Reinstating knowledge: diagnoses and prescriptions for England’s curriculum ills

Abstract

This paper examines three recent accounts of what has allegedly gone wrong with the school curriculum in England in recent years and their prescriptions for remedying these ills – all three accounts sharing strong proposals to reinstate knowledge at the heart of the curriculum. These analyses, despite some significant similarities, come from very different political standpoints. They are: first, proposals by the current UK Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove to ‘shrink’ the National Curriculum whilst promoting a new English Baccalaureate; secondly Frank Furedi, Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes’ critiques of ‘therapeutic education’ and thirdly Michael Young and Johan Muller’s proposals, grounded in a social realist epistemology, for a ‘Future 3’ curriculum which respects the objectivity of knowledge but also recognises its fallibility and openness to change. The paper concludes by suggesting that Michael Gove’s basic objective is to shape what Basil Bernstein called a neoconservative prospective educational identity; the paper offers a critical assessment of this project and briefly considers an alternative approach, focusing on some issues relating to citizenship education.

Keywords:

• disciplinary knowledge
• curriculum reform
• citizenship education

Notes

1. The current Coalition Government in the UK took office after the indecisive general election of 2010 which failed to give a clear majority to any single party. It is a coalition of two numerically unequal parties in the House of Commons: the majority conservative group and the minority Liberal Democrats. Prior to taking office, a broad agreed policy agenda was hammered out and ministerial offices were distributed roughly in proportion to the numerical make-up of the two parties in the Westminster House of Commons. The conservative leader David Cameron became Prime Minister and the Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg Deputy Prime Minister. A further complication is that as far as education is concerned, much Westminster policy-making applies only to England, there being substantial devolution of control of education to regional assemblies in Scotland, in Wales and in Northern Ireland. Of particular relevance to the argument of this paper is that both of the parties in the Coalition have – for rather different reasons – a significant commitment to localism in the sense of seeking to erode what is pejoratively called ‘statism’ (i.e. state monopolies and centralised ‘one-size-fits all’ state regulation and provision) by shifting certain powers and responsibilities to more local levels – not only (and recently not mainly) to locally elected local authorities, but more often (in education) to governing bodies and managements of semi-independent though still publicly funded schools and colleges, sometimes in association with voluntary organisations including religious groups, philanthropic individuals, charities, and even commercial interests. This localism, however, coexists with a capacity and readiness to use strongly directive powers from the centre in certain areas – for example, in revising the National Curriculum for English schools, and introducing the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) (see footnote 5).

2. Young characterises these ‘three possible futures for schooling’ in the following terms. ‘Future 1 … treats access to knowledge as the core purpose the curriculum and assumes that the range of subjects and the boundaries that define knowledge are largely given. It tends towards being … a curriculum for compliance and in extreme cases encourages little more than memorisation and rote learning … A Future 2 curriculum rejects the givenness of knowledge and sees knowledge as a ‘social construct’ and therefore a product of and responsive to changing social and economic demands’. It ‘dismisses the idea that the boundaries between subjects, between school and everyday knowledge, and between academic and vocational curricula might express epistemological realities’. From its perspective ‘arguments in favour of school subjects and the boundaries between them become seen as conservative or backward looking and were increasingly treated as little more than masks to perpetuate privilege’. The basis for Future 3 is primarily epistemological: ‘knowledge is social in both origins and objective, and it is that objectivity which is expressed in subjects in the school curriculum and in disciplines in the universities …’ However, ‘this “social” objectivity is not “given” but “fallible” and always open to change’, yet ‘these changes are not arbitrary or just responsive to political pressures but take place within the epistemic rules of the different specialist communities. Future 3 rejects the asocial givenness of subjects associated with Future 1 and reinterprets their social objectivity as a tool for treating the world as an object – so enabling students to gain access to understanding the world that takes them beyond their experience’. (Young 2011, 267–9, all italics in the original)

3. The controversial Free Schools programme was rushed into existence using legislation designed for anti-terrorist initiatives, so that the first tranche of these schools could open their doors in September 2011. It has emerged that vigorous lobbying by a former director of strategy for the conservative Party and close confidant of Gove, Domenic Cummings, was a key factor in the New Schools Network securing a £500,000 grant to ‘progress’ the work – in a context where no other charity was invited to bid. Cummings now works for this charity on a freelance basis as well as being a member of Gove’s advisory team. An email sent by Cummings and not intended for general publication reveals, in its language and tone as much as its content, the markedly ideological character of this lobbying: ‘Labour has handed hundreds of millions to leftie orgs – if u guys can’t navigate this thro the bureauc then not a chance of any new schools starting’ (See Vasagar 2011). Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins has suggested that the less than secure electoral arithmetic of coalition politics has created a climate in which a number of ministers seem willing to appease right wing lobbies linked to backbench Tories disgruntled by the Party’s failure to win an outright majority in 2010 (Jenkins 2011).

4. Celebrating the presence of some of the nation’s best school leaders on the main advisory panel on the revised National Curriculum, Gove gushed: ‘we are lucky to have … many of the best current and former head-teachers … and an expert panel to collate evidence on the best international examples … These great men and women have a tough job to do …’ (2011).

5. The EBacc is an award tied to a particular clustering of subjects taken by English school students at GCSE normally at age 16 plus. It bears a close resemblance to the School Certificate that was awarded to successful grammar school (and independent school) students in the interwar years. Students are required to gain A^∗–C grades in a specified group of traditional academic subjects: English, Mathematics, two Science passes, a Modern or Classical Foreign Language and either History or Geography.

6. The Government published schools’ EBacc results for 2010 just one week before announcing its major review of the National Curriculum – both in January 2011. This performance measure was thus imposed retrospectively, schools having received no prior indication that such an arguably arbitrary criterion was even under consideration.

7. In one important respect Gove’s cultural restoration project differs from that of the 1980s neoconservatives: he has not sought to reinvigorate Britain’s Christian heritage or to stress that traditional values are grounded in the nation’s Christian past. It is true that other aspects of his reforms, especially the academies and Free Schools programmes, are giving various faith groups and organisations a significantly stronger presence in school provision – but even here, the government’s rationale more strongly emphasises ‘choice’ and parental and community involvement, rather than ‘faith’.

8. Perhaps it would be timely to revisit and consider the potential contribution of some of the Humanities programmes that, in the early 1970s, were developed in a number if innovative comprehensive schools, as well as national initiatives like the Schools Council Humanities Project (Schools Council 1970).