Giving Teaching Back to Teachers

A Critical Introduction to Curriculum Theory

Robin Barrow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317412144
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

This book, first published in 1984, aims to bring together the interests of the theory and practice of the education system and, within the former, relate the approaches and claims of the constituent disciplines to each other. Throughout the book, while arguing for the importance of facing up to the logical links between theory and practice, the author seeks to point out the extent to which more educational theory has had little to say of importance for practice, either because it has been a poor theory or because it has concerned itself with matters of little significance to educators. This book will be of interest to students of education, as well as educators themselves.

1 Curriculum Studies

DOI: 10.4324/9781315685434-1

1 The Extent of Curriculum Studies

Curriculum studies is a broad and sometimes rather confused field. At the root of the problem is the fact that the word ‘curriculum’†itself is at best a broad term, and at worst used in different senses by different people. In origin the word, coming from the Latin curriculum, which means the course or circuit that a race is to follow, implies the path or track to be followed or the course of study to be undertaken. As far as etymology goes, therefore, the curriculum should be understood to be ‘the prescribed content’ for study.

† In this book I shall follow the convention of using quotation marks to indicate reference to a word (e.g. ‘education’ has nine letters) as opposed to a concept (e.g. education is desirable).

For some that has remained its meaning. On this view a curriculum is not a syllabus, which rather suggests a detailed account of materials or resources to be used, nor a statement of aims, but an outline of the subject-matter to be studied. If that were generally agreed to be all that ‘curriculum’ means, there would not be much room for misunderstanding, and the main specifically curricular question to be asked would be ‘What ought the content of the school curriculum to be?’ However, the interesting thing is that that is the one question that curriculum experts tend to fight shy of. Time and again curriculum books, while conceding the importance of the question, set it aside, usually on the grounds that it is a question for philosophers rather than curriculum specialists to pursue, as if the two species were necessarily incompatible. Lawrence Stenhouse (1975), for instance, acknowledges the importance of questions that relate to what we ought to provide by way of content, but continues by saying that ‘the fundamental questions on which curriculum research and development can throw light’¹ are questions of translating purpose into policy and trying to realise our aspirations, whatever they may happen to be. And many other writers on curriculum follow Stenhouse in placing emphasis on the process of teaching rather than the selection of content.

This move away from concentration on the question of what content is desirable initially comes about for a good reason. The question of what we should teach is inextricably bound up in practice with a variety of other questions. To some extent how one teaches something materially affects the nature or shape of what one is teaching, as do various features of the context in which it is taught, such as the state of mind of the student and the state of the physical environment. What an individual pupil or student actually gains from a lesson or class, which is presumably our ultimate concern, is not simply dependent upon the teacher adopting a particular curriculum, in the sense of ‘a prescribed content’. As soon as we recognise this, the door is opened to a number of further questions: about our aims (What are we actually trying to achieve?), about the backgrounds of the children in question (Does this material mean anything to them? Are they hostile to school? Do their parents encourage them?), about the development of children (Is this material suited to children of this age? Are there more appropriate ways of presenting it at this level?), about our teaching methods (Is instructing the pupils counterproductive to my aims? Would streaming the class make for better results?), and about our use of time and resources, and the layout and appearance of the classroom. All such questions are pertinent to the general question of what we are actually getting across to students when we embark upon teaching the prescribed content. If students of curriculum should be concerned with content, then surely, it is commonly felt, they should also be concerned with these other questions.

This line of reasoning has gained considerable ground since the publication of Ralph Tyler’s book Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (1949). For Tyler there were four basic questions about curriculum that needed to be answered: What educational purposes should the school seek to attain? How can learning experiences be selected which are likely to be useful in attaining these objectives? How can learning experiences be organised for effective instruction? How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated? Prior to the publication of Tyler’s book, the assumption had perhaps been that the key question for curriculum purposes was his first, but, since the time that he formally drew attention to the other three, they have increasingly come to dominate curriculum studies at the expense of the first.

As a result of this shift in emphasis from concern with choosing a worthwhile content to concern with understanding extraneous factors that may make a material difference to the effect and the value of teaching that content, many new definitions of curriculum have been proposed that take account of these other factors. To describe the curriculum as ‘the prescribed content’ is to risk obscuring the fact that the content that is prescribed is very likely both less and more than what individual students get out of it. In some respects students will learn a great deal more than the appointed course of study encompasses (how to daydream while seeming to pay attention, or how boring history lessons can be), and in others the gain they make will be less than anticipated (they will not actually master the intricacies of Tudor politics). Since the outcome of teaching a prescribed content can vary from place to place and time to time, it has seemed important to some to define curriculum in terms of end-results. But then it has to be borne in mind that some end-results are foreseen, while others are not; some content is prescribed openly, while some is purveyed by the school more informally, sometimes even unwittingly; and some objectives may be put forward in terms of presenting content, but others might be better expressed as principles of procedure, or in terms of the provision of particular experiences. All such considerations give rise to the possibility of different definitions of curriculum.

Neagley and Evans (1967) feel that we should include in the meaning of the term ‘all the planned experiences provided by the school to assist the pupils in attaining the designated learning outcomes to the best of their abilities’. David Pratt (1980) wants to extend the meaning of the word to cover intentions rather than programmes of study: ‘an organised set of formal educational and/or training intentions’. Lawrence Stenhouse (1975) is unconcerned with the precise form that curriculum takes, for he defines it as any ‘attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice.’ Johnson (1967), by contrast, stipulates that ‘curriculum is a structured series of intended learning outcomes.’ Kerr (1968) has ‘all the learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside the school’, while Jenkins and Shipman (1975) offer: ‘a curriculum is the formulation and implementation of an educational proposal, to be taught and learned within a school or other institution, and for which that institution accepts responsibility at three levels, its rationale, its actual implementation and its effects.’ Some, such as Douglas Barnes (1976), want to define curriculum to include reference to unintended consequences, as well as unadvertised intentions. (The phrase ‘hidden curriculum’ is sometimes used to cover either or both of these factors.) Paul Hirst (1968), on the other hand, seeks to retain something of the pristine curriculum with ‘a programme of activities (by teachers and pupils) designed so that pupils will attain as far as possible certain educational ends or objectives.’

The over-eager reader who is wondering how he is going to memorise all these different definitions can relax. There is no particular merit in being able to attribute different definitions to different people out of context. These definitions are in many cases rather cumbersome and stilted, besides being rather different from one another and, in some cases, a long way from the original meaning of ‘curriculum’. What matters is a recognition of the point that various factors may impinge upon our attempts to present a particular content to students.

But we have not yet reached the end of the business of extending the range of ‘curriculum’. If we are to plan curricula, we also need to consider how to get them adopted in schools, and how to evaluate them. Few people perhaps would write these considerations into the meaning of curriculum (though Stenhouse comes close to doing so with his reference to forms that are ‘capable of effective translation into practice’). None the less, implementation and evaluation have become a fixed part of the domain of curriculum studies. Following that, it is but a short step to adding the icing to the enterprise: the inclusion of the business of designing curriculum itself as part of curriculum studies.

By this stage the field of curriculum has become enormous. In fact, it is more or less coextensive with the domain of educational studies, of which it is usually presumed to be an offshoot. ‘Curriculum studies boils down to describing, explaining and justifying curriculum practice’,² as Jenkins and Shipman (1975) put it, and to that broad statement we should at least add that it involves prescribing for curriculum practice. At this point, therefore, it would perhaps be helpful if the commoner phrases referring to aspects of curriculum study were introduced and briefly distinguished and explained.

Curriculum studies itself is a catch-all phrase, and under its wing may be included curriculum development, curriculum design, curriculum research, curriculum implementation and curriculum evaluation. Some of these words and phrases may be used by some authors almost interchangeably, and some of the activities run into each other and overlap. None the less, the following distinctions seem reasonable.

To be concerned with curriculum development is to be concerned with questions relating to ‘the planning and creation of alternative curricula’ (Taylor and Richards, 1979). Curriculum development at heart involves an interest in considering what changes are required where and in procedures for determining what changes are needed. It should not be confused with curriculum implementation, which involves concentrating on how in fact curricula come to be — or how they might in future come to be — accepted at various levels, from government to classroom. An interest in development is likely very often to lead to an interest in implementation, for there would be little joy in developing a curriculum which remained ignored by all; none the less the emphasis in development is on the production of new curricula.

Curriculum design is largely concerned with the problem of how to draw up curriculum proposals, including both the question of what to include and how to present it, in such a way as to advance the chances of the curriculum being implemented with understanding and success. Curriculum designers therefore may be interested in debating various different styles of curriculum design, as well as in producing a particular design or specific curriculum plan. Some might suggest that ideally a curriculum should be set out simply in terms of the outline of a content and a rationale for that content. Some would argue that it is important that the content should be broken down into discreet elements and presented in a more systematic manner; perhaps they might add that detailed comments on methodology should be included. Others might go so far as to include ways of evaluating and implementing the curriculum as integral parts of its design. But, whatever particular views curriculum designers subscribe to, the business essentially remains one of considering how to set out one’s stall in the most appropriate and effective way. Curriculum design is not usually concerned with setting out a particular curriculum for schools, despite the fact that many people on picking up a book on curriculum design might expect that. They are more likely to get a book telling them what they would need to think about, and how they might proceed, if they were about to plan a new curriculum.

The meaning of curriculum research is straightforward enough, even if some of its problems are not. It should however be remembered that while most educational research is largely empirical, and the word ‘research’ often incorrectly treated as synonymous with ‘empirical research’, one can research into a number of non-empirical issues, and in the area of curriculum one will need to do so; for example, any coherent educational view will require the backing of research into such concepts as culture and knowledge, and detailed analysis of the nature of particular subjects competing for curriculum time. Curriculum research includes examination of what ought to go on in schools, as well as what does go on, why it does, and how it does.

Curriculum evaluation is a matter not of evaluating pupils’ performance in relation to a curriculum but of assessing whether curricula are achieving their aims and/or can be judged to be worthwhile. There is room for confusion here, since some of the means of evaluating a curriculum may involve assessing pupil performance, so the distinction needs to be borne in mind.

With that much clarification I hope that the various specific aspects of curriculum studies can be examined in a relatively clear and straightforward way.

2 The Definition of Curriculum

After referring to a number of different accounts of ‘curriculum’, Kelly (1977) remarks that ‘the problems of definition are thus serious and complex and it may be that they are best avoided by not attempting to define it [curriculum] too closely’.³ That, I’m afraid, won’t do at all. One might as well begin a peace conference by setting aside the problem of what counts as peace. If we intend to make claims about how to implement, how to evaluate and how to design curricula, then we must have a clear and consistent definition of curriculum, so that we know what we are talking about and are able to judge the sense of the claims we make as we go along. What could I possibly say to the suggestion that curriculum is best developed by practising teachers, rather than non-teaching research experts, if I don’t know what counts as curriculum? If curriculum is defined in terms that do not go beyond teachers’ knowledge and experience, then the idea makes sense. But, if curriculum is defined in ways that bring in reference to expertise that teachers may lack, it does not seem so plausible.

Nor is there any particular problem about definition, provided that we understand what we are doing when we ask a question of the form: What is curriculum?⁴ We might be concerned with the purely verbal question: ‘What is the meaning of the English word “curriculum”?’ If we are, there are two obvious strategies open to us: we can look in the dictionary, or we can study usage for ourselves. But it is already clear, from the varying accounts of the word given above, that the dictionary definition and usage have parted company, as well as that usage itself is all over the place.

The question therefore is how we are to set about choosing between various different senses of the word or distinct conceptions. Are there any criteria whereby we can judge one definition of curriculum to be superior to another? In the abstract the answer to that question might be no; but given that we have a particular purpose, namely to study curriculum, the answer is yes. People may use the word in different ways, all of them being to a greater or lesser extent consistent with the broad dictionary definition ‘a prescribed course of study, training’. What is important for us is to maintain the same use all the time, to have a clear grasp of that use, and to choose one that helps us to think clearly about the topic. A definition that will help us to study curriculum in a manageable and coherent way is what is required, and to that end we need a clear, consistent and relatively specific concept of curriculum.

The need for clarity, coherence and consistency is obvious enough. Ideas that are vague, incoherent or muddled do not help to advance either thinking or good practice. So whatever we do we must know, for example, whether our conception of curriculum does or does not include content that teachers put across unintentionally; and we cannot afford to define the curriculum in terms of outcomes, if we then inconsistently proceed to treat the content prescribed as the essence of the curriculum. But we must also resist any temptation to broaden the concept. In general, broad definitions are less helpful than relatively specific ones, because they lump together distinct elements which it may be to our advantage to separate. Labels such as ‘socialist’, ‘traditionalist’ and ‘capitalist’ seldom serve a particularly useful function since the similarities between individual members of each group are often less marked than those between some members of the group and some outside it. Some traditionalist teachers have more in common with some non-traditionalist teachers than they do with certain other traditionalists. Some socialists have less of significance in common with other socialists than they do with various non-socialists. The broad label capitalist may obscure a variety of crucial differences between individual capitalists. Classifying people in this broad way, which we might call ‘package-deal thinking’ since it invites us to see people as necessarily exhibiting all or none of a number of characteristics, tempts us to react to them in a limited set of routine ways, and to refrain from noticing particular distinguishing features.

There is, of course, a place for broad definitions; there are occasions on which it is convenient to have the broad concept of animal, so that we can refer to animals without having to list all the separate species. And there are, by definition, some things that are true of all animals. But, if we could only think in terms of the broad concept animal, there would be many things that we could not say or even perceive, because they are not true of all animals. When we begin to think to think in more specific terms, about human animals, snakes, hedgehogs and so forth, we are able to make many more illuminating claims. What is true of all mankind is not as interesting or important for many purposes as what is true of particular people; what we can say of all cars is less revealing than what is true of one particular model. If ‘curriculum’ is taken to refer to everything that impinges on the child, whether planned or unplanned by teachers, whether the effects are intended or unintended, whether observers are aware or unaware of what is happening, t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Frontmatter
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• I Curriculum Theory
• 1 Curriculum Studies
• 2 Influences on the Curriculum
• 3 Curriculum Design
• II Curriculum
• 4 Curriculum Content
• 5 Educational Psychology, and the Timing and Organisation of Curriculum
• 6 Research into Techniques, Methods and Styles of Teaching
• III Curriculum Development
• 7 Curriculum Implementation
• 8 Curriculum Evaluation
• 9 Teacher Education
• Notes
• Bibliography and References
• Index