ABSTRACT
Since its launch in 1988 the National Curriculum in the United Kingdom has been a site of ongoing controversy and contestation. A persistent and increasingly significant facet of the debate concerns the interrelated themes of citizenship and identity. Questions of identity, in particular, loomed large in both the initial implementation and subsequent rewritings of the National Curriculum. Indeed, it could be argued that they were in fact its raison d’être. For, in justifying the imposition of a centrally prescribed National Curriculum on an educational system that had always valued and defended the autonomy of teachers, Kenneth Baker (Secretary of State for Education) stated:
I see the national curriculum as a way of increasing our social coherence. There is so much distraction, variety and uncertainty in the modern world that in our country today our children are in danger of losing any sense at all of a common culture and a common heritage. The cohesive role of the national curriculum will provide our society with a greater sense of identity.
