ABSTRACT
Theory and research on the curriculum have had a rather distinctive character. Intellectually, they deal in great—often rather normative—general themes, related to main values in modern society and its various critical cultures. In order to understand these characteristics of the field, which it shares with research on comparative education in general, it is useful to reflect on the nature of mass education and its worldwide expansion. In modern practice, the scientific theory enters into social discourse—and even social research—as a normative matter, rather than a technical one. Forms are created because they conform to the values defined in the theory more than because of any evidence of their actual effects. The observations apply with considerable force to the curriculum, and to research on it. Researchers working in specific contexts can specify something about what individual students learn from a given curriculum, and how their achievements differ from those exposed to another.
