Notes on: Young,
M (2013) 'Overcoming the crisis in curriculum
theory: a knowledge based approach'. Journal
of Curriculum Studies, 45 (2): 101-18.doi:
10.1080/00220272.2013.764505
Dave Harris
The question is what sort of knowledge our
students entitled to learn at school, whether they
are attending university or undertaking vocational
or professional education. These questions
need to be constantly re-asked [handy].
Knowledge should accumulate between generations,
and this is 'what distinguishes us from animals'
(101). At the same time, the curriculum
should be able to build on and create new
knowledge in order to progress. Schools are
important in social change. However, once it
was normal to differentiate school knowledge from
everyday experience.
In order to develop the right sort of knowledge,
we need to break with some older approaches to
education. One is that the curriculum is the
source of the sacred, which became secularised and
specialized. However, expanded knowledge did
not become available to all, and critique came to
reject the idea of the sacred in favour of a
belief 'in the innate capacities of all learners,
and for some, all cultures' (102). This is
the progressive learner-centred tradition
associated with Rousseau and Dewey: only when the
burden of the sacred is been thrown off will
potentials be realised. Two approaches
follow, one puts its trust in knowledge and its
'inherent openness', where teachers are pedagogic
authorities and specialists, but without any
particular expertise in pedagogy. The second
refers to the 'emancipatory potential of learners'
and, recently, in digital technologies.
However, access is not the same as 'real learning'
(103), as opposed to 'experiential or informal
learning'.
Curriculum theory should go beyond these two
options. It should remain with the notion of
a store of knowledge, disciplined study and
inquiry, but break with the exclusiveness of the
sacred, and remember that the purpose is to
discover truth, 'which is, in principle, open to
all who are prepared to make the effort and are
adequately supported in their commitment'
[weaselly]. This is not to say that effort
is the only factor, because 'massive political
factors' also affect opportunity, and these should
be identified and suitable pedagogies
explored. Curriculum is largely in crisis
because it does not focus on the issue of access
to knowledge, or a reluctance to address
epistemological issues about truth and
reliability, 'at least since Hirst and Peters'
[! Let consensus break out!]. What should
count as important knowledge? We should not
leave this to administrators or politicians as in
the UK at present.
Callaghan noted the emergence of curriculum theory
in the USA as an attempt to apply Taylorism [part
of his 'cult of efficiency']. Apple was one
of the first critics. The UK avoided 'the
American obsession with instructional objectives',
but was limited with its own conception of liberal
education as in public schools. It is this
that Hirst and Peters expounded, and that the new
sociology of knowledge challenged. That
challenge politicised the field and led to the
development of critical pedagogy, by focusing on
power relations, or the '"knowledge of the
powerful"' [quoting an earlier piece of his own
--try this summary by Beck].
However, this was an excessive focus on power and
its wider social relations, and this 'offers
little either to teachers or to political
movements seeking a more equitable approach to the
curriculum'[same old unfocused activism
then]. Although advocating curriculum
change, it was less specific about what the new
curriculum might look like, and this risks the old
rerun of conservatism whenever the left gain
power.
There needs to be a new focus on what is taught
and learned in school, something which will be
distinctive to educational studies. General
commentaries on knowledge, from philosophers or
cultural studies people have tended to avoid
educational specialism. Curriculum theorists
themselves are partly to blame, however, hence the
need for a 'more adequate theory'. The
powerful critiques lacked an interest in different
forms of curriculum knowledge and focused instead
on general politics, sometimes on identity.
Bourdieu and Passeron
on the arbitrary origin of school knowledge does
not help. Power struggles in intellectual
fields are important, but no curriculum
alternatives seem to emerge. They have also
ignored epistemological constraints, as in
Bernstein [see Maton].
The expansion of education has not fulfilled its
promise of emancipation, partly because of global
capitalism, partly because of a focus on means
rather than ends, including an undue emphasis on
destinations rather than internal processes of
learning [now, it seems, learning for its
own stake is too easily dismissed as elitist and
turns out to be 'crucial to the intellectual
development of all students'(106)].
Excessive interest in reproduction theories in the
sociology of education also lead to a certain
'left functionalism' which ignores the opportunity
schools can offer. Schools subjects are
contradictory [well argued by Gintis and Bowles
years ago] - submitting to rules and discipline
can be an alienating, but can also lead to 'access
to alternatives and a wider sense of their own
capabilities': rules are never just expressions of
power or ideology.
There has been an acceptance that 'knowledge
itself has no intrinsic significance or validity',
leaving teachers to focus only on the meanings of
students not the meanings of any curriculum.
This limits the students to their own experience
and reduces alternatives, especially those that
'have some basis in the real world' [he must mean
those provided by social science, I
assume?]. There is sometimes even 'a "fear
of knowledge"' in schools (107). Resistance
among students is too easily seen as a celebration
of subjective meaning and identity. This has
led to an excessive psychologization [citing
Ecclestone and Hayes!] and a 'romantic
politicising of critical pedagogy.' However
'teachers cannot escape the instructional element
of their role' if only because parents expect them
to discharge it. Knowledge itself is not
'oppressive and alienating', but requires
inappropriate pedagogy to engage the learner [it
is all so easy at the abstract level!]. The
sociology of education, including his own work has
over emphasize the political question of
definitions of knowledge. We need now to
focus on the entitlement to knowledge.
His own approach now depends on a number of
assumptions. First, that there is 'better
knowledge, more reliable knowledge, knowledge
nearer to truth about the world we live in and to
what it is to be human'. This is always open
to challenge, however but to challenge must be
undertaken within rules and concepts, promoted by
a community. Students of natural science or
mathematics simply trust the arguments for
fallibility, but others disagree far more about
what rules and concepts might be - nevertheless,
there might still be some agreement about a range
of acceptable meanings and had to debate
them.
This is '"powerful knowledge"', and it has
additional characteristics referring to its
boundaries. First it is specialized in the
way in which it is produced and transmitted, and
that specialism is organised in the form of
disciplines and subjects. 'It is not general
knowledge'(108). Even cross disciplinary
research and learning depends on discipline based
knowledge. Second, it is different from
every day knowledge, explaining the conceptual
boundaries between school and every day knowledge
[why not use Bernstein on classification?].
These characteristics are not just found in STEM
subjects although they 'express the features of
powerful knowledge least ambiguously'[badly needs
some modern STS].
Powerful knowledge can be generalised.
Kantian ethics, for example is powerful because it
expresses a generalisable or universal principle
[Jesus, needs Bourdieu],
and other philosophers also [claim this].
Great works of art are powerful because they
engage with feelings and emotions 'common to all
human beings'. History geography and the
social sciences also qualify [with no further
justification].
Within each discipline, some search for the best
and most reliable accounts, some develop shared
rules and concepts, and this permits knowledge to
progress, even if some of it gets rejected.
However since the phenomena they deal with are
different, natural sciences have different methods
in concepts and claim a greater reliability.
Nevertheless, the epistemological issue clearly
leads to questions of entitlement and social
justice turning on access to better knowledge.
A knowledge base curriculum should consider a
number of 'principles'. First, since it is
specialized, forms [sic] should be divided by
concepts and rules, types of argument and
sequences, at the university level at least:
schools need more attention to pedagogy.
Pedagogy requires recontextualization from
disciplines in the Bernstein sense, the
'selection, sequencing and pacing of
contents'[according to legitimation codes] [how
odd that university lecturers don't have to take
into account the capabilities experience and
potential of students. This is experience
derived from an elite university]. Concepts
remain general and universal, at least in physics,
but other subjects vary. The goal [or
assumption] is that students will gain confidence
by working within these boundaries, especially if
they are able to challenge them.
Second there must be an obvious relationship
between individual curricula and the national
curriculum, focusing on key concepts already
identified. The national curriculum
'guarantees autonomy to individual schools and
specialist subject teachers'and ensures a common
knowledge base for students [come back John
White! I wonder if all this suppression of
differences between sociologists and philosophers
arises from them all facing a common fate with the
advance of school based training?]. Third,
the difference between curriculum knowledge and
everyday knowledge must be maintained, since both
work with 'concepts that are different in both
structure and purpose'(110). Experience
accumulates more and more context specific
concepts, but the coherence of them relates to
those contexts, and this limits understandings [I
kept thinking of Deleuze here with his attack on
common sense as coordinated by practical
purposes]. Subject based concepts are linked
to each other and 'underpinned by the community of
subject specialists' [how functionalist!
Just one community united in the pursuit of
truth?]. This permits generalisation. A
homely analogy makes the point, comparing the
knowledge of the city from the point of view of a
participant to the knowledge provided by a
geography teacher, or the every day knowledge of
the natural world compared to a scientific
worldview which enables specific activities to be
transcended. [Why not a real example, say as
in the work on threshold
concepts?]
Fourth, pedagogy is not just a practical activity,
but should be knowledge based, knowledge of
subject, of pupils, of learning. The
curriculum cannot include pupil experiences, but
these are 'a crucial learning resource', even
though they vary widely [but this experience is
only a means to an end?]. Fifth, we need to
focus on assessment as feedback rather than as
something that drives the curriculum and pedagogy
[no doubt, but how?] [All this is amateur idealist
philosophy]
Turning to a practical example, discussions with
the head teacher of the large mixed secondary
school followed reading of his 2008 book [I bet
she was a Ph.D. student of his]. She had
advocated a knowledge-led school and wrote a
manifesto about it. It all seems very
constructive and supportive of head
teachers. [The manifesto is produced as an
appendix and she urges teachers to think again
about offering powerful and shared knowledge,
which is both fair and just. A numbered list
of 10 things to remember reassert this - we have a
duty to pupils and society, verification takes
place through learned communities and we should
keep in touch with them, powerful knowledge breaks
dependence upon knowers, it transcends and
liberates, it helps children become useful
citizens so they can shape the world as adults,
it's a basis for a sustainable democracy,
education, it requires adult authority and offers
a role for 'quality professionals'].
Practical objections argue that knowledge
base curriculum would increased levels of failure
and drop out. It would face real
difficulties in engaging pupils. However,
although basing a programme on immediate interests
of pupils 'may make them happier at school', it
also denies them access to powerful
knowledge. That is an inescapable dilemma
that needs to be faced up to. Engaging
programmes can mask educational failure and fail
to draw attention to wider inequalities. It
is really capitalist society that is responsible.
Epistemological objections come from post
modernism and post structuralism on the
inevitability of standpoints. Thus claims
for universal knowledge is really
ideological. However, some knowledge is more
universal and generalisable [but why?
Because of its epistemological qualities or
because it yields effective research
programmes?]. Teachers should simply 'help
students find some meaning in their lives'.
White has added to criticism that schools subjects
are now inappropriate given the new kinds of
knowledge but there are available, but this
focuses on contents. Disciplines are also
'sources of stability for schools students and
teachers'(113), they offer national and
international coherence and common knowledge, they
offer stable identities for students and teachers
and permit discussions in specialist communities
[all these are good social functional reasons, of
course, and we seem to have abandoned epistemology
at this point?]. Subjects are
recontextualizations from valuable disciplines,
and offer an alternative to the authority of the
individual teacher.
Political objections arise from government
policy and oppositions from those on the
left. This can lead to relativism, however,
and many critics are able to 'rationalise their
avoidance of the question of knowledge', possibly
because they are 'reluctant to accept a realist
position' (114). Such a position would
inevitably lead to epistemological
constraint. The right are happy with the
idea of power for knowledge is the basis of the
curriculum, but blame individual pupils if they
fail. Overall, no curriculum can 'on its
own, significantly reduce educational
inequalities', because there is inequalities lie
outside in capitalism, and it becomes a political
not just the educational task to counter
them. For example, wealthy parents can buy a
better education, and the labour party should have
tackled private schools.
'I am no longer convinced, as I was in the 1970s,
that it is helpful to see everything as political'
(115) because there is no organized spaces for
radical politics. Educators must tackle what
they can tackle, developing curriculum principles
that maximised epistemic access. We must
make the best available knowledge
accessible. At least we are highlighting not
masking inequalities as populist [the actual
example is prevocational] programmes often
do. Politically, it is now a matter of
distributing resources more equally, including
knowledge resources. Curriculum theorists
are the 'experts on knowledge', and should be
allowed to use their expertise to develop more
equal opportunities.
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