Curriculum Studies in Relation to the Social Context of Education

Curriculum studies employs the social context of education to understand the tensions between the social sciences and the psychological, measurement sciences. Heretofore, in the earliest beginnings of the curriculum field, scientific management and psychological sciences predominated curriculum with a behavioral approach that categorized and structured hierarchies of student ability and aptitude, generated from a worldview that elevated measurement and testing as the ultimate determinant. Yet from the time George Herbert Mead's work influenced John Dewey, the recognition that students did not live in social vacuums, and therefore research on the child, society, and its institutions to illuminate societal issues and their impact on student academic work, existed in relative obscurity in educational research and was in a constant struggle for legitimacy.

The social context of education, as conceptualized by the American Educational Research Association Division G, formally recognized the need to employ social sciences in educational research. Curricularists embrace these same nonpsy-chological social sciences—sociology, urbanology, anthropology, political science, and social psychology—to help unpack society and its implications for curriculum organization and classroom practices. However, even after Division G's 1968 beginnings, the social issues that impact inequity of wealth and educational opportunity still exist.

The social context of education confirms that the curriculum field is a conflicted and contested terrain. At the national level, No Child Left [Page 265]Behind (NCLB) education legislation has become a scientific and evidenced-based school policy mechanism, which many believe has reduced curriculum organization to the mantra “pass the test.” This revitalized behavioral approach using performance objectives and systems management results in curriculum differentiation for middle-class and urban and rural working-class students. NCLB's high-stakes testing instituted mandatory student assessment. The penalties for low performance came in the form of vouchers and tax credits to attend better performing schools, including private and parochial, with the potential of destroying public education.

Another not unrelated layer of complexity is corporate interest. A century ago, industry demanded a curriculum that would develop a workforce to allow businesses to compete in world markets. Now corporations are in the business of education on national and global levels. Curriculum development and assessment is big business: educational television; attempts to privatize public schools; the testing industry, especially in light of NCLB; and corporations (such as Plato) market curriculum software in Europe; have distributors in the middle East, South Africa, and Singapore and are looking for new potential markets in Asia; and other English-speaking countries. Social context helps curricularists ask questions about such corporate interests and national policies.

The social context of education helps us understand that curriculum is profoundly political. The knowledge disseminated in schools is not neutral because society, and even science itself, is not neutral. The social tension is, in part, because those who have accumulated wealth, power, and privilege try to maintain their advantage, while those having less and in many cases, much less, struggle to change the rules so that they can acquire a better life for themselves and their children. In a democracy, citizens would have equal access to education, health care, a clean environment, and so on, but in a republic, some are more equal than others. The essential role of curriculum is a course of study to prepare subsequent generations for lifelong learning, the adult world of work, and, it is hoped, for a fulfilled social and personal life as a member of the global community. Yet there are those who are woefully unprepared to join the adult world of work, much less be a citizen of the world. Studying social context allows curricularists to investigate why society operates in sometimes curious and unexpected ways. After all, electing Barack Obama, the first man of African descent to be U.S. president is revolutionary. Ironically, however, curriculum organization has taken a backseat to the standards, outcomes, and accountability regime. The results are a Sneddenistic type differentiated instruction—discipline-centered reform for the most able students and basic instruction for the least able students, which speaks volumes about their future adult opportunities. How does this curriculum configuration historically manage to replicate itself so accurately, precisely, and consistently over the years? In these contemporary times, employing social sciences to inform curriculum studies could illuminate new occasions for changing current configurations, with an eye toward the moral, ethical, and sane advancement of a global community. Will curricularists work to change the current education trajectory as learned from the lessons of the past? Time will tell.

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