Given the curriculum and accountability chaos unleashed by the government’s education policies, it is timely of Routledge to make Michael Young’s editorial from a special issue of the Curriculum Journal – "What is a curriculum and what can it do?" freely available.
It begins:
Despite the widespread use of the term ‘curriculum’ in educational research and policy, the questions in my title are not easy to answer. Furthermore, as is indicated by the papers in this Special Issue, there is little consensus among specialists in the field. An attempt to answer them, however, is worthwhile because much writing and research about the curriculum is devoted to saying what it ought to do, and what its aims are, with less regard for what exactly a curriculum is that might fulfil those aims.
Although it's about schools, it applies to wherever the word curriculum is used, mis-used and abused. Essential reading, therefore, for those trying to introduce ESD etc, etc to universities where the idea of curriculum remains underdeveloped.
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