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This paper argues that competency-based training in vocational education and training in Australia is one mechanism through which the working class is denied access to powerful knowledge represented by the academic disciplines. The paper presents a modified Bernsteinian analysis to argue that vocational education and training students need access to disciplinary knowledge using Bernstein's argument that abstract, conceptual knowledge is the means societies use to think 'the unthinkable' and 'the not-yet-thought'. I supplement Bernstein's social argument for democratic access to the disciplines with an epistemic argument that draws on the philosophy of critical realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of pedagogical relationships offer insights into policies and practices which have the capacity to promote progressive change in educational practice for children in poverty This paper focus on relationships established in three differently-located Australian primary schools. Greytown a medium sized inner-city school in New South Wales, Manger, a large suburban school in Queensland, and Meiks, a small rural school in New South Wales Each school is a designated disadvantage school and finded according through accordingly through a fedral Disadvantage Schools Program, is located in working class area and is ethincally diverse. The schools' pedagogical response to children in poverty are contrasted and analysed in terms of their capacity to contribute to socially just outcome from schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]