The paper is part of my Ph.D. about ‘Disciplinarity’ in Profession Bachelor Education[1] using Problem based Learning (PBL). The paper explores the research question of how to conceptualize transversal knowledge formations in problem based study programs.

Inter- and trans-disciplinarity are usually the terms used to describe close relationships between various subjects and disciplines (Klein), but these terms are mostly used in intellectual research fields and do not sufficiently grasp the way that students in higher education combine or merge various subjects, theories etc.

Methodologically my project is basically a curriculum research crossing planned and implemented curriculum for two case-studies; Nursing Education and Constructing Architect educations in two specific institutional contexts. Research comprises document analysis; lecturers and students interviews classroom analysis and students work products

The main theoretical inspiration is from educational sociology. Using Basil Bernstein’s code theories and Karl Maton’s legitimation code theorie (LCT). I have examined historical transformation of knowledge discourses in curriculum, showing  how classification/framing of disciplines have gradually changed to a stronger ‘knower code’ and a weaker ‘knowledge code’ in relation to single disciplines. New learning discourses has entered the scene and put more emphasis on the learner’s dispositions. It is no longer a question of acquiring the right knowledge but also of the ways of knowing.

PBL has been one of more progressive pedagogies that have entered the scene with case or project study units. However the question is how knowledge is organized and structured as the disciplinary structures in the single disciplines have been weakened over the years. In some sense the PBL-units reframe the weakened disciplines/subjects, but now as a ‘federations’ of subjects! Therefore it is crucial to find out in what sense new disciplinary formations can emerge in such federations. How are the federation of subject organized in curriculum, and how can the student build knowledge of it?

To explore this I draw on theories of by J. Muller and K. Maton. The concepts of semantic gravity and semantic density by Maton show vertical movements of condensation and fleshing out meaning between concepts and empirical referents.  Another dimension of knowledge building is the horizontal dimension where various ways of transversing between theories need to take place. Here I draw on theories of inferential relations, reasoning, argumentation (R. Brandom) and ‘knowledge orders’ (L. Qvortrup).

The two cases show obviously different results. The paper describes these different models and modalities of transversal knowledge formations.

[1] A separate sector under Higher Education system in DK

Bernstein, B. 2000, Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research, critique, Rev. ed. edn, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham. Brandom, R.B. 1994, Making it explicit: reasoning, representing, and discursive commitment, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. Fairclough, N. 2002, Discourse and social change, Reprint edn, Polity, Cambridge. Foucault, M. 1986, The archaelogy of knowledge, Tavistock Publications, London. Maton, K. 2011, "Theories and things" in , ed. F.M. Christie Karl, Continuum, . Maton, K. 2008, "Knowledge-knower structures in intelectual and educational fields" in Language, knowledge and Pedagogy, ed. Christie, F. and Martin, J. F., 2008th edn, Continuum, . Muller, J. 2011a, "The essential tension" in Knowledge, Pedagogy and Society, ed. D.:. Frandji P., First edition edn, Routledge, . Muller, J. 2011b, "Through others eyes" in Disciplinarity, ed. F.M. Christie Karl, 2011th edn, Continuum, .