Epistemic Quality and Powerful Knowledge: Implications for Curriculum Innovation and Teacher Education Policy & Practice

1. Epistemic Quality and Powerful
Knowledge: Implications for Curriculum
Innovation and Teacher Education Policy
& Practice
Panel Discussion:
Brian Hudson, Monique Loquet, Anke Wegner, Niklas Gericke, Christina
Olin-Scheller and Martin Stolare
Discussant: Zongyi Deng
ECER 2021 Conference
University of Geneva
6-10 Sept 2021

2. Overview of session
 Part 1 Opening, background and presentation of theoretical framework (10 mins) –
Brian Hudson
 Part 2 Epistemic Quality of Physical Education in a High School in France (10 mins) –
Monique Loquet
 Part 3 Epistemic Quality of Language Learning in a Primary Classroom in Germany (10
mins) – Anke Wegner
 Part 4 The Process of Selection of Subject Matter in Social Studies (10 mins) – Martin
Stolare
 Part 5 Teaching Practices in Transformation in Connected Social Science Swedish
Classrooms (10 mins) – Christina Olin-Scheller
 Part 6 Powerful Knowledge and Epistemic Quality in Education for Sustainable
Development (10 mins) – Niklas Gericke
 Part 7 Discussant (10 mins) – Zongyi Deng
 Part 8 Questions and general comments (20 mins)

3. Background context: the KOSS network (2019-22)
Knowledge and Quality Across School Subjects and Teacher Education
This Panel Discussion builds on earlier symposia at ECER conferences
(Hudson, 2018; 2019) and at the NOFA7 conference (Olin-Scheller, 2019).
Conceptual framework
Our overall aim in the KOSS network is to study how content knowledge in
different school subjects is defined and transformed, taking a comparative
perspective across education systems. By using the theoretical concepts of
powerful knowledge, transformation and epistemic quality (Gericke et al.,
2018; Hudson, 2018) we study how these concepts form knowledge of
importance for subject didactics and how this can be developed within teacher
education.

4. Powerful knowledge, transformation and
epistemic quality
 Powerful knowledge is based on two key characteristics, both expressed in the form
of boundaries. First, it is specialized in both how it is produced and transmitted, and
this is expressed in terms of the boundaries between disciplines and school subjects.
Second, it is differentiated from the experiences pupils bring to school and expressed
in the conceptual boundaries between school and everyday knowledge (Young 2013).
 Transformation is seen as an integrative process through which specialized
knowledge, developed in subject disciplines, is reshaped and re-presented in
educational environments – via various processes outside and within the education
system at individual, institutional and societal levels – as bodies and forms of
knowledge to be taught and learned (Gericke et al. 2018).
 A central issue for our research is to explore how transformation processes can
enable knowledge of high epistemic quality to be taught in school classrooms. The
term epistemic is concerned with the knowledge involved in a didactical/teaching-
studying-learning situation. In turn the term epistemic quality describes the quality
of what students come to know, make sense of and be able to do in school (Hudson,
2018)

5. KOSS network research questions
The specific research questions around which the KOSS research studies have
been framed are as follows:
1. How can the nature of powerful knowledge and epistemic quality in
different school subjects be characterized?
2. How can the transformation processes related to powerful knowledge and
epistemic quality be described?
3. How can the nature of teachers’ powerful professional knowledge be
characterized and what are the implications for teacher education policy and
practice?
Outputs from these studies have formed the core contributions to two
forthcoming books:
International Perspectives on Knowledge and Curriculum: Epistemic Quality
across School Subjects &
International Perspectives on Knowledge and Quality: Implications for
Innovation in Teacher Education Policy and Practice

6. International Perspectives on Knowledge and
Curriculum
Mainly addresses the first two KOSS
research questions:
 How can the nature of powerful
knowledge and epistemic quality
in different school subjects be
characterized?
 How can the transformation
processes related to powerful
knowledge and epistemic quality
be described?

8. International Perspectives on Knowledge
and Quality
 Mainly addresses the third KOSS
research question and also that
raised by Furlong & Whitty (2017)
 How can the nature of teachers’
powerful professional knowledge
be characterized and what are the
implications for teacher education
policy and practice?
 How can disciplinary knowledge
and other external knowledges be
brought together with
professionals’ reflective practice
and practical theorising in
professional arenas to produce
really powerful professional
knowledge and learning?
Furlong and Whitty (2017, p.49)

10. Selected references
 Gericke, N., Hudson, B., Olin-Scheller, C. and Stolare, M. (2018) Powerful Knowledge,
Transformations and the Need for Empirical Studies across School Subjects, London Review of
Education: Special Issue on Knowledge and Subject Specialist Teaching, Vol. 16, Issue 3, 428-444.
UCL IOE Press. https://doi.org/10.18546/LRE.16.3.06
 Hudson, B. (2022) Evaluating Epistemic Quality in Primary School Mathematics in Scotland. In B.
Hudson, N. Gericke, C. Olin-Scheller and M. Stolare (Eds.) International Perspectives on Knowledge
and Curriculum: Epistemic Quality across School Subjects, Bloomsbury Publishing plc, London. (In
press)
 Hudson, B. (2018) Powerful Knowledge and Epistemic Quality in School Mathematics, London
Review of Education: Special Issue on Knowledge and Subject Specialist Teaching, Vol. 16, Issue 3,
384-397. UCL IOE Press. https://doi.org/10.18546/LRE.16.3.03
 Hudson, B., Henderson, S. and Hudson, A., (2015) Developing Mathematical Thinking in the
Primary Classroom: Liberating Teachers and Students as Learners of Mathematics, Journal of
Curriculum Studies, Vol. 47, Issue 3, 374-398. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2014.979233
 Hudson, B., Gericke, N., Olin-Scheller, C. and Stolare, M. (2022a) International Perspectives on
Knowledge and Curriculum: Epistemic Quality across School Subjects, Bloomsbury Publishing plc,
London. (in press) https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/international-perspectives-on-knowledge-and-
curriculum-9781350167100/
 Hudson, B., Gericke, N., Olin-Scheller, C. and Stolare, M. (2022b) International Perspectives on
Knowledge and Quality: Implications for Innovation in Teacher Education Policy and Practice,
Bloomsbury Publishing plc, London. (In press)https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/international-
perspectives-on-knowledge-and-quality-9781350178403