UNDERSTANDING CURRICULUM: THE ALIENATION OF CURRICULUM THEORY

IVOR F. GOODSON

Ivor Goodson
Professor of Learning Theory
Education Research Centre
Mayfield House
University of Brighton
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9PH
East Sussex
ENGLAND
I.F.Goodson@brighton.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)1273 644560/4559
Fax: +44(0)1273 643453
http://www.ivorgoodson.com
The present relationship between curriculum and curriculum theory, is one of profound
alienation. I use the term alienation in its more traditional derivation from the adjective
‘alien’ which the Oxford Dictionary defines as ‘not one's own; foreign, under foreign
allegiance; differing in character, repugnant’ (Concise Oxford Dictionary 1964).

Curriculum theory and curriculum study are closely interlinked since curriculum studies
feed into theory but also, perhaps more importantly, because theoretical paradigms
guide the general directions and aspirations of curriculum study. The
reconceptualization, for which I shall later argue, will involve both the manner in which
we study curriculum and also that in which we develop theory. By developing historical
studies of the social construction of curriculum it will be contended that our theoretical
focus, and therefore the general character of our studies might be refined and redefined.

The value of curriculum theory must be judged against the existing curriculum as
defined and as negotiated and realised in schools. But contemporary curriculum theories
do not generally seek to explain or theorise about what is evidential, what is there. They
are not theories of curriculum but merely programmes. They are utopian not realist,
concerned only with what should or might be, not with the art of the possible. They act
not to explain but to exhort.

This alienation of theory from reality means that we encounter fundamental problems in
creating educational policy in the face of a predominance of curriculum theories as
prescriptions, (or in Reid's words as ‘idealised practice’) (Reid 1978). The link between
theory and policy is seldom perfect or direct. Whilst perhaps over-optimistic Wise has
warned that:
No matter how educational policy is created, its purpose is to affect
(presumably to improve) the practice of education. Inevitably it must be
based upon some theories or hypotheses about educational practice. If
these assumptions are correct the policy will have its intended
consequence... Policies based upon incorrect assumptions probably will
 not work and may well have unintended (possibly undesirable)
consequences (Wise 1979).

Wise may have stepped too far in suggesting that assumptions may be ‘correct’ rather
than appropriate or intelligent. The genesis of curriculum theory as prescription is of
course related to the broader social and economic context into which schooling is placed
in Western countries. Particularly under American influence, (where many of the first
attempts to provide theories of curriculum arose), the emphasis has been on providing
rational and scientific modes of curriculum design and implementation. Operating a
rational model of ‘scientific management’ in education demands that curriculum theorists
offer maximum help in the defining of objectives and programmes.

Wirth has characterised this American model of curriculum management in the following
manner arguing that ‘in the 1960’s and 70’s we witnessed a transformation of American
schooling by technocratic ideology and systems analysis techniques — the
sophisticated successor to Taylorist social efficiency practices of the early twentieth
century’:
Believers in the new technocratic ideology hold to a faith that a systems
analysis approach which produces aeroplanes will also produce efficient
child learning, and to belief in a crude form of behaviourism which
assumes that behaviours will occur if it is specified that they shall occur.
They assume that the principles of a mechanical model of production and
cost/benefit economic principles can be transferred to education. The
intention is to conceive of a science of education analogous to the
sciences of mechanical production (Wirth 1983).

Given the predominance of the existing political and economic order and associated
ideologies (particularly since the ‘end of history’ was pronounced) it thus becomes clear
in which direction curriculum theorists will be steered. The theorists' task will be to
provide a range of objectives for the system to sponsor, test and achieve. In addition a
‘science of education’ is required to under-pin scientific management of the system. The
management imperative and the support it offers in maintaining the legitimacy and
control of the status quo is clearly in evidence.
To true believers in educational results by 'scientific efficiency' and
bureaucratic social controls, the rationalistic model of schooling... is
unquestionably correct. If the schools are given clear, measurable
objectives, the objectives will be met.

For Wise, the model gains its force and legitimacy from its origins in the factory. He says
that the
policy-making process has an affinity for a rationalistic conception of
teaching and the teacher. The reasons are simple: The will of the policy
maker must be implemented; the expectations for what the schools are to
accomplish must be translated into action; the workers (teachers) in the
factory (school) must perform their assigned tasks and the bureaucracy
must be peopled by bureaucrats who will implement the official goals of the
institution (Wise 1979).

But there are dangers in writing with the power of hindsight. For the moment the
tendency outlined may be dominant and it has always been massively powerful. Yet we
must remember that in the 1960s and early 1970s a range of contradictory tendencies
were also evident, sometimes influentially. To explain the overwhelming influence of
prescriptive curriculum theories we need also to analyse the previous responses of
those educators with a more sensitive appreciation of the educational enterprise. Why
was it that those who did, and do, oppose the simplifications of rationalism and
scientism were either co-opted to prescriptive curriculum theories or, more often,
abandoned theorising altogether?

The explanation I believe turns on a sad irony. Those educators and curriculum theorists
who opposed the reductionism of scientific management counter-posed a view of
education as potentially liberating and exciting. They were in short concerned to build an
improved world. Above all they wanted to be involved in action not theory. They believed
their action would have fundamental and long-lasting effect. Analysis of what was
already in schools was therefore mere archaeology, theorising if there was a need for it
could come later: after the curriculum revolution. This response to existing practice and
theory has happened in previous periods of flux in curriculum. Kliebard tells us that in
the United States in the 1920s the curriculum reformers almost totally rejected earlier
established procedures and practices, which they generally associated with the
discredited doctrine of mental discipline. "The belief in change now was sufficient to
argue for transcending all past notions of theory and of practice. The ambivalence to
research and theory is particularly significant":
In the curriculum field... the urge to do good is so immediate, so direct, and
so overwhelming that there has been virtually no toleration of the kind of
long-range research that has little immediate value to practitioners in the
field, but which may in the long run contribute significantly to our basic
knowledge and understanding (Kliebard 1975).

Westbury some time ago identified this meliorist tendency along with its implications for
curriculum theorising:
A vision can so easily slide into meliorism and, unfortunately, the
consequences of such a meliorist perspective have long beset our field:
too often and for too much of our history we have not been able, because
of our commitment to what should be, to look at what is. To look at what is
betrays, our emphases suggest, too little passion, even perhaps a
conservative willingness to accept schools as they are. Indeed, all too
often our stances imply a condemnation of what schools do (Westbury
1973).

In later sections I develop further the argument that a major stumbling block in effecting
change in the 1960s and 1970s was our arrogance in initiating change from above and
beyond without sufficient analysis of what was already there. But again a sense of
historical period is a major part of the explanation for these failings. It is now difficult to
reconstruct the optimism and commitment of curriculum debate and reform initiatives at
that time. But the documents give testimony to a widespread belief that schooling was
about to change in fundamental and revolutionary ways. One is reminded of Clancy
Segal's description of California in the mid-1960s: "Each moment of the present
promised so much of the future that the past seemed irrelevant" (Segal 1984). Hence
the times gave support to an a-historical view of curriculum theorising and action, to a
belief that the focus was rightly on "what should be rather than what is".

A further reason for the ambivalence to curriculum theory might be added. I believe that
a number of the more radical theorists actively embraced Trotsky's notion of
‘impossibilism’. The point was to prescribe impossible goals for teachers (and pupils) to
achieve in school. That way, so the argument proceeds, they will come to embrace the
real ‘truth’ which is that the system can never - by its very structure and intentions - meet
their needs. This moves the struggle closer to the day of actual revolt. Reid has
characterised the radical theorist in this manner:
The theorist is aware of problems of 'hidden curricula' of purposes and
processes that lie behind the calls for the achievement of objectives or for
the extension of the claims of systems over individuals. But his response is
either to remove himself to a higher moral and intellectual plane from which
he can safely criticise those who actually get involved in the practical
curriculum tasks, or to declare that the only way of being involved in the
improvement of curricula is to work for social revolution (usually in a
Marxist sense) (Reid 1978).

But this was only one tendency within the radical critique; as we shall see later other
radical tendencies were to help in pioneering new and valuable approaches.

To summarise: the mode of curriculum theorising which has dominated the field is
rationalistic and closely aligned to modes of scientific management and analysis:
curriculum theories are essentially prescriptions. Ironically those who have sought to
counteract these tendencies have failed to present a coherent alternative mode of
theorising; above all they have been concerned with curriculum action. In the former
case we have a logical pursuit of a political (and educational) view. In the latter case, I
shall argue, the ambivalence to theorising is a betrayal of the cause. Meliorism (and
indeed impossibilism) do violence to the complexities of educational practice; sometimes
for the best of reasons they have led to a simplistic and a-historical view of process. In
their different ways both the prescriptive theorists and those with an action orientation
have ignored what is in pursuit of what might be. It is time both came to grips with the
ongoing realities from which all sides seem to be in full flight.

Underpinning Curriculum Theory as Prescription

In analysing what underpins prescriptive modes of theorising there is clearly a range of
locations where one might begin. In the case studies that follow I focus down on one
aspect of what is in curriculum — the school subject. Hence in this section I want to
examine the theories and definitions of objectives as they relate to school subject
knowledge. By concentrating on one aspect of curriculum in this manner it may be
possible to further elucidate the way in which prescriptive theory originates and
operates.

Whilst psychological theory may have been a general support, particularly in the
scientific management structures discussed in the first section, philosophy has been of
undoubted import with respect to the social construction and definition of school
subjects. I do not at this point want to intrude too far on the debate between the
philosophical absolutists and social relativists: plainly a dialogue of the deaf. My concern
is rather to characterise the implicit posture of philosophy with regard to the school
curriculum.

At its heart, philosophy seems to hold itself well above the fray of curriculum as existing
and as currently realised. The core of this aloofness is a commitment to rational and
logical pursuit. But the other side of the coin is a resistance to the force of social
influence. It is as if the philosopher searches for truths beyond social interference. This
is true of even the more liberal philosophers. Take Hirst, for instance. Objective
knowledge he says
 is a form of education knowing no limits other than those necessarily
imposed by the nature of rational knowledge and thereby developing in
man the final court of appeal in all human affairs (Hirst 1965).

or Pring

Forms of knowledge therefore are fundamental structures picked out by

characteristic concepts and characteristic tests of truth. They are not
options open to us; they constitute what it means to think and they
characterise all our particular judgements (Pring 1972).

The ‘philosopher king’ knows only ‘truth’ then; there are no options for they have access
to a truth beyond culture and beyond history.

At a certain level of discourse this may well be a sustainable position. But facing the
process of teaching forms of knowledge are we still in a position where ‘they are not
options open to us’: on this point some of the philosophers show signs of almost human
ambivalence. Others however have the strength of their convictions. Phenix for instance
deliberately equates the disciplines with teachability:
My theme has been that the curriculum should consist entirely of
knowledge which comes from the disciplines, for the reason that the
disciplines reveal knowledge in its teachable forms (Phenix 1968).

Phenix's statement reveals I think the likely policy outcome of the more recently
dominant philosophical mode of theorising. Whatever the qualifications, whatever the
studied detachment, the likely effect of the posture will be prescriptive theorising. From a
certainty that ‘there are no options’ it is clear that prescriptive objectives for schooling
will be both the expectation and the culmination.

The extent to which philosophy has in fact contributed to prescriptive theorising can be
seen in a wide range of curriculum books from specialists of all kinds, the work of Bruner
and Phenix in the United States through to Lawton and Peters in the United Kingdom.
Lawton is a particularly useful example of how the curriculum specialist receives the
messages of the philosopher. Lawton argues that for Hirst, "the theory seems to me to
run as follows: the first principle is that we should be clear about our educational goals".
The second is that "the central objectives of education are developments of the mind".
He adds later
I have included Hirst's viewpoint here as an example of curriculum
planning which is largely 'non-cultural' in the sense of being transcultural.
This is because Hirst sees the curriculum largely in terms of knowledge,
and the structure and organisation of knowledge is, by his analysis,
universal rather than culturally based (Lawton 1975).

Philosophy then leads us beyond culture and above all leads to curriculum theories
which allow us to ‘be clear about our educational goals’.

However the believers in educational goals based on the disciplines have ultimately to
face the sad truth that the world of schooling as it currently exists is played on a pitch
where scoring goals is difficult and where the goalposts are not always relevant. There is
a tearful little section in Lawton headed "Disciplines but not subjects". Here the
confrontation between philosophical and prescriptive truth and curriculum reality leads to
peculiar paroxysms to escape culpability for the prescription's failures. Hence Lawton
writes:
there is no reason why a curriculum based on disciplines should not be
related to the children's own experience and interests. The fact that so
much so-called academic teaching of subjects does tend to neglect
children's everyday knowledge... is a condemnation of traditional pedagogy
or teaching-method rather than disciplines themselves as a basis of the
curriculum (Lawton 1975, p. 85).

One wonders what a philosopher would make of the logic of culpability here? (Are the
disciplines beyond logic as well as culture?)
But this is to do less than justice to Lawton or Hirst. Both of these writers have shown
considerable sensitivity to the problems of curriculum change and implementation. I
have pursued the point to show that even sophisticated theorists are on the horns of a
dilemma when working within the prescriptive mode. Hirst has pronounced at length on
the dilemma in his article "The forms of knowledge revisited":
The importance of the disciplines, in the various senses distinguished, for
school education, must not be minimised. What matters in this discussion
is that the logical priority of intellectual objectives be recognised even if in
terms of wider human values they are sometimes judged secondary.
Equally their logical structure cannot be denied if they are ever to be
attained. The concerns of the universities mean that their organisations of
teaching and research necessarily embody these concerns to a high
degree. But schools are not universities and their teaching functions are
significantly different. These need to be seen in their own right for what
they are. And if once that is done then not only do the disciplines matter,
but many other things matter as well, things of major psychological and
social concern which must not be over-looked.

This leads to a final epilogue for the forms of knowledge as prescriptions:

Education is a complex business and philosophical analysis can contribute

to our planning of it in a limited way. What it can do is alert us to the danger
of too easy decisions and the issue of the place of the disciplines in more
than a philosophical affair. What more there is to it, I must however leave
to others (Hirst 1974).

The humility of this epilogue is both appealing and a clear statement of how limited the
aspirations of the philosopher have become. But several logical steps are still missing
before we arrive at this denouement. It is all very well to leave it to others. But who? It is
all very well to alert us to the danger of easy decision. But what if philosophy has led to
the very dangers of prescriptive simplicities to which we have drawn attention? To go
back even further, if schools and teaching need to be seen for what they are; why does
the analysis not start there? We are left with a basic message. If curriculum theory is to
be of use it must begin with studies which observe schools and teaching. Our theory
must grow from a developed understanding of the curriculum as it is produced and
realised and of how, over time, this has been reproduced. We need, in short, not
theories of curriculum prescriptions but studies, and eventually theories, of curriculum
production and realisation.

The Reaction to Alienated Theory

As was noted in the first section an important counter-tendency was evident within the
curriculum field in the 1960s and 1970s. There was a reaction to the simplifications,
indeed abdications, of the rational, scientific school of curriculum theory, but one which
was heavily laden with meliorist (or even impossibilist) tendencies.

At the centre of the reaction was the knowledge of the complexity of the educational
enterprise of which Hirst wrote. This makes the pursuit of a ‘science of education’ utterly
illusory and as Goodlad has noted this is of great significance for those pursuing
scientific prescriptions:
There is not a science of education sufficient to give credence to the
scientism necessarily indicated if any model of accountability... is to
function effectively. It is an idea whose time has not yet come, whatever
rhetorical and political support it is able to muster (Goodlad 1975).

Ernest House has made a similar point in writing about ‘Evaluation as Scientific
Management in U.S. School Reform’:
The systems analysis approach to evaluation promises to substitute
specific techniques derived from 'science' for the knowledge of craft in
teaching. It is a false promise, for such simple techniques cannot substitute
for fully fledged professional knowledge, much of it tacit rather than explicit,
which has been acquired over many years. Such a technological vision of
 knowledge rests on a confusion of tacit knowledge with generalisations
and rules of procedure. In teaching as in speaking, if one relied on the
formalised, externalised rules of procedure, one would be mute. The
challenge for evaluation then is to arrive at approaches which are
complementary to professional craft and which sharpen actual practice
rather than those which threatened to replace practice (House 1978).

In the 1960s and 1970s the distinction between theory and practice often led to a
reaction against theory per se not to a reformulation of theory. Theory as constituted, as
we have seen, merely collides with curriculum reality. The collision left the theorists fairly
overtly at a loss — ‘we'd better leave this to others’. But the ‘others’ who were more
immersed in the reality of curriculum production and operation drew their own
conclusions about theory. If it had so little to say about the reality of practice, if in fact it
grievously misrepresented or even ‘threatened to replace’ practice was it not best to do
without theory altogether or at least leave theorising until later?

The response in the curriculum field strongly echoes the pendulum swings in sociology
at about the same time. The pre-eminent positivist enterprise employed a scientific
hypothetical-deductive model. The aim was to discover the social laws which
underpinned everyday reality. Above all they followed a model related to the philosophy
of science which had as its major objective the seeking of objective facts about the
social world. The scientist seeks a knowledge of the social system separate and beyond
the perceptions of the people who inhabit that system, pursuing wide-ranging laws and
truth.

The reaction to this pursuit of scientific and universalistic laws came from symbolic
interactionists, ethno-methodologists and sociologists of knowledge arguing for the
rehabilitation of man himself and his subjective perceptions and ‘constructions’ of reality.
Drawing on Weber and Mead we had the work of Schutz, Goffman and Berger and
Luckmann. The latter were characteristic in arguing that "common sense knowledge
rather than ideas must be the central focus for the sociology of knowledge. It is precisely
this knowledge that constitutes the fabric of meanings without which no society can
exist" (Berger 1967).

The stress on subjective perceptions in sociology engendered substantial responses in

the curriculum field. Ambivalence about theory, the manifest lack of fit with practice
caused the pendulum to swing wildly when the reaction began. One of the leaders
Joseph Schwab sought to rehabilitate ‘the practical’ in reaction to incompetent theory.
Writing in 1970 (interestingly the same year as the Centre for Applied Research in
Education began in England) Schwab took an apocalyptic stance:
The field of curriculum is moribund. It is unable, by its present methods and
principles, to continue its work and contribute significantly to the
advancement of education. It requires new principles which will generate a
new view of the character and variety of its problems. It requires new
methods appropriate to the new budget of problems (Schwab 1978).

Schwab was absolutely clear why the curriculum field was moribund; his indictment is
plain and powerful:
The curriculum field has reached this unhappy state by inveterate,
unexamined, and mistaken reliance on theory. On the one hand it has
adopted theories (from outside the field of education) concerning ethics,
knowledge, political and social structure, learning, mind, and personality,
and has used these borrowed theories theoretically, i.e. as principles from
which to 'deduce' right aims and procedures for schools and classrooms.
On the other hand, it has attempted construction of educational theories,
particularly theories of curriculum and instruction.

Schwab then lists the "grave difficulties (incoherence of the curriculum, failure and
discontinuity in actual schooling)" to which theoretical activities have led. This is
because theoretical constructions are, in the main, ill-fitted and inappropriate to
problems of actual teaching and learning. Theory, by its very character, does not and
cannot take account of all the matters which are crucial to questions of what, who, and
how to teach:
that is, theories cannot be applied as principles to the solution of problems
concerning what to do with or for real individuals, small groups, or real
institutions located in time and space — the subjects and clients of
schooling and schools (Schwab 1978).

Above all then Schwab wishes us to move away from the theoretical and embrace the
practical. In terms of subject matter he juxtaposes the two options in this way: the
theoretical is always something taken to be universal or pervasive and is investigated as
if it were constant from instance to instance and impervious to changing circumstance.
The practical on the other hand is always something taken as concrete and particular
and treated as infinitely susceptible to circumstance, and therefore highly liable to
unexpected change: "this student, in that school, on the South side of Columbus, with
Principal Jones during the present mayoralty of Ed Tweed and in view of the probability
of his re-election".

In the United Kingdom the rehabilitation of the practice and process of schooling
followed similar lines, echoing the new trends in sociology and certain tendencies, not
only Schwabian, within American curriculum studies. A wide range of ethnographic and
interactionist studies emerged focusing on the process of social stratification at the level
of the school and the classroom. The Manchester School, in particular Hargreaves,
Lacey and Lambart, adopted an approach with antecedents in anthropology. The
commitment was to trying to understand how teachers and pupils ‘constructed’ the world
of the school. Without detailed study of the school progress was impossible. While they
were not primarily concerned with curriculum issues their academic leadership led to a
more applied approach in curriculum research.

One centre which took a lead in applied work was The Centre for Applied Research in
Education (CARE) at the University of East Anglia. CARE was founded in 1970 and
embraced commitment to the teacher and his/her perceptions and constructions. The
wide range of publications produced allow us to analyse the intentions and positions of
those working at CARE. Whilst claims can be made for the uniqueness of CARE there is
much that is symptomatic and typical of beliefs at the time. By looking in some detail at
CARE it may then be possible to understand some of the reasons for the posture
adopted by leading curriculum developers during this period.

In his influential book An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development

Lawrence Stenhouse stated that it is the thesis of this book that
curriculum development must rest on teacher development and that it
should promote it and hence the professionalism of the teacher. Curriculum
development translates ideas into classroom practicalities and thereby
helps the teacher to strengthen his practice by systematically and
thoughtfully testing ideas (Stenhouse 1975).

The stress on classroom practicalities echoes Schwab and became a strongly held
value position at CARE. Working as a teacher at the time in contact with a number of
CARE personnel including Stenhouse, MacDonald and Walker, I was a beneficiary of
their commitment and quite literally, care. Walker, with whom I have worked especially
closely on projects and articles, and to whom my debt is substantial, put the posture with
regard to curriculum studies in this way. The work he argued
would start with, and remain close to, the common-sense knowledge of the
practitioner, and the constraints within which he works. It would aim to
systematise and to build on practitioners' lore rather than supplant it
(Walker 1974).

Barton and Lawn have commented that:

In separating 'pure' from 'applied' research, Walker feels he has

successfully rid himself of a theoretical stance and, moreover, reduced the
isolation of the researcher. What now counts for him is not a theoretical
 understanding of any particular situation but the understanding and self-
recognition he can give his subjects (Barton & Lawn 1980-1).

On the latter point I can certainly testify but the points on the aversion to theory are I
think substantial and the authors go on to claim that "CARE's aversion to theory and to
theorising is consistent throughout its membership... the question often appears to be a
choice between theory and truth".

Of course from the critique presented herein of curriculum theory the latter point is well
taken. The danger however is that the reaction to prescriptive theory had led to a full
flight from theory per se. There is substantial evidence of this happening at CARE in the
1970s (CARE 1970s).

The significance of the CARE position, in articulating this strong ‘action’ and practice
position, is that it was symptomatic of a major counter-tendency in the curriculum field at
the time -spreading throughout the new ‘applied research’ to ‘action-research’ and
pervading case study, ethnography, inter-actionist studies, of classrooms and evaluation.
Macdonald the eminence grise of British evaluation once broke cover to explain why his
view of evaluation was thus, above all it was in reaction to controlling theories of ‘cost
benefit’ and ‘management by objectives’:
The tendency of language like this is to suggest that the production of
educated people is much like the production of anything else, a
technological problem of specification and manufacture (Macdonald 1976).

The reasons for the reaction to theory are then clear but it was, one must remember, a
reaction to a particular kind of prescriptive theory suiting the ideological and economic
context in which it was produced. The pendulum swing produced a full-scale flight to the
arena of action, of practice, the classroom, the practitioner, the practical. We stand
witness to a celebration of the practical, a revolt against the abstract. We are back with
Rousseau and Emile.
The problem of the hasty embrace of action and practice was compounded by the kind
of action embraced. To the problems of the methodology of action and practical
specificity must be added the problem of focus. Not surprisingly those with a strong
belief in practice and action sought ways of becoming involved. Curriculum projects
offered a way into curriculum action: the ethos of CARE developed from the involvement
of the key personnel in the preceding Humanities Curriculum Project. The particular view
of professionalism and politics developed on HCP was later transferred over to become
a position about curriculum research in general.

In the 1960s and the early part of the 1970s a wide range of curriculum research studies
and papers discussed the issue of curriculum change. It was always dealt with as
synonymous with innovation. Eric Hoyle's How Does the Curriculum Change: A
Proposal for Inquiries is a good example (Hoyle 1969). In addition innovation and
curriculum projects were viewed as synonymous. To confirm the point it is worth re-
reading Parlett and Hamilton's important paper on Evaluation as Illumination. The
specificity of focus for those seeking to change the school curriculum is clear. The
illuminative evaluator was characteristically concerned with ‘what is happening’. They
wanted therefore to
Study the innovatory project: how it operates, how it is influenced by the
various school situations in which it is applied; what those directly
concerned regard as it's advantages and disadvantages and how students'
intellectual tasks and academic experiences are more affected.

The illuminative evaluator then

aims to discover and document what it is like to be participating in the

scheme, whether as a teacher or pupil; and in addition, to discern and
discuss the innovation's most significant features, recurring concomitants
and critical processes (Parlett & Hamilton 1972).
So a major milieu for those reacting to the rational/ scientific school of prescriptive
theorising, given the terrain of the 1960s and 1970s curriculum field, was the innovative
curriculum project. Those projects in a sense offered a perfect milieu for those with an
ambivalence or antipathy to theory and a wish to be immersed in the day-to-day realities
of practice and action. The problem however was not that it offered immersion in the
milieu of action but that it was immersion in very specific milieu of action. This allowed
project staff to initially have it both ways. There was no need for the generalizability of
theories or programmes for the project normally centred on a limited number of chosen
‘pilot’ schools. The need for theory could be easily and justifiably suspended.

The problems began when projects sought to generalise their work: the move if you like
from the pilot stage towards new mainstream structures. Here though beginning from
the opposite starting point, the projects often responded with the very prescriptions and
programmes they had reacted against. There were prescriptions of idealised practice
like the ‘neutral chairman’; modules and courses, like Man a Course of Study; and new
materials and curriculum packages. The prescriptions were buttressed with more
theoretical pronouncements, with stark similarity to the prescriptive theories they had
reacted against. There were now RDD models (research, development, dissemination)
or KPU models (knowledge, production and utilisation).

The sad truth was that starting from utterly different points prescriptive theory and
immersion in practice led to the same collision point: everyday classroom life and
existing syllabuses, exams, subject structures and subject communities. Again the
posture ended up as exhortation, or ‘we must leave this to others’. Take my comments
some time ago on the History 13-16 project, one of the more thoughtfully conceived and
executed projects:
History 13-16 has a very impressive record; large numbers of guides and
materials have been produced and meeting and conferences held. The
thorny problems of examination and pedagogic style have been
consistently confronted. Significant numbers of schools are now teaching
the new history syllabus. In a real sense the project has done all that could
have been expected of it.

The major weakness of the project is one common to most curriculum

reform movements and projects, namely, the strategies for achieving basic
change in classroom pedagogy. Such change has proved enormously
difficult to encourage because of the range of constraints which persuade
teachers to transmit factual knowledge to more or less passive students.
'Active learning situations', where the teacher ceases being merely a
transmitter of facts, are certainly far more elusive than the implementing
strategies drawn up by the project ever hint at.
The project hardly offers a coherent scheme at this level; more a mixture of
laissez-faire and hope. The former is illustrated by comments about how to
deal with third-form history: 'It is a problem which most teachers must work
out for themselves, in the light of the differing circumstances in which they
are placed'.

Hope is evident in a range of statements. The strategy for getting teachers

to use more evidence was described in this way: 'The project hopes to give
teachers a rationale for making evidence central to history teaching and
also give to them, by the production of materials, some of the tools for the
job'.

Fundamentally the project's hopes seem to have been for a change in

pedagogy through exhortation. This is well illustrated by the attempts to get
teachers to use discussion methods: 'Teachers will need to be willing to
discuss with pupils their own reasons for teaching history and for seeing it
as useful educative for adolescents' (Sylvester 1973).

In seeking to change classroom pedagogy a curriculum project is

approaching one of the vested traditions within teaching and one
 supported by a huge range of rational and irrational arguments. Traditional
teaching patterns have not and will not be changed by exhortation or by
new materials that can be readily put to use in teaching with the old
method (Goodson 1980).

The comments are so reminiscent of the impotence of prescriptive curriculum theory;

instead of problems ‘to be left to others’ we have problems ‘teachers must work out for
themselves, in the light of the differing circumstances in which they are placed’.

The point of previous abdication it now should be clear must become our starting point.
Curriculum research and theory must begin by investigating how the curriculum is
currently constructed and then produced by teachers in the ‘differing circumstances in
which they are placed’. Moreover our theory needs to move towards how those
circumstances are not just ‘placed’ but systematically constructed. For the persistence of
styles of practice is partly the result of the construction of persistent circumstances.

We need to begin by understanding how curriculum is currently produced and why

matters operate in the way they do. In short we need a theory of context that underpins
action. In such a manner a new curriculum initiative or project would pilot not so much
materials as policy. The negotiation of new ‘circumstances’ for practice, of new
structures, would be part of the task in both theory and action.

As with industrial innovations and practices new initiatives in other countries often prove
the best places to learn the lessons from previous waves of activity. For instance some
projects in Eire have drawn lessons from American and British undertakings. Firstly they
critically scrutinise previous curriculum models:
The RDD and KPU model, looked at from the perspective of a number of
systems and agencies, is no longer sustainable. Over the past few
decades, such approaches have been seen not to work, except in most
exceptional circumstances. A set of educational ideas cannot be developed
and packaged for use at will (Curriculum Development Unit 1982).
The need that is identified comes close to a theory of context. In the section on the Early
School Leavers Project on organisation for change we learn
It is good to see that organisational implications and consequences are of
central concern to the Early School Leavers Project. General ideas are not
enough: we must move towards an organisational framework to carry
those ideas. However — and this is a serious problem — the structure that
seems to be emerging — and has certainly emerged in England — is of a
three-tiered kind, where the brightest, those geared for Higher Education
are in the top tier, while the potential dropouts are in the bottom. Is that
really what we want? Do we want to see the alienated, the dispossessed
on the bottom tier of such a structure? If we do not want it, can we
nevertheless avoid it? Does consideration of the particular needs of a
specific group — however large and politically ominous — necessarily
commit us to a kind of educational and social stratification which many of
us have been trying for years to scale down if not eliminate? Will our
strategies at the stage of generalisation of these pilot studies take account
of the consequences for school and society of this underlying trend
(Curriculum Development Unit 1982)?

The essential point about these comments on context and structure is that they focus on
the aspects which are least developed in both prescriptive theory and the reaction to it.
The prescriptive mode assumes, and has assumed, that bureaucratic accountability and
power can ensure implementation: the reaction has assumed that growth, optimism and
ameliorism would complete the task. Neither was correct. Both modes abandoned the
middle ground: existing and continuing practice and structures. Both modes shared a
belief in transcending existing practice and structure. Both modes were quintessentially,
sometimes explicitly, a-historical.

This brings us back to a point made by Westbury: "In all cases the curriculum can be
seen as an idea that becomes a thing, an entity that has institutional and technical form"
(McKinney and Westbury 1975). Taking these in turn: institutional form means
curriculum is mediated by antecedent structures of status, syllabuses and subjects, by
the professional groups and sub-groups who inhabit existing curriculum territory.
Technical form means curriculum has to be translated from an idea into a technical
specification, a teachable subject and an examinable syllabus. The achievement of high-
status technical form will then relate to institutional form and the status attributed and
resources distributed to the practitioner of curriculum (Haft and Hopmann 1990).

We are left requiring theories which pursue systematic investigation of how existing
curricula originates, is reproduced, metamorphoses and responds to new prescriptions.
A theory in short of how people involved in the ongoing production and reproduction of
curriculum act, react and interact. Put in this way it seems a tall order but there is
important work already undertaken on which to build. The initial focus of future work has
to be on the interest groups and structures which currently operate and frame
curriculum. These are located in the middle ground between scientific/rational theories
and Schwab's concrete and particular "this student, in that school, on the South Side of
Columbus". It is on this middle ground that we need to focus our attention.
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