Abstract

The chapter begins with some analysis of what it describes as the ‘multi-layered’ curriculum in so far as there are some very different things that might be included in such a concept, including unintended as well as intended educational experiences and the messages of what has been called the ‘hidden curriculum’.Focussing on the school curriculum it points out the profoundly normative character of decisions about what should be included and describes how three particular points of reference – the good life, the good society and the good person – shape these normative choices and offer, through them, a fairly comprehensive ‘philosophy of education’.The contested nature of these choices takes us, however, into the second area of discussion in the chapter, which concerns who should control the curriculum and into debates about state control, parents’ rights and school-based curriculum development.The chapter then turns to consideration of the epistemological underpinnings of the curriculum and influential views of the structure or ‘architectonics’ of knowledge and their implications for curriculum design.Finally, the chapter explores in particular two contrasting models or conceptions of the curriculum, one of which sees it as analogous to a production line and another to a research site.