ABSTRACT
The notion of legitimation in relation to educational knowledge has developed into a significant theme within comparative research. Conceptions of knowledge and culture are both argued to have changed, leading to a new formulation of educational change. The concept of legitimation had substantially begun to replace the work of earlier theorists of curriculum change in comparative education, in whose eyes knowledge had often been conceived in object-like terms. Young’s effort to redirect sociology of education largely took as its focus the connection between patterns of power in society and the patterning of knowledge within institutions of education. Due to the influence of a widespread and critical reorientation in many fields of educational research, comparative scholars began to take a fresh look at explanations of the issue of knowledge-changes in education, and the connections between these and changes in relationships of power within society.
