Browsing by Author "Dahl, Avryl"

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    The admission process : how portfolio assessment establishes the pedagogic subject of fashion design
    (2007) Dahl, Avryl; Davis, Zain
    This research draws on the work of Basil Bernstein as a theoretical structure with which to investigate the entry selection process that assesses prospective fashion design students' portfolios. It will be revealed how the three interrelated rules of the pedagogic device, namely distributive, recontextualising and evaluative rules regulate pedagogic communication and how their selective transmission and acquisition determine the pedagogic subject of fashion design. Recognition and realisation rules then orientate the panel and the prospective student to what is expected and what is legitimate within that context, and this is made explicit in various forms. During this process the selection panel manifests their expertise which acts as an indicator of what knowledge and skills are considered necessary for the discourse, which in turn determines what is applicable and who is eligible for the course. Because admission standards playa crucial role in establishing the quality of the learning program the evaluation process should be effective at predicting student potential and should be based on a set of reliable and valid criteria. My aim was to unpack a tacit practice which does not refer to explicit criteria or guideline procedures, yet defines and establishes authority and power relations as well as expertise, which serve to legitimate the discourse. This investigation is an attempt to generate academic enquiry into the field of fashion design, and attempts to demonstrate how the pedagogic subject of fashion design, produced during the selection process, defines how fashion design functions as a form of knowledge and a form of being that either summarily accepts or rejects students into the discourse. This establishes the profile of the ideal student and determines what forms of knowledge are privileged by the criteria for assessing portfolios. My aim is to identify what the criteria are for assessing portfolios; how consensus is established; how the process acts as a process of induction; and what ideological messages are contained and whose interests are served. This research has been interpreted on two levels: first, on a literal level and second, on a symbolic level to gain insight into what ideological messages are contained, which provides signification and reflect how tacit knowledge functions as an ideology or a veil of power. This supports Basil Bernstein's concept of the pedagogic device, which relays what counts as valid knowledge and serves as a symbolic ruler of consciousness, and provides the intrinsic grammar of the discourse.