Schooling, “reform,” and the pathways to adulthood: Consequences for curriculum policy-making and research

Abstract

This lecture sought to develop an empirical descriptive curriculum theory as an alternative to the traditional (within curriculum studies) normative theorizing. I take as an illustration of such theorizing the issues around the secular transformation of secondary education from the pathway of elites to adulthood to a step towards mass college or university enrollment – to give schooling a monopoly over the pathway to adulthood and much occupational preparation. In the United States this transformation has been accompanied by a narrowing of the range of forms of secondary education and massive spatial segregation. In East Asia and Europe the secondary school would seem to be taking the same trajectory as the US secondary school. These transformation have profound implications for the curriculum of the school but they would seem to be outside the scope of contemporary curriculum theorizing. The paper advocates an empirically- and comparatively-based curriculum theory.