The Curriculum As an Innovative Experiment: Meeting the Challenge of Social Change

This book focuses on the interface between curriculum policy/practice and social change in technology-driven advanced societies, and the challenges this presents for education in the 21st century.

The book begins with both an autobiographical account of the experience of curriculum change in England over the last 40 years and an analysis of a major issue which emerged during that period; namely, the teacher's role in curriculum development. It then moves on to look at what the author believes to be a current manifestation of contemporary curriculum policy and practice in England: student disaffection from schooling. It is argued that the now widespread phenomenon 'disaffection' can be explained by the failure of curriculum policy-making to respond to the complexity of social change in an advanced modern society.

Drawing on the experience of attempts at radical innovation in the curriculum within the UK and other OECD countries, the author develops a framework for curriculum policy making and development which he argues will enable education to meet the challenges of social change. In the process he undertakes a critique of the currently fashionable school effectiveness and improvement movements and argues that they are under-pinned by outmoded views of the roles and functions of schools.