Curriculum Change

In order for schools and curricula to be responsive to new students and new societal conditions, scholars and practitioners alike must also understand the forces of change and how those forces impact and shape the curriculum.

To trace how curriculum changes, one must understand the evolution of the field itself. It was born during the early 20th century when control, management, and measurement were the driving forces in various academic fields, such as political science, sociology and the natural sciences. Its early leaders, John Franklin Bobbitt and William Charters, presented the field as a science based upon empirical studies with objective results. Showcasing how curriculum could be a process for meeting society's needs, Bobbitt's work, The Curriculum, was viewed as a scientific contribution to U.S. education. ...