Academic curriculum and curricular units that are responsive to work necessarily involve the interaction of knowledge from two different communities. In this paper a number of cases of responsive curriculum are analysed in order to answer the following questions: Can general differences between work and academic knowledge be ascribed to the nature of the relevant knowledge fields? Were some fields of academic knowledge more amenable to interaction and hybridisation with work than others? We find that difference does indeed play a part in hybridisation. Where difference is too large or too small, hybridisation may be less successful than where difference is optimal. But other contingencies also come into play that involve the actions of actors in pushing difference in a particular direction. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)