The main data set used in this chapter comes from a comparative study of physics
lecturers in Sweden and South Africa. (Airey 2012; 2013: Linder et al 2014). Semistructured
interviews were carried out using a disciplinary literacy discussion matrix
(Airey 2011b), which enabled us to probe the lecturers’ disciplinary literacy goals in the
various semiotic resource systems used in undergraduate physics (i.e. graphs, diagrams,
mathematics, language, etc.).
The findings suggest that whilst physics lecturers have strikingly similar
disciplinary literacy goals for their students, regardless of setting; they have very different
ideas about whether they themselves should teach students to handle these disciplinaryspecific
semiotic resources. It is suggested that the similarity in physics
lecturers’disciplinary literacy goals across highly disparate settings may be related to the
hierarchical, singular nature of the discipline of physics (Bernstein 1999; 2000).
In the final section of the chapter some preliminary evidence about the disciplinary
literacy goals of those involved in physics teacher training is presented. Using Bernstein’s
constructs, a potential conflict between the hierarchical singular of physics and the
horizontal region of teacher training is noticeable.
Going forward it would be interesting to apply the concept of disciplinary literacy
to the analysis of other disciplines—particularly those with different combinations of
Bernstein’s classifications of hierarchical/horizontal and singular/region.
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