Abstract
This paper frames the problem underlying the cross-cultural Organizing Curriculum Change (OCC) study of state-based curriculum-making. The paper discusses the increased use by states over the past two decades of the century-old instrument of the state-based curriculum and the tool of the curriculum commission. The paper contrasts the slender English-language writing on these institutions with the extensive German literature, with particular emphasis on the post-1970s German analysis and the revisionist analysis of the 1980s.
Notes
1. For a brief history of state curriculum-making in France, see Hörner (Citation2007).
2. The studies are based on curriculum commissions in Finland, Germany, Norway, Switzerland and the US (Illinois).
4. Note that Geraldine Connelly was Director of Curriculum in the Ontario Ministry of Education and Director of the Toronto, Canada, Metropolitan School Board.
5. For a classical presentation of a US viewpoint on political interest in the curriculum, see Lippmann (Citation1928). For recent example of a political/professional debate, see Evans (Citation2011).
6. Curriculum is ‘[t]he reconstruction of knowledge and experience that enables the learner to grow in exercising intelligent control of subsequent knowledge and experience’ (Daniel Tanner and Laurel Tanner; quoted in Ellis, Citation2004, p. 5).
8. For an example of such work from Sweden, see Husén and Dahlöff (Citation1960).
11. For an analysis of an instance of such different readings of one National Curriculum document, see Roberts (Citation1995); see also Spillane (Citation2004).
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