Curriculum Discourses

Traditionalist Discourse

Traditionalists believe that education should require students to learn about the great ideas and events of the Western, intellectual, social, and political heritage and should focus on the basic skills of reading, writing, and math. These scholars argue that all children should be taught the same content, and learning should be measured by standardized, high-stakes tests. As a result, drills, recitation, and memorization are viewed as central to learning. Under the George W. Bush administration's No Child Left Behind policies, basic skills have become the core of education, and in some schools, the [Page 207]only curriculum. It remains to be seen whether this emphasis will be altered by future administrations.

Sociopolitical Discourse

One of the most prolific discourses in curriculum studies focuses on the relationship between the curriculum and the sociopolitical context within which education takes place. Many curricularists note the influence of the U.S. market economy on the curriculum. For example, they argue that the curriculum should not just prepare students for their possible occupations or to improve the power of the United States, but rather curriculum should broaden and deepen our democracy and make our society more socially just. These scholars also critique the ways other powerful societal influences such as religion or popular culture effects curriculum.

Antiracist Discourse

Another vigorous discourse focuses on issues of race. These curriculum studies scholars point out that racism in the United States is far from eliminated in spite of the success of the civil rights movement. Although more subtle and difficult to detect, they point out the insidious ways children of color (particularly African Americans) are still victims of racial discrimination in schools. Many of these scholars have studied the way conventional curriculum has failed to address the societal needs or intellectual health of children of color. For example, several have called attention to the ways educators teach language arts to children of color suggesting that a focus on skills, without the proper context, will likely continue the poor showing that these children make on standardized tests. Antiracist discourse notes that correct English is merely a social construction and the dialect of those in power. Curricularists who engage in this discourse suggest that these skills (along with the content found in most schools) would be best taught as codes of power rather than as the correct way to speak or write. Others note how schools often segregate students of color through policies such as tracking and special education.

Feminist Discourse

Feminist scholars call attention to the influence of patriarchy on school curriculum and research in curriculum studies. For example, several of these scholars have noted the role patriarchy has played in the deskilling of teachers as this occupation became accepted as women's work by society and the destructive ramifications of this development. Other topics of interest have been the absence of addressing issues of gender in the curriculum, the experiences girls (and female teachers) have in schools, the way research methodology has been dominated by a masculine perspective of knowledge generation, the unique ways girls might learn as opposed to boys, and the ways women (or girls) might view morality as opposed to the ways most men (or boys) do.

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