Ever since possibilities opened up for distance learning with advanced information and communication technology, questions have been raised on how this mode for learning and teaching would affect student control over their learning. The premises were that technology would allow students to control sequencing and pacing of their studies and increasingly they would select the content they wanted to learn at each time. The study to be presented is a part of a larger study on teacher education in a distance programme in the Iceland University of Education. Basil Bernstein’s theories are used to explain and interpret the task faced by distance students when the platform for teaching and learning is on the Internet. The benefits of increasing student agency in controlling learning will be discussed and teaching methods which can enhance agency will be considered. The paper explores whether and how Bernstein’s theories, especially the concepts ‘realization rules’ and ‘recognition rules’ can shed light on the position of distance students. When entering a social field people’s access is dependent on how well they read the circumstances. Bernstein explains the accessibility of social arena by analysing them in terms of classification and framing values. The study explores how distance students are supported in recognising and realizing appropriate behaviour when communicating and acting online? The importance of the framing of the pedagogic discourse when traditional cues are absent is discussed.

The study is based on ethnographic data collection by visiting student teachers enrolled in the distance programme several times during a three year period from 2003-2005. In addition several distance courses have been observed and both online and on campus sessions transcribed and analysed. In this paper the interviews with the distance students form the backbone of the data that will be drawn upon while the course material is used as a background.

Applying Bernstein's theories draws attention to the importance of the regulative discourse in which the instructional discourse is always embedded. In order to be able to act as distance students the rules of the regulative discourse have to be recognized. Face-to-face sessions support this but both in them and during online sessions it matters how the instructional discourse is framed. Weak framing where students are given more agency for personal communication support them in learning to be distance students. At the same time strong classification between scientific and everyday knowledge where the role of the teacher as a professional who controls the criteria of knowledge to be accepted in the course supports recognition rules for distance students which is a prerequisite for acquiring realisation rules to guide their performance. The results of the study are intended to inform teacher educators and distance learning teachers on the way in which the values of classification and framing of the pedagogic discourse enhance or constrain recognition and realization rules for distance learners and thereby their ability to act and learn.