ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that philosophy and politics are necessary considerations in engaging the knowledge question in the fullest, most adequate sense. It focuses on the moment on English as the national standard language, or English in Australia. The chapter indicates that something of what needs to be taken into consideration in entering into such territory, while focusing attention more particularly on the implications and challenges for curriculum inquiry. It argues that the knowledge question in English teaching is actually more interesting and substantive than what is suggested by the kind of popular-professional stereotype. Curriculum must be taken seriously, that the author argues, "as an object of practice and enquiry", operating "within two kinds of constraints": power and epistemology, respectively. The relationship between English teaching and cultural studies is important to consider in the context, as much as anything, because of the manner in which culture and knowledge are thought together as concepts.
