Forgot to say that I am not familiar with threshold concepts, so I looked it up:
http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/thresholds.html
and found some similarity to the concepts and ideas we use in sociological enquiries that are concerned with meaning-making processes, stereotyping and production of authoritative knowledge – as I mentioned above, M Foucault ‘s work is what I find most useful and comprehensive when it comes to theoretical approaches in this context.