Core Curriculum

As a prominent professional term in the field of curriculum studies, core curriculum has served as one of the classic battlegrounds for the struggle for the U.S. curriculum. The term came to represent the common knowledge most important for all students. Serving as a curricular response to the perennial dilemma, what knowledge is of most worth, core curriculum has been known by various terms: stem course, unified studies, integrated studies, common learnings, cultural epoch program, broad fields core, and general education. Core curriculum was even described as a slang term by staff of the 1930 to 1940s Eight Year Study. Although the term has appeared in postsecondary curriculum literature, its primary use in curriculum design and development emerged at the secondary and middle school levels. At the elementary school, core curriculum often becomes synonymous with the activity movement. Although the term is typically placed in juxtaposition with specialized education, core curriculum is used in a multitude of ways, as a conceptual structure for an individual discipline or for efforts to integrate areas of study.

Core curriculum is somewhat distinguishable from the concept of general education in that certain curricular and educational beliefs are embedded in the idea of core. Foremost is the fact that the core curriculum is considered a constant and required component of the curriculum, yet the accompanying restrictions of a requirement are lifted and replaced by a conception of basic and fundamental rather than required. Unlike contemporary uses of block scheduling, core curriculum was conceived as being in constant evolution. Its orientation saw learning as a series of integrated experiences without weakening disciplinary knowledge, drawing upon resource units, and incorporating the instructional method of teacher–pupil planning.

In what proved to be the most comprehensive conception of core curriculum, Harold Alberty identified five core designs, placed on a continuum representing ever-increasing divergence from the traditional subject-centered, general education program. Each core design, Alberty maintained, could be viewed as the most effective configuration of education experiences to provide common preparation for democratic citizens; none was necessarily better than another. A Type 1 core program reflected a separate subject design, representing a traditional general education program consisting of a set of independent courses or fields of knowledge, sometimes taught by the same teacher, but typically taught by content specialists. Under this model, by far the most common, students enroll in English, history, science, mathematics, the arts, and physical education courses to fulfill a set number of Carnegie Units. Type 2 core involved the correlation of multiple subjects, most often English and history. Within this design, instructors responsible for two or more required subjects emphasized interrelationships among the content fields. For example, students studying the U.S. Civil War in their history class may read The Red Badge of Courage or The Killer Angels in their English sections. To facilitate instructional planning, sometimes an overarching theme might be selected, such as the sorrows of war. In a Type 2 core, the subjects are taught at separate times and in separate classrooms, but teachers would make links whenever possible, similar to today's arts infusion program.

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