ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the social organisation of knowledge in educational institutions. Ivor Goodson’s early contribution to curriculum history, which he made very much his own, and distinguishes between this and other work on the history of the curriculum that developed in the history of education from the 1960s onwards. Goodson’s notion of curriculum history drew more broadly on ideas in the new social history, the sociology and politics of the curriculum and his own experiences as a student and teacher. In England during the 1960s, the school curriculum appeared to be a highly promising area for promoting radical change, alongside the organisational change offered by comprehensive secondary schools designed for pupils of all aptitudes and abilities. Mirroring contemporary developments of the 1970s, a common emphasis on complexity, constraints and the disappointments of curriculum reform was to be one of the hallmarks of the new school of the history of the curriculum.
