In this paper, key aspects of Bernstein’s theory will be analysed within the Icelandic context to determine whether his theory can be adapted and employed when researching socio-economic inequities in upper-secondary education in Iceland during the COVID‑19 pandemic and beyond (Bernstein, 1971/2009, 1973/2009, 1977/2009, 1990/2009). Theoretical ideas about educational inequity included in recent Icelandic research are dominated by Bourdieu’s (Bourdieu, 1990) argument that class is constituted by economic, cultural and social capital. While researchers have employed this theory to better understand the role of education in the creation of social inequalities within society, Bourdieu himself questioned whether education operates as a disruptive and emancipatory force in society since it is reflective of dominant groups and is, therefore, a social reproduction force. While Bourdieu has dominated the research field of socio-economic inequity in education in Iceland, Basil Bernstein tends to only be cited in passing.

Þórlindsson (1987) conducted an empirical test of Basil Bernstein’s socio-linguistic model in Icelandic surroundings around forty-five years ago. In his findings, he suggested that while there was a correlation between social class, family interaction, IQ and school performance within his dataset of 338 randomly selected 15‑year-old students in Reykjavik, important revisions should be made to Bernstein’s model, specifically his methods for measuring elaborated[1] and restricted codes. Bernstein defines codes as elaborating or restricted. The principles of elaborating and restricted codes involve access to meanings. In the case of restricted codes, meaning is symbolically condensed and restricted to those sharing common bodies of knowledge. In the case of elaborating codes, meaning is semantically expanded and exchanged with those not sharing the same body of knowledge. Þórlindsson’s test was premised upon Bernstein’s earlier papers (Bernstein, 1962a, 1962b, 1964, 1966, 1970) on restricted and elaborated linguistic codes being analysed using a syntactic approach. Later Bernstein developed a more semantic approach under the influence of Hasan and Halliday (Moore, 2013).

Prior to examining Bernstein’s work, it is important that researchers consider whether his ideas are applicable in the setting in which they are operating. Bernstein developed his theory in the latter part of the twentieth century in England, where the educational system and social environment were very different from what they are in contemporary Iceland, especially considering the unusual circumstances within educational settings resulting from the COVID‑19 pandemic.

The following questions should be asked before applying Bernstein’s ideas to contemporary Iceland:

• To what extent can Bernstein’s tools help to analyse the educational system during unconventional circumstances, such as home teaching and learning during school closures?
• Is Bernstein’s idea of classes, or social groups as he later referred to them, useful in educational research in contemporary Iceland?
• Are there any indications that would suggest access to pedagogic discourse is different for parents based on their socio-economic status?

[1] Bernstein later changed the term ‚elaborated code‘ to ‚elaborating code‘.

This article includes interviews with 12 parents conducted in the course of a more extensive study on upper-secondary education during the COVID 19 pandemic. Three upper-secondary schools were selected for the research, and four parents were selected from each of school to provide a nuanced understanding of the interplay between home life during the pandemic and distance teaching and learning; participants of all genders and family types with various socio-economic backgrounds, education and language skills were selected. The interview framework consisted of questions related to the parents’ background, the students’ study habits, life and facilities at home during the pandemic and the general well-being of the parents and students. ISEI 08 will be used in this article to indicate the parents’ socio-economic status (Ganzeboom & Treiman, 2010). By analysing data provided in the interviews, a profile of each household was able to be constructed to provide background information from the interviews. Utilising the ISEI 08 allowed the parents to be arranged into an order in which the highest score represented the strongest socio-economic position and the lowest score represented the weakest; other background factors were also considered. To fully understand the parents’ ability to use restricted codes in the interviews, all of their words in the interviews were evaluated and placed into categories according to their meaning or the meaning of the context in which the words were used.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether and to what extent Basil Bernstein’s theory on language and social groups is applicable in Iceland during the COVID 19 school closures. Using a scaled index such as ISEI 08 to estimate different social groups based on their respective socio-economic backgrounds is useful, because the traditional middle class makes up the largest portion of the Icelandic population, even though its composition is diverse. When parents’ usage of specialised education-related vocabulary was analysed and associated with their socio-economic positions, it became apparent that parents in the weakest position had less access to specialised vocabulary or restricted language codes, while parents in the strongest position used, on average, twice as many specialised vocabulary words. In line with Bernstein, it can therefore be assumed that parents in the weakest position had the worst access to the pedagogic discourse and by extension, the educational system. The findings introduced in the paper expose issues related to student access to assistance during the COVID 19 school closure periods and future scenarios of this sort. School authorities must consider the manner in which students are able to benefit from opportunities offered to them. It is not enough to merely provide the same opportunities to students; arrangements should also be made to ensure all students are capable of utilising the opportunities they are offered, and one way in which this can be accomplished is by raising awareness of parents’ different abilities to employ restricted code or specialised education-related vocabulary. The paper contributes to an understanding of the interplay among students, parents, and practitioners within any education system. Its importance lies in the contribution to general discussions about equity in education and important aspects of educational discourse that might improve opportunities in education for all students.

Bernstein, B. (1962a). Linguistic codes, hesitation phenomena and intelligence. Language and speech, 5(1), 31-48. Bernstein, B. (1962b). Social class, linguistic codes and grammatical elements. Language and speech, 5(4), 221-240. Bernstein, B. (1964). Elaborated and restricted codes: Their social origins and some consequences. American anthropologist, 66(6), 55-69. Bernstein, B. (1966). Elaborated and restricted codes: An outline. Sociological Inquiry, 36(2), 254-261. Bernstein, B. (1970). A sociolinguistic approach to socialization: With some reference to educability. In Language and poverty (pp. 25-61). Elsevier. Bernstein, B. (1971/2009). Class, codes and control I: Theoretical studies towards a sociology of language (Vol. 1). Routledge. (1971) Bernstein, B. (1973/2009). Class, codes and control II: Applied studies towards a sociology of language (Vol. 2). Routledge. (1973) Bernstein, B. (1977/2009). Class, codes and control III: Towards a theory of educational transmission (Vol. 3). Routledge. (1977) Bernstein, B. (1990/2009). Class, codes and control IV: The structuring of pedagogic discourse (Vol. 4). Routledge. (1990) Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Stanford university press. Ganzeboom, H. B., & Treiman, D. J. (2010). Occupational status measures for the new International Standard Classification of Occupations ISCO-08; with a discussion of the new classification. Annual Conference of International Social Survey Programme, Lisbon, Moore, R. (2013). Basil Bernstein: The thinker and the field. Routledge. Þórlindsson, Þ. (1987). Bernstein's sociolinguistics: An empirical test in Iceland. Social Forces, 65(3), 695-718.