ABSTRACT
Many writers, from Plato onwards, have drawn attention to the problems of reconciling literacy — mastery of the written word — with orality — mastery of the spoken word. Curriculum, which addresses itself to skills of both kinds, offers a particularly fertile ground for manifestations of this conflict, ranging from the purely technical to the deeply cultural. The ability and inclination to behave according to canons of modernity is symbiotically linked with skills in the practices of literacy, and the prime cultural agency for establishing this relationship is the school curriculum. The potency of the curriculum, in terms of its promotion of a literate view of the world, lies first of all in the very substantial undermining of the oral perspective which even a brief acquaintance with text-based learning can bring about, and second, in the connection it establishes between levels of attainment in literacy and access to positions of authority.
