This book offers a model of classroom discourse analysis that uses systemic functional linguistic theory and associated genre theory to develop a view of classroom episodes as "curriculum genres", some of which operate in turn as part of larger unities of work called "curriculum macrogenres".

Drawing on Bernstein's work, Christie argues that two registers operate in pedagogic discourse: a regulative register, to do with the goals and directions of the discourse; and an instructional register, to do with the particular "content" or knowledge at issue. Each can be shown to be realized in distinctive clusters of choices in the grammar.

The operation of the regulative register determines the initiation, pacing, sequencing and evaluation of the overall pedagogic activity. It serves to draw various fields of experience and knowledge from beyond the school (the instructional register) and to "relocate" them for the purposes of teaching and learning. The book explores the model and demonstrates the methodology of school discourse analysis in considerable detail.

The methodology is set out, explained and exemplified in selections of classroom texts, both spoken and written, and over a range of subject areas, that cover the years of schooling from the preparatory or kindergarten class to the secondary school. Overall, schools emerge as major sites of symbolic control in a culture.