ABSTRACT

The need for curriculum history arises from the view that recent modes of curriculum reform and curriculum study commonly share interlocking inadequacies. Both modes tend to share an obsessive contemporality allied with a belief that past curriculum traditions could, given conviction and resources, be transcended. One reason for the antipathetic relationship between curriculum reform strategies, curriculum studies and history (whether as a mode of study, as artefact, as tradition or as legacy) relates to the historical period of growth.