What is disciplinary knowledge?

Updated: Jul 12

Here's a snippet from my longer blog post What Are All The Different Types Of Knowledge? (part 1):

Disciplinary - knowing how we know

In the aforementioned article ('Taking curriculum seriously'), Christine Counsell describes disciplinary knowledge as "what pupils learn about how that [substantive] knowledge was established, its degree of certainty and how it continues to be revised’" (emphasis my own). The writers of OfSTED's Geography review use this very definition themselves.

An example of this, taken from the OfSTED History review would be that "disciplinary knowledge is knowledge of how historians investigate the past, and how they construct historical claims, arguments and accounts."

The History review then borrows from Cuthbert and Standish's 'What Should Schools Teach?' for a further definition: "Broadly, disciplinary knowledge introduces pupils ‘to specialised forms of knowledge, modes of thought and experience, which are the symbolic products of past human endeavours to better know the world and the people within it’."

Disciplinary knowledge is not the same as skills, and it is not having a personal knowledge of how to do something (nor is it, to link it to a National Curriculum subject, the same as Working Scientifically) - see the section below on procedural knowledge for more.

Examples of disciplinary knowledge:

Historians assess the legacy of historical time periods, events, people and innovations, understanding how life in the past impacts on life in the present

For a complete progression of history disciplinary knowledge statements to add to your primary curriculum, you can download the following resource:

History - Primary Disciplinary Characteristics and Curriculum Statements

Buy Now

Geographers create and use ways of measuring natural processes e.g the Richter scale, the Mercalli scale
Designers define a purpose for the products they design and use this during the design process to ensure they are taking the right actions
Sportspeople are disciplined and maintain a rigorous training regimen to improve skills and performance
Linguists analyse language patterns and structures to understand meaning and context