Thresholds: The metaphorical foundations of powerful knowledge

Curriculum Journal. 2026. P. 1–29.

Maria Karrol, Lysova-Golomzina E.

This paper advances a theoretical account of threshold concepts as metaphorical-relational structures that reorganise meaning across contexts. Building on conceptual metaphor theory, we propose that threshold concepts can be understood as sites of schema-level reorganisation: deep, embodied patterns of relational logic that scaffold abstract reasoning and enable integration across disciplinary domains. In combination with legitimation code theory, this framing offers one account of why threshold concepts may be experienced as both transformative and troublesome, linking their epistemic role in structuring knowledge with the cognitive challenge of internalising unfamiliar organising logics. We illustrate the framework through the social construction of reality (SCOR) as an integrative threshold concept in the social sciences and humanities. SCOR exemplifies how symbolic boundaries and their historical reconfiguration operate as cognitive and epistemic anchors for understanding phenomena from citizenship to cultural identity. A comparative reading of Australian, British Columbian, and Scottish curricula shows contrasting ways in which SCOR's architecture can be instantiated: overtly through thematic content or tacitly through reasoning practices. By reframing threshold concepts as relational logics grounded in metaphorical structures rather than as isolated terms, this account bridges the divide between knowledge and competence and offers a basis for curriculum design that renders disciplinary thinking both visible and portable.

Keywords: threshold concepts, powefull knowledge