ABSTRACT
In many parts of the world there is now evidence of a basic reconstitution within the school curriculum. Sometimes this is presented as the reestablishment of the ‘traditional’ over the ‘progressive’; the ‘basic’ over the ‘esoteric’ or ‘idiosyncratic’; the ‘rigorous’ over the ‘experimental’. In the early 1980s, US Secretary of Education, William Bennett, wishfully caught the flavour of this gathering reconstitution which grew in global scale through the 1990s:
The national debate on education is now focused on truly important matters: mastering the basics-math, history, science, and English; insisting on high standards and expectations; ensuring discipline in the classroom; conveying a grasp of our moral and political principles; and nurturing the character of our young. (Bennett, 1990, quoted in Apple, 1990a, p. 379)
Curriculum theory has had too little to say about the historical or political dimensions of this change. The concern of most curriculum specialists has been on how to implement the changes, on how to train subject teachers or how to develop ‘pedagogic content knowledge’. Abjectly the curriculum theorist has too often played the part of the facilitator of political will: ‘ours not to reason why, ours but to do or die’.
