ABSTRACT
This chapter explains four curriculum models: Essentialism, Encyclopaedism, Polytechnicalism and Pragmatism. Emerging curriculum theory persuaded many educators that historical distinctions between 'forms of knowledge' were erroneous. Interest in curriculum reform was doubtless delayed by the preoccupation of teachers, social scientists and politicians with the expansion and reorganization of secondary education. At the same time, for a variety of reasons, many teachers have resisted changes in the content of school education since by training, temperament and traditional mores they see themselves as the guardians of traditional knowledge. In Europe, and indeed throughout the world, changes in political theory have been more readily and widely accepted than the theories of knowledge on which curriculum theories depend. In so far as political and to a lesser extent psychological theory changes have influenced some aspects of national educational systems the retention of traditional epistemologies creates normative inconsistencies and curriculum lag in systems of education undergoing change.
