ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights some commonly expressed problems of and responses to the National Curriculum. It shows that the pattern of problems and response vary between schools and departments. The new process of curriculum development emerging out of the National Curriculum involves the replacement of local decisions based on direct experience, with general structures based on assumptions about 'normal' pacing and 'levels' of difficulty. The ways in which the National Curriculum is construed are, in part, dependent upon existing subject paradigms and subject subcultures. The National Curriculum articulates with established theories-in-practice. The chapter concludes with the developing histories of the National Curriculum and the institutional settings and their relationship and discusses briefly the analytical validity of the four concepts for understanding the processes of change. The conclusions from the data are often quoted in general terms and all indications are that the sorts of issues raised here are to be found within virtually all schools involved in National Curriculum changes.
