ABSTRACT
This chapter explores pupil perceptions of the national curriculum in general terms. The establishment of a national curriculum was an ambitious undertaking to say the least, but as Crawford argues: the national curriculum was a response to a nation at risk in two ways. First, in terms of the decline of the nation state in face of globalization, technological and economic change. Second, in terms of a cultural decline brought about by the claimed relativism of post-modernity. In both these senses, the economic and the cultural, the national curriculum was a nation-building curriculum. The role that teachers play, in relation to the national curriculum, is felt to be important by all of the pupils. Based on the responses of these pupils, it is possible to extract a number of issues that have implications for practitioners and the educational achievement of pupils.
