the main effects of Future 2-ists –
those endorsing progressive pedagogy and its variants – are to render the contours of
knowledge and learning invisible to the very learners that the pedagogy was designed to
favour” (Young and Muller 2010, pp. 18-19). As a response to these deficient ways of
organizing and investigating curriculum, Young and Muller suggest a social realist theory
that: “sees knowledge as involving sets of systematically related concepts and methods for
their empirical exploration and the increasingly specialized and historically located
‘communities of enquirers’” (Young & Muller, 2010, p. 14). Young denotes this alternative
approach as a Future 3 solution. As a result, the most important part of such a curriculum
making and thus educational research is to identify what constitutes ‘powerful knowledge’ in
different school subjects.

In this paper we argue, in line with Young, that the return of knowledge in curriculum
research is a step in the right direction. Since teaching is always ‘about something’, this
‘something’ is one of the most central issues of teaching, and powerful knowledge, we
believe, is a useful analytical concept for determining this ‘something’. According to Young
(2015a, p. 74) powerful knowledge can be referred to as: “features of the particular
knowledge itself that is included in curriculum and what it can do for those who have access
to it.” Further: “Knowledge is ‘powerful’ if it predicts, if it explains, if it enables you to
envisage alternatives” (2015a, p. 74). To accomplish these goals Young characterizes
powerful knowledge as distinct from common sense knowledge, proposing that it is
systematic and its concepts are coherently related to each other, and finally it is specialized
and related to specific disciplines. In doing so he draws on the ideas from Bernstein (1999)
that disciplines have specific borders of concepts, contents and skills, and that it is within
these borders that new scholarly knowledge is produced. Further, Young (2015a, b) claims
that it is along these borders that knowledge becomes visible and meaningful to the learner
and teaching in school and should therefore be organized in subjects closely related to the
academic disciplines. Hence, powerful knowledge is clearly linked to the academic
disciplines. On the other hand, as seen from the quotes above, powerful knowledge is also
defined as ‘knowledge of the powerful’, i.e. its capacity to empower students. It is in the light
of this latter perspective and slightly different way of describing the concept that we suggest
in this article to develop the concept into a more flexible idea that can take different meanings
in different contexts or situations, by relating powerful knowledge to the concept of
transformation.

During recent years the idea of powerful knowledge has generated great interest among
scholars (i.e. Deng, 2015; Nordgren, 2017) and has been suggested to be a powerful concept
in the teaching of traditional subjects such as geography and history (Lambert, 2015; 2016;
Counsell, 2011) as well as for coping with multidisciplinary topics such as interculturality
(Nordgren, 2017). However as far as we can see there have been few empirical studies
conducted in order to outline what powerful knowledge might be in different school subjects.
Studies conducted to test whether powerful knowledge has the positive effects on students
learning, as suggested by Young, have yet to be conducted. Accordingly, in this paper we
outline a research framework that focuses on how powerful knowledge is manifested at
different levels of the educational system by relating powerful knowledge to the concept of
didactic transformation. We argue that any successful theory that suggests changes in the

4
educational system needs to be based on empirically based conclusions rather than only on
theoretical underpinnings.

The need for a holistic perspective

As previously noted Young (2015b, p. 97) makes a very clear distinction between curriculum
and pedagogy, and argues that they should be regarded as separate:

it is teachers in their pedagogy, not curriculum designers, who draw on their everyday
knowledge in helping them to engage with the concepts stipulated by the curriculum
and to see their relevance…. the knowledge stipulated by the curriculum must be
based on specialized knowledge developed by communities of researchers. This
process can be described as curriculum recontextualization”.
From our perspective, this dichotomization between curriculum and pedagogy as well as
teaching and learning is not fruitful since most of the outcomes of teaching, i.e. the powerful
knowledge that students acquire through their teaching, depends not only on the knowledge
and the teacher, but also on the learner and the milieu (Brousseau, 1997). Deng criticizes this
aspect in Young’s writing, arguing that: “they fail to explain how powerful knowledge has to
be unlocked and transformed to bring about the cultivation of such capacities” (Deng 2015, p.
775). It is argued further that “it needs a theory of content that concerns how knowledge is
selected and transformed into curriculum content, what educational potential content has, and
how such potential can be disclosed or unlocked for the development [of students intellectual
and moral powers or capacities]” (Deng 2015, p. 775). Hence, Deng argues for an extension
of the social realist theory of powerful knowledge to better account for 1) the process of
recontextualisation of the body of knowledge put to use in education, and 2) the process of
teaching and learning in the classroom. Young’s answer to the first quest is more of
obliviousness, or as Nordgren (2017, p. 4) concludes: “Young…becomes vague when shifting
to areas where the transformation to education takes place”. For Deng’s second quest Young’s
response is the dichotomization between curriculum and pedagogy, leaving pedagogy, or the
How question, out of the picture. We adhere to the propositions of Deng that the theory of
powerful knowledge should be developed and in this article propose a suggestion that
addresses Deng’s two quests by relating powerful knowledge to the extensive European
research tradition of didactics. In such a tradition the process of transformation of content
knowledge, come into focus.

Transformation
Powerful knowledge has mostly been described as a curriculum principle (e.g. Young 2015a).
We think the principles behind powerful knowledge are well argued for as discussed above.
However, we suggest that these principles need to be evaluated through educational research,
and expanded into a teaching and learning practice because the school subjects are not mere
reductions of the academic disciplines (Sjøberg 1998). In this part of the paper we will
explicitly address that challenge, by considering powerful knowledge in relation to the
concept of transformation.
Firstly we need to make clear that we do not use the concept of transformation as outlined by
Mezirow (1991) in his ‘transformative learning theory’. Transformative learning theory is a
5
psychological theory about how individuals learn by changing their frames of reference by
critically reflecting on their assumptions and beliefs and consciously making new ways of
defining their worlds (Mezirow 2000), which is more in line with a future 2 perspective.
Transformative learning has most often been used in an activist perspective in which
education is seen as a mean to change or transform the society or the world (e.g. Mayo 1997).
Instead, we are viewing transformation as a process of knowledge rather than the
transformation of the individual or society. However, in order to understand and explain this
transformation we recognize the need to consider also the complex relations with the learner
as well as the educator as highlighted in didactical research, so there are overlaps with
transformative learning theory.
Transformation is in this paper defined as an integrative process in which the content
knowledge is transformed into knowledge that is taught and learned through various
transformation processes outside and within the educational system in relation to individual,
institutional and societal level. Hence, the concept transformation is in this paper understood
in somewhat broader terms than it is framed in the framework of ‘pedagogical content
knowledge’ (PCK) by Shulman (1986). Instead of simply considering transformation as
something that is all about “how” a certain teaching content is to be represented in the
classroom as in PCK, we also link ‘transformation’ to the other didactical questions: why?
what? for who? and when? In our view transformation involves dimensions of significance, in
relation to what content in the curriculum is important and what content ought to be taught.
To be able to make those choices, decisions have to be made on why. In other words, what is
the overarching purpose of schooling and of the subject or topic taught?
Rarely is the answer to that question found with in a societal context, or in the academy.
Further, questions of what and why have to be connected to the aspects of teaching traditions
and methods (how?), the background of students (who?) and the concrete teaching situation
(when?). From a didactical viewpoint, which is the position taken here, transformation is
perceived as part of an integrative didactical process (Hudson, 2002, 2016). Hence, we argue
that the curriculum principle of powerful knowledge is not evident by just looking at the
academic discipline. Instead, we argue that the question of what constitutes powerful
knowledge is an empirical question that can be answered fully only by addressing the
transformation process and these four central didactical questions.
Additionally, it is of importance to recognize the fact that transformation takes place at
different interrelated levels inside and outside of the educational system, as outlined in the
Anthropological Theory of Didactics (ATD) (Chevallard, 2002). In ATD the concept of co-
determination is used to analyse how knowledge is transposed within and outside the
educational system at multiple levels (Artigue & Winsløw, 2010). From an analytical
perspective, it is difficult to analyse at all those levels simultaneously. Instead, we would
claim that three main levels can be discerned: the societal, the institutional and the classroom
level. From a theoretical standpoint, the levels are of equal importance for learning outcomes
(Bosch & Gascón, 2014), though emphasis in this paper will be placed on the classroom level,
which is the focus of educational research. We will discuss educational transformation
processes in relation to different perspectives, mostly rooted in the German/Nordic ‘didaktik
tradition’ and French tradition of ‘didactiques des disciplines’.

Transformation on a societal level

The contribution of ATD in didactical research is that it points out the possibility that it is
factors outside the classroom or even school that influence the way powerful knowledge

6
might be taught or understood. Hence, in our ambition to outline the transformation of
powerful knowledge, ATD provides a framework to consider the societal perspective which
we argue has been neglected in relation to the concept of powerful knowledge so far.
Education and educational research face a number of challenges due to the globalisation of
the society. This has led education in a direction towards a future 2 trajectory (as discussed
previously) that focuses on generic skills as a way to cope with an unpredictable future and
rapid changes of societies. As Selander wrote: “It seems obvious that our current society is in
a stage of change that requires new understandings of knowledge, learning and identity
formation” (2008, p. 267). The underlying idea of this trajectory is that focus is turned away
from knowledge to the individual learners’ needs and skills. As Kress (2008, p. 256) points
out: “The emblematic sign of that change is the shift of emphasis in educational rhetoric from
teaching to learning.” In addition the argument is being made that the globalization process
leads to transfer of people, ideas and artefacts across all kinds of borders eroding the
boundaries between subject disciplines. In response teaching and curriculum need to address
contemporary multidisciplinary topics such as migration, interculturality, sustainability etc.
Answers to these contemporary problems are found in many subjects, not only one. Moreover
technological changes in society, such as digitalization have changed communication patterns,
increased accessibility, knowledge and information flow within classrooms (Olin-Scheller,
Sahlström & Tanner, fourthcoming). The content knowledge regarded as powerful might be
different in a digitalized classroom compared to a non-digitalized classroom. While the world
is a complex and an interconnected system, research, academic disciplines and education
focus on individual subjects, rather than cross-disciplinary themes. These societal demands on
the adaptation of education to a changing world have led to the development of curriculum
focusing on the development of generic competences and skills (Hargreaves, 2003).
Young criticizes this development: “such curricula, which quite explicitly blur the
curriculum/pedagogy distinction, will inevitably lack coherence and be limited as a basis for
pupils to progress. The basis for choosing topics or themes would be largely arbitrary”
(Young 2015b, p. 103). However, Young himself recognizes that his idea of powerful
knowledge and re-conceptualizing of a subject-based curriculum does not address the global
transformations of society and how different subjects should relate to overlapping thematic
issues (see Young 2015b, pp. 103-109), and he concludes: “The ‘connection’ problem has no
easy solution, and there is no evidence that intellectual specialization is likely to go in reverse.
For schools, I suggest, it is a pedagogic not a curriculum problem” (Young, 2015b, p.104).
Here we disagree with Young and suggest that by including the idea of didactical
transformation, powerful knowledge can be developed as an analytical concept to underpin
empirical investigations. We suggest that these multidisciplinary issues are of great societal
importance, and this is exactly where empirical research should start to explore the concept of
powerful knowledge. An important question to address is whether knowledge linking to
different school subjects relating to the same cross curricula topic (e.g. sustainability,
migration) is powerful or not? The answer to that question would give significant insight to
the possible prolificacy of the theory of powerful knowledge. If powerful knowledge relating
to a theme differs to great extent between different school subjects, it would provide strong
support for implementing a Future 3 based curriculum. Therefore, we claim that a
comparative perspective is important when researching powerful knowledge. It is important to
investigate relationships between content-specific and generic features of teaching, as well as
how it occurs in different subjects.
Thus, for a relevant research framework we conclude that both a subject-specific and a cross-
disciplinary perspective in relation to these societal challenges of how powerful knowledge is
manifested in teaching and perceived by students and teachers is of importance to explore.
7
Transformation on an institutional level

Transformation can also be understood as a process connected to the level of institutions. An

institution can for example be a school, a ministry, the research community, a college etc.
Hence, we here use a definition including bot informal and formal institutions that promote
mechanisms of social order and behaviour (North, 1990). The interplay between different
settings or levels and how the knowledge is transformed between them is an important
perspective in French tradition of didactiques des disciplines. The concept of ‘didactic
transposition’ was introduced by Chevallard (1991; 2007) to capture the notion that an object
of learning, a certain packet of knowledge that tends to be transformed depending on the
institutional setting. The theory of didactic transposition was a precursor of ATD theory (as
previously discussed) and both points out the importance of investigating institutions above
the classroom in didactical research. Therefore, to be able to understand the process of
transformation and its outcomes it is necessary to undertake an analysis in relation to the
relevant institutional context. The process of transformation is in that sense embedded and
mutually dependent on the institution in which it is reproduced.
Transposition is seen as a key concept in the French tradition of didactiques des disciplines
(Hudson, 2016, p 115). In the school context, this knowledge is not knowledge for acting and
solving problems in the social contexts in which it was created and where it is used, but it is
transposed into knowledge to be taught and to be learned in the school institution. The
concept of didactic transposition is based on the recognition that this ‘rupture’ between daily
life and school changes the knowledge profoundly. This we would argue is central to the
concept of powerful knowledge. In curriculum theory in general, and powerful knowledge as
a curriculum principle in particular, the content knowledge of the discipline is not
distinctively separated from the school subject content (i.e. Young 2015a,b). Instead it is often
treated as the same. In our proposed research framework we see this elaboration of powerful
knowledge as a central starting point for research, i.e. that what is regarded as powerful
knowledge might be regarded differently by actors in different institutions. For example,
Gericke (2009) showed in a study of biology education that the framework of Mendeilan
genetics is mostly presented in school textbooks, though this framework only has limited
validity within most biological disciplines at the university level where Molecular genetics is
most often used. The reason for this is to be found in the didactical transposition of
knowledge between institutions.
The institutional level is important since it might constrain or prompt the kind of knowledge
that is possible to teach in the classroom. In a study conducted by Achiam et al. (2016) they
showed how objects in science teaching consisting of palaeontological specimens of
Archaeopteryx fossils prompted scientific activities or trajectories in students learning. Hence,
if these objects were missing or changed, the activities and subsequent learning would have
turned out differently in the classroom. Therefore, to explain students’ learning in the
classroom, didactic transposition theory tells us that sometimes the explanations can be found
at different institutional levels of the educational system, not necessarily in the classroom or
in the curriculum alone.
In our framework we are using the concept of transformation instead of transposition. The
reasons for this are twofold. First, transposition as a term has the semantic meaning of
movement of something from one setting to another, while transformation as a term focuses
on the process of change. In our view we think that it is the connotation of ‘change’ and

8
‘process’ that is most useful to study in relationship to powerful knowledge. The movement or
transposition of the body of knowledge between institutions in transposition theory is more
related to the explanation for this change. Second, our ambition is to encapsulate different
frameworks of didactical research also relating to the classroom level, and that would be
difficult by using the concept of transposition that is specifically situated within the specific
framework of ATD.
The concept of didactic transposition resonates with Bernstein’s (1971) conception of ‘re-
contextualization’, which refers to the selection, sequencing and pacing of contents that takes
into account both the coherence of the subject discipline and the limits on what can be learned
by students at different stages of their development. The concept of re-contextualization also
recognizes the dichotomization between what can be regarded as powerful knowledge at the
university level and what can be regarded as powerful knowledge at the school subject level
and therefore we regard the idea of re-contextualisation as a useful conceptual tool for
analysis of powerful knowledge in the educational system. However, the idea of re-
contextualisation refers more to a conscious act of preparing for teaching at the classroom
level (which will be discussed in next section), while the concept of didactic transposition
relates to discourse analysis, to detect unconscious ‘taken for granted’ restraints of what is
being taught at the institutional level. Pierre Clément (2006) has developed the KVP-model
and showed that the transposition between institutions is dependent not only on the
knowledge (K) itself, but also on values (V) and social practices (P) that in the eyes of the
teachers implicitly influence the transformation processes.
School subjects and the academic disciplines have different aims. The subjects do not have
the role to produce new knowledge, which could be said to be the main purpose of the
academic disciplines (Gericke et al. 2014). The aim of the school subjects and the school as a
whole is more differentiated, incorporating educational goals relating to for example values
(equality, democracy etc.) and skills (critical thinking, action competence). These various
goals of education are captured by Biesta (2009; 2015) in the conceptual triad consisting of:
qualification (to be able to qualify for a life at and beyond school), socialisation (to be able to
understand and act within social practices at and beyond school), and subjectification (to be
able to understand and crete meaning in relation to school practices). With reference to Biesta
the transformation of powerful knowledge at an institutional level can be viewed as filtered
through the triad, i.e. the content knowledge needs to be adapted by the educational goals at
hand (Nordgren, 2017). Also depending on whether a literacy (socialization), or preparation
for tertiary education (qualification) is the purpose of schooling, what is regarded as powerful
knowledge might differ.
To summarize, the fact that the transformation process tends to come out differently
depending on the setting of the institution and the goals of education, it is of interest to
investigate the very nature of powerful knowledge when these variables differ.

Transformation on a classroom level

We now turn to the classroom level, the last step in the transformation process, which we
would point out as the most important level. Within the German/Nordic research tradition of
didactics transformation is perceived as an integrative process. This means that the
representation of the teaching content in a teaching situation should not be exclusively framed
as a question of how, as a methodological/pedagogical issue, as proposed by Young (2015b).

9
The matter of how is only a part of a bigger complex process of transformation. The answer to
the how-question is dependent of the answers on the other didactical questions: what? why?
For who? and when? We understand these questions as essential when discussing the process
of transformation on the classroom level, and essential when discussing powerful knowledge.
At the classroom level the teacher, and to some extent the students, become actors in the
process of defining powerful knowledge.
Historically, in research conducted within the European research tradition of ‘didaktik’ there
has been an understanding that there is a dimension in the teacher’s work, where the teacher is
independent and where the teacher has the opportunity to make didactical decisions. In the
research of didactics the teacher is not understood as implementing a given curriculum as in
the curriculum tradition. As a consequence, to define powerful knowledge can not only be an
issue of curriculum principles, but teachers and students become important parts of the
enactment process. The work of the teacher then becomes defined as an interpreting activity
(Westbury 2000), but this interpretation is not carried out in a vacuum. It is obviously
influenced by governance and policy, but also by the traditions of teaching that are expressed
in different kinds of teaching artefacts and activities. The public view of the subject, what the
content should be and how the teaching ought to be organized, are also aspects of that wider
context that influence the transformation process (Gericke 2009; Olin-Scheller 2006; Stolare
2017; Eliasson & Nordgren 2016; Bladh 2014).
Transformation can be characterized as a situated process that is permeating different parts of
the teaching practice (Ulljens 1997; Hopmann 2007). An initial transformation is made in the
planning phase, when the teacher draws up the lesson plans, selecting the teaching content
and considering how it should be represented in such a way that it would be possible for the
students to grasp. A second part takes place in the actual teaching situation, when teachers and
students are confronted with the representations of content. In this way, the transformation
can be described as process of continuous reconstruction that Ongstad (2006) has denoted as
‘omstilling’. To view transformation in this way points to one of the foundations of the
German/Nordic didactic tradition; the idea of the didactic triangle, see Figure 1.

10
 Figure 1. The didactic triangle, developed from (Klafki, 1997)

The didactic triangle captures an integrative model of the various factors that shape the
processes of teaching and learning (Klafki 1997). It is integrative in the sense that it is not
really considered possible to isolate a single aspect of the model. It is a relational model that
stresses the interdependence of the variables. The three vertices of the triangle – the teacher,
the student and the content – and especially the relationship between them are all in play and
relevant to the transformation process. (Kansanen & Meri 1999). The transformation process
is influenced by the students' understanding and their previous experience of the content. Here
the triangle is connected to the life world of the students, and of relevance is the relationship
between the teacher and the student, but also the teacher’s notion of the students’ relation to
the content (Klafki 1997). Finally, the teacher’s meta-understanding should be taken into
consideration. If a teacher’s work is viewed as an act of interpretation, the importance of the
teacher’s own understanding of the subject and to the content to be taught becomes crucial for
the enactment in the classroom. But these relationships are not to be isolated from the context
of the school and the society as a whole. The didactic triangle is socially and culturally
embedded.
Taking the model of the didactic triangle into consideration we would claim that to be able to
discern powerful knowledge at the classroom level we need to empirically investigate
teachers’ and students’ understandings of the content knowledge and not only take our
departure from the disciplinary knowledge itself. In previous research inspired by the didactic
tradition, it has become clear that the didactic triangle might be used as a tool in more in-
depth micro-studies focusing on the act of content negotiations between the teacher and the
students. This is a process, in which both parties are important, and where the goal is to reach
a (common) understanding of the content knowledge. Another conclusion is that teachers
have difficulties to introduce subject perspectives related to powerful knowledge, due to
teachers´ own prior understanding of the content knowledge and strong selective subject
traditions (Stolare 2017). This means that it is essential to identify what powerful knowledge
is possible to teach based on the relationships shown in the model of the didactical triangle.
One way of doing that is to use the framework of didactical analysis as proposed by Klafki
(1995).
The framework of didactical analysis consists of five questions (Klafki 1995). These
questions are based in turn on the earlier ideas proposed by Nohl and Weniger. The basic idea
is that the value of any content knowledge can only be ascertained with reference to the
individual learner and with a particular human and historical situation in mind, with its
attendant past and anticipated future. The questions are:
1. What wider or general sense of reality do these contents exemplify and open
up for the learner? What basic phenomenon or fundamental principle, what law,
criterion, problem, method, technique or attitude can be grasped by dealing with
this content as an ‘example’?
2. What significance does the content in question or the experience, knowledge,
ability or skill to be acquired through this topic already possess in the minds of
the children in my class? What significance should it have from a pedagogical
point of view?
3. What constitutes the topic's significance for the children's future?

11
 4. How is the content structured? (How has the content been placed into a
specifically pedagogical perspective by questions 1, 2 and 3?)
5. What are the special cases, phenomena, situations, experiments, persons,
elements of aesthetic experience, and so forth, in terms of which the structure of
the content in question can become interesting, stimulating, approachable,
conceivable, or vivid for children of the stage of development of this class?
Through this framework, the classroom practice can be analysed and what becomes clear is
that behind these questions lies a strategy addressing the issue of significance. What is to be
taught, that we here would denote powerful knowledge, should be of significance seen from
the view of the children’s future (question #3). Significance point towards the importance of
values, because this can only be evaluated based on the goals of education. The question to
address is what knowledge has the capacity to empower students? And this can be only be
answered in the light of the goals of education, be it qualification, socialisation or
subjectification (Biesta, 2009; 2015).
In his later work Klafki discussed Epochaltypische Schlüsselproblemen (Key problems). In
short, education should deal with the important, and sometimes controversial societal issues
of today (Klafki, 1997). By doing that Klafki puts the didactical practice in clear connection
to surrounding society that we discussed in a previous section. Hence, the different levels of
the educational system as outlined in this article should not be viewed as independent. Instead
we view them as connected and mutually interdependent through the various transformation
processes as outlined. That is why it is crucial to expand the concept of powerful knowledge
to also encompass the various transformation processes and their importance for teaching and
learning.
With reference to Kalfki’s (1995) framework of didaktik analysis, Barrett et al. (2018) note
that having reduced the knowledge-to-be-taught to digestible learning bites, this process helps
the teacher to show how the reduction can be ‘unlocked’ to expand the range of its
generalizability and induct the learner into ‘unlocking’ it himself or herself, a process called
‘double unlocking’ (Krüger , 2008). They observe how this adds an extra dimension to the
Bernsteinian (2000) concept of ‘recontextualisation’ i.e. the curriculum is not just to be
translated but rather it is also to be compressed and then de-compressed. It is this dimension
that Deng (2015) thinks social realists such Young have so far missed when developing the
concept of powerful knowledge. At the same time they (ibid.) note that Bernstein shared the
didaktik view of the unity of curriculum and pedagogy and that he acknowledged Klafki with
thanks on this point in the notes to his chapter (Bernstein, 1971, p. 175). Furthermore they
observe, quite rightly in our view, that this unity is a point that seems to have been lost in
contemporary curriculum studies, i.e. that we would refer to as transformations.
In parallel with developments in the German/Nordic tradition, the French research tradition
has developed frameworks to understand and describe the transformation processes at the
classroom level. The need for integrative thinking in contrast to reductionism is also reflected
in the Francophone tradition as elaborated by Sensevy (2011) who argues that the first
theoretical principle of French didactics is that in order to understand a didactic activity (i.e.
an activity where someone teaches and someone learns) you need to understand a system, the
didactic system, which is a system of three subsystems: knowledge, the teacher and the
student. The Joint Action Theory of Didactics (JATD) operationalizes this holistic view into a
systematically organised set of concepts and analytic tools that can be used in relation to
classroom observation studies. Hence, these tools were already originally developed from a
research perspective rather than a curriculum perspective (Sensevy, 2011). The theory of

12
JATD elaborates the last step of the didactic transposition, i.e. transformation process in the
classroom. In comparison to Klafki’s frameworks, the tools and concepts of JATD are of
more analytical nature. Within JATD the concept of the didactic contract is used to describe
the system of habits, which is largely implicit, between the teacher and the students in relation
to the knowledge in question. On the basis of those habits established in the didactic situation,
each participant (the teacher or the student/s) attributes some expectations to the other(s). In
order to learn, students have to deal with a situation involving a problem that previous
knowledge does not allow them to solve. Within JATD this situation is referred to as a milieu
(Brousseau, 1997) which describes the system of material and symbolic objects in question
that corresponds to the new knowledge the students are to acquire. According to this
description, the older pieces of knowledge enable the teacher and the students to act jointly
whereas the new knowledge involves a kind of resistance to the student’s action (Gruson et
al., 2012, p. 65). Here we see a possible connection to powerful knowledge, and also JATD
aims at identifying the transformed knowledge in the classroom. However, in this theory the
powerful knowledge is acted upon and transformed by both the teachers and the students,
which is our standpoint in this paper.
The didactic transactions between the teacher and the students are in JATD described as a
game of a particular kind, a didactic game in which some specific pieces of knowledge are
involved. The didactic game is seen as a collaborative game, a joint game, within a joint
action (Gruson et al., 2012, p. 65). One exemplar of the application of JATD to a particular
episode of classroom interaction can be found in Hudson (2015). The findings from this study
highlight the ways in which the children actively engaged in the ‘milieu’ and the ways in
which the teacher developed the ‘didactic game’ by extending the ‘epistemic games’ through
the use of the open-ended topic-based approach combined with effective teacher questioning.
He also highlight the ways in which the discursive elements of ‘learning games‘ as part of
these lessons proved to be very effective means through which to support the children to
engage in the milieu and to develop mathematical thinking. A second exemplar is a case of
teaching-learning in a non-schooling context which is based on education for toddlers with
aquatic motor-awakening activities, commonly referred to as “swimming babies”. This paper
presents a case study of how a young girl learned how to “blow bubbles” under water
(Loquet, 2011). The reason for us addressing JATD is that we believe it to be a useful tool for
those interested in investigating the enactment of powerful knowledge in the classroom.
What we have tried to show from these frameworks of didactical research at the classroom
level from the Nordic/German as well as French traditions is that it is almost impossible to
make a clear dichotomization between curriculum and pedagogy because teaching and
learning is mutually interdependent according to these didactical theories. It is not possible to
establish powerful knowledge without considering these transformation processes. In the next
section, we will make a synthesis and discuss how the concepts of transformation and
powerful knowledge could relate to each other, and how we could explore this relationship.

Powerful knowledge and transformation – A synthesis into an

integrative research framework
We find that the concept of powerful knowledge give merits to subject didactic research, as
discussed above, by pointing out the importance of the disciplinary knowledge, and how this
disciplinarly knowledge needs to be defined, problematized and structured before teaching.
However, from our perspective the dichotomization between curriculum and pedagogy as

13
well as teaching and learning is not fruitful and we see the need to expand the theory of
powerful knowledge and relate it to the research traditions of didactics in general and the
concept of transformation in particular. Based on this article we suggest that:
• Powerful knowledge should be considered in relation to transformation as a flexible
concept that can be described and identified at the levels of society, institutions and
classroom,
• as a consequence, what constitutes powerful knowledge might differ between these
levels,
• these possible differences are dependent on the transformation processes occurring
between the levels and
• tools for investigating the transformation processes leading to a specific set of
powerful knowledge can be found in the European research traditions of didactics.
Accordingly, powerful knowledge cannot be defined solely on the discipline, but needs to be
adopted by considering the didactization 2 (Ongstad 2006) of the conceptual knowledge
through the transformation process. If there are obstacles in the transformation process (for
example students might lack the necessary pre-knowledge to understand the concept, or the
students’ might have negative attitudes depending on the social context) it would not be
meaningful to teach it. Therefore, we need to consider transformation while identifying
powerful knowledge.
Further, not all school subjects are linked to a discipline(s) in the same way. Some school
subjects are connected to a single discipline (e.g. History, Mathematics) but other school
subject have connections to several different disciplines (e.g. Science, Mother tongue, Civics).
Those school subjects might be described as interdisciplinary by their very nature. Keeping
these facts in mind we think it is necessary to investigate and compare transformation
processes and powerful knowledge over many school subjects and disciplines. By focusing on
powerful knowledge and the corresponding transformation processes through a comparative
approach, it should be possible to illuminate the didactical commonalities and differences
between different subjects and how they influence teaching and learning. In contemporary
didactical research, the focus is shifting more towards what we in this paper denotes as
“research on subject specific education” or what in a European tradition is denoted
“ämnesdidaktik” (Swedish), “fachdidaktik” (German) or “didactiques des disciplines”
(French). The starting point in subject specific education is that the different knowledge
traditions and epistemologies of different subjects are diverse, and these premises are decisive
in teaching and learning, and will inevitablely influence both the way content is selected (the
what and why questions) and the way it is taught (the how question). In that sense, it
conforms with the ideas of transformation and powerful knowledge as formulated in this
article. Thus, drawing on both a subject-specific and a cross disciplinary perspective, we
argue for a research framework to investigate processes of how powerful knowledge is
manifested in teaching and perceived by students and teachers in different subjects and topics.
The ambition in this article has been to point to the importance of linking the traditions of
didactics, here especially the German/Nordic and the French, to the curriculum perspective of
powerful knowledge. This has been done by applying an inclusive definition of the concept of
transformation. The idea is that through the holistic integrative didactic approach emphasise is
placed on the complexity of the transformation of powerful knowledge in relation to the
school subjects. But also it is suggested that the concepts present in the didactic traditions,
some of which discussed here, as the didactic triangle, the didactic questions, transposition,

2
The process of which a school subject is adopted for teaching due to societal and contextual influences.

14
(epistemic-, didactic-, learning-) games could work as frameworks to better grasp and unfold
the process of transformation. The next step will be to establish a more elaborated framework,
and this can be done only through empirical studies, preferably of comparative nature as
argued above. In doing so we would, based on this paper, suggest that research should follow
these three overarching research questions:

1. How can the nature of powerful knowledge in different school subjects be

characterized?
2. How can the transformation processes related to powerful knowledge be described?
3. What are the barriers against and the conditions for transformation of powerful
knowledge in different subjects?

With these proposals we believe that there are good possibilities to develop the theoretical, as
well as empirical, underpinnings of the concept of powerful knowledge and at the same time
start the merging process of curriculum research with didactical research by combining the
most advantageous aspects from both traditions.

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