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This paper explores the relevance for VET of Basil Bernstein's analysis of the structuring of knowledge and the framing of pedagogic practice. Bernstein argued that education was not a passive relay for external power relations. Pedagogic practice is an important structuring mechanism for power relations in the way in which knowledge is classified and framed. Towards the end of his life, Bernstein argued that the 'official' recontextualising principle in education was derived from 'genericism', itself based on new concepts of work and life. He says this is a socially empty concept, and results in identities constructed as market identities in which actors recognise themselves and others in the materialities of consumption. I apply Bernstein's analysis to VET policy in Australia.