ABSTRACT

European Studies: The Micropolitics of Curriculum Evolution

Whilst the foregoing chapters in the book have focussed on individual teacher’s careers and life histories and on the history of curriculum conflict at subject group or university level, this chapter examines such conflict at school level. Many innovations are schools-based and attempts to generalize them and to create a wider ‘structure’ of change have to grapple with the problems experienced and perceived at school level. If such problems are substantial, innovations are often ‘contained’ within the school and curriculum conflict remains local and idiosyncratic. One example of a new curriculum ‘subject’ which developed in the 1960s was European Studies. Its subsequent development offers an opportunity to scrutinize the history of a ‘contained’ school innovation over two decades.