Chapter 7: The School, Curriculum and Society
Chapter 7 is about the school, curriculum and society. It has 6 units, covering the aims of education, the secondary school curriculum and then individual units providing detail of the different curricula for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
The explainer video summarises these six key areas to provide an overview of the chapter and the similarities and differences between the approaches to curriculum in each of the four nations.
The School, Curriculum and Society
Similarities and differences between approaches to the curriculum across the UK.
7.1 Aims of Education
To support unit 7.1 we provide a link to the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain – Explore the debates in the IMPACT pamphlets, which bring philosophical perspectives to bear on current education policy in the UK. We also include a list of further resources for you to engage further with the topics in this unit.
Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
Explore the debates in the IMPACT pamphlets bring philosophical perspectives to bear on current education policy in the UK – from the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain: https://www.philosophy-of-education.org/impact/
Further Resources
Carr, D. (2023). Personal and Professional Values in Teaching. In: Lovat, T., Toomey, R., Clement, N., Dally, K. (eds) Second International Research Handbook on Values Education and Student Wellbeing. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24420-9_20
A chapter written by a noted philosopher of education, exploring the conceptual and ethical complexities of what it means to be a good teacher. Carr claims that many of the so-called technical aspects of teaching may be fundamentally based on teachers’ characters and values. He acknowledges that teaching is a deeply contested notion and its aims should be debated and analysed.
Greene, M. (1995) Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change. The Jossey-Bass Education Series.
This has become a classic text most relevant to our times as it champions education through the arts that fosters what Greene calls social imagination – the capacity “to invent visions of what should be and what might be in our deficit society, on the streets where we live, in our schools” (p.5).
Marples, R. (2014) What is education for? in R. Bailey (ed.) The Philosophy of Education: An Introduction. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
This chapter discusses three curriculum theories relating to the aims of education, i.e. curricula based on an academic curriculum, a vocational curriculum and one in which pupil well-being is fore-fronted.
Reiss, M. and White, J. (2013) An Aims Based Curriculum, London: IoE Press.
This book, which relevant to both this unit and unit 7.2, argues that curriculum design should start from a consideration of aims rather than from the more familiar approach based on subject divisions. It starts by identifying some possible overarching aims of education that might equip learners to lead personally fulfilling lives and help others to do so too. From these, more specific aims are derived, which cover the personal qualities, skills and understanding needed for a life of personal, civic and vocational well-being.
A downloadable pamphlet gives a succinct expression of views expressed in this book. John White – ‘What are schools for and why?’ viewed 06.08.24 from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/2048416x/2007/2007/14
(N.B. Other free pamphlets in this series are also available on the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB) website at https://www.philosophy-of-education.org/publications/impact.html)
Standish, P. ‘What is Education?’ Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB), viewed 06.08.24 from https://www.philosophy-of-education.org/resources/videos-for-students-and-teachers/ Scroll down the page to this resource. Other useful videos are also on the website on the link above..
Sundberg, D., Nilholm, C., Sundberg, D., Forsberg, E., Hirsh, A. and Román, H. (2021) ‘The aims and meaning of teaching as reflected in high-impact reviews of teaching research’, Teaching and Teacher Education, 107, 103488, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103488
This paper reviews the aims and meaning of education and teaching as a contested field. The authors draw on 75 reviews of research about teaching and discern 4 types of aims – knowledge/cognitive aims, social aims, aims encompassing the development of personal characteristics, and democratic aims. The implications of the empirical findings are discussed with relation to John Dewey’s philosophy of education.
Young, M., Lambert, D., Roberts, C., and Roberts, M. (2014) Knowledge and the Future School: Curriculum and Social Justice, London: Bloomsbury.
The authors explain recent ideas in the sociology of educational knowledge, particularly drawing on Michael Young’s research with Johan Muller. The book explicates three models of the curriculum in terms of their assumptions about knowledge and link the idea of ‘powerful knowledge’ for all pupils as a curriculum principle for any school. The question of knowledge, it is argued, is closely tied to the issue of social justice.
7.2 The Secondary School Curriculum
To support unit 7.2 we provide a link to Gillard’s History of Education timeline and an overview of curriculum theory from the interactive MESH guide to curriculum, as well as a UCL report What Should Schools Teach?
History of Education timeline
See the History of Education timeline (Gillard, 2018; http://www.educationengland.org.uk/history/timeline.html).
MESH guide and What Should Schools Teach? edited by Alka Sehgal Cuthbert and Alex Standish
For an overview of curriculum theory, use the MESH guide: http://www.meshguides.org/guides/node/777 and this free download: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10118307/1/What-Should-Schools-Teach.pdf
Secondary Schools in UK: Governance, Policy and Curriculum
Units 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6 provide detail of the different curricula for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They are provided in full here as exclusive digital downloads. Review the relevant chapter – the explainer video above gives a useful overview.