Michael Young and the curriculum field in South Africa

Abstract

The paper addresses the question of what we should make of Michael Young’s recent work with respect to curriculum theory by considering the particular case of South African curriculum reform. The paper thus traces two trajectories: the evolution of Michael Young’s ideas over time and South African curriculum reform in the post-apartheid period. The paper shows how the two trajectories have run in parallel, not least because of Young’s ongoing involvement and interest in South Africa. Three broad periods in Young’s career are identified: the new sociology of education period; a middle period where he engaged in substantial policy work, focusing predominantly on the relation between schooling and the economy; and his social realist phase, where much of his work has focused on an educational notion of specialized knowledge: ‘powerful knowledge’. The possibilities and limitations of this notion as it has been taken up in the research literature, and in relation to the South African case, are explored.

Keywords:

• Michael Young
• curriculum theory
• curriculum policy
• knowledge
• specialization
• South Africa

Notes

1. A particular authoritarian pedagogical philosophy, developed largely in Afrikaans universities under apartheid, where the child was regarded as ignorant and undisciplined, in need of guidance from the teacher, whose authority was derived from the God of the Dutch Reformed Church (Ensor, 1999).

2. In characteristic fashion, he was also central to the review of the NQF in 2002, (South African Department of Education, 2002) which argued that differences between academic and vocational, professional and occupational qualifications should be recognised as both necessary and defensible.

3. ‘OBE’ standing for ‘Outcomes-based education’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ursula Hoadley

Ursula Hoadley is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Cape Town, e-mail: [email protected]. Her research areas are curriculum, pedagogy and teachers work. She focuses in particular on primary schooling processes in contexts of poverty.