Class, Culture and the Curriculum

Denis Lawton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136710155
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

It is often argued that education is concerned with the transmission of middle-class values and that this explains the relative educational failure of the working class. Consequently, distinctive culture needs a different kind of education. This volume examines this claim and the wider question of culture in British society. It analyses cultural differences from a social historical viewpoint and considers the views of those applying the sociology of knowledge to educational problems. The author recognizes the pervasive sub-cultural differences in British society but maintains that education should ideally transmit knowledge which is relatively class-free. Curriculum is defined as a selection from the culture of a society and this selection should be appropriate for all children. The proposed solution is a common culture curriculum and the author discusses three schools which are attempting to put the theory of such curriculum into practice. This study is an incisive analysis of the relationships between class, education and culture and also a clear exposition of the issues and pressures in developing a common culture curriculum.

7

Common culture curricula
in three schools

In this chapter, I want to look at three very different secondary schools all of which have planned the curriculum on the basis of mixed-ability groupings of pupils and a basic common core curriculum for all pupils. None of the schools would wish, of course, to restrict or limit their pupils’ achievement to some kind of lowest common denominator. They see the essence of a common culture curriculum as one which stipulates a basic minimum curriculum that should be covered, but never the maximum that could be covered—it is completely open-ended for individuals.

Sheredes School is a school which started off with considerable advantages: a new, purpose-built school, a young staff specially selected to create a new kind of curriculum and teaching-style, a head whose experience combined practical work in comprehensive schools with theoretical studies of curriculum planning. Some would also include among the advantages of the school the fact that its catchment area, although very mixed, does not generally include the kind of ‘multi-deprivation’ that Thomas Calton School has to cope with.

Thomas Calton School, on the other hand, has been chosen as an example of a school which can plan a rigorous, demanding curriculum despite its considerable disadvantages and problems. Its buildings are old and often unsuited to any kind of learning other than formal classwork; the head took it over as a ‘going concern’ four years ago—at a time when staff and pupils’ morale was low. In some respects it is still at a transitional stage of curriculum development; its first three years are in completely mixed ability groups, but years four and five, although much more ‘open’ than most schools, segregate—to some limited extent—the pupils into three groups: the ‘O’ level, the CSE and the non-examination pupils. Whereas Sheredes can get away with treating all its pupils as potential CSE candidates at least, the ability range of Thomas Calton is such that this would be very difficult at present. Thus a certain amount of separation is forced on the school by the examination structure. They have temporarily compromised without sacrificing the benefits of mixed-ability groups in the earlier years. It is pragmatic, where Sheredes is grounded in theory—but the outcome in terms of curriculum content does not appear to be very different.

Finally, Chatham South School is at an interesting planning stage. It started with a skeleton staff of teachers since there were only 120 pupils (first year) in the school. These teachers had to cover the whole curriculum between them, so the head made a virtue out of necessity by creating what is in effect a faculty structure very similar in some respects to that of Sheredes School. The basic core of eight ‘areas’ is maintained until the fourth year, when greater diversification takes place—but this is specialization based on the foundation, basic work of the first three years.

The following descriptions of the curricula of the three schools were written for a conference at the University of London Institute of Education in 1973 by the three headmasters who have kindly given permission for the reports to be reproduced here.

Sheredes School

Curriculum and organization The curriculum is based on the view that a liberal education can, and should, be offered to all pupils in a comprehensive school during their compulsory five years’ schooling. Sheredes School opened as a purpose-built five-form entry all-ability school in the Hertfordshire reorganisation scheme in 1969 with first-year pupils only but with complete 11-18 school buildings with sixth form provision included. These pupils are now (1973) in their fifth year and take 16-plus examinations next summer. There are at present 712 in all on roll.

The aim of the core curriculum is to initiate pupils into those forms of knowledge and understanding which, following recent work by philosophers of education, might be supposed to form the basic equipment of an educated person. On this view, the school’s chief task is to transmit the culture by way of a general education concerned with the development of mind in differentiated modes of consciousness and experience. The areas that may be distinguished include mathematics, the physical sciences, moral awareness, aesthetic experience, religious concepts, and an awareness and understanding of our own and other people’s minds. In some cases these can be directly related to existing subjects, but in others the areas must be covered, as in a jigsaw, by interrelations between existing subjects. For a problem may call for different sorts of enquiry; and it is not always most appropriate to present the differing disciplines in their worked-out forms.

Another implication is that, since the needs of the whole range of ability must be met, the format must enable staff to develop a variety of learning patterns, certainly with scope for individual and group work; and staff will need access to a resource facility if suitable materials are to be generated and made available. A longer unit of time than the usual 35-minute lesson will be generally advantageous, and by working in teams staff will be able to provide the necessary variety of approaches and experiences. And given that these exist, logic suggests they should be made available to all pupils, so that the organisation of learning matches the child’s changing response.

These are all pointers in the direction of a faculty structure with an unstreamed format, and Table 1 illustrates the arrangement for the first five years. In addition to the core curriculum, provision must be made to meet certain further instrumental and vocational requirements and the options indicated allow for this. The 3rd year option A offers all pupils access to an introductory course in a second language, while in the 4th and 5th years options B and C meet this and other specialist needs. This option time is only 20 per cent of the 4th/5th year curriculum, and the scheme is thus roughly the reverse of that common in most comprehensive schools. The point is that the core curriculum offers a measure of intrinsic choice within faculties to meet pupils’ varying abilities and interests.

Pastoral organisation is based on a year-tutor system with no lower/upper school division. But the School Forum arrangements take account of varying needs with age, and each Forum meets and reports back weekly in school time. School reports are sent annually, drawing particularly on the termly assessments of pupils’ progress made b...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• I. Introduction: the two traditions of schooling and curriculum
• 2. The meaning of culture
• 3. Social class and culture
• 4. Sociology, knowledge and the curriculum
• 5. Knowledge and curriculum planning
• 6. A common culture curriculum
• 7. Common culture curricula in three schools
• 8. Summary and conclusion: social justice and education
• Suggestions for further reading
• Bibliography