From Constructivism to Realism in the Sociology of the Curriculum

The aim of this paper is to offer a critical assessment of what curriculum theorists and policy makers can learn from the sociology of education 1 . It is both historical and conceptual in approach- charting changes over time and emphasizing a shift between different sociological approaches to knowledge. It begins in the early 1970s when sociologists of education in England began to challenge the whole idea of a curriculum and that claims for some knowledge to be “worthwhile”, “true” or “better” were other than ideological smokescreens legitimating the authority of those in power. The first section indicate some of the problems, both educational and political, that such an approach to knowledge and the curriculum gave rise to. Section 2 stands back from the historical account and sets out the assumptions about knowledge on which the rest of the paper is based. Section 3 focuses explicitly on the ‘new sociology of education’ and ‘critical curriculum studies’ and their strengths and weaknesses and argues that if as sociologists we are to take the issue of ‘knowledge’ seriously, we must think again about what it means to assert that knowledge (and hence the curriculum) is social. Section 4 considers the ‘neo-institutionalist’ approach to the curriculum and their argument that it is best seen as a product of an emerging global culture. This research tradition, initiated by John Meyer and his colleagues at Stanford University, has been largely neglected within the sociology of the curriculum both in the UK and the USA. I summarise their main findings, and explore the implications of their concept of the curriculum as an ‘institution’. Section 5 returns to the question of knowledge as central to any sociology of the curriculum and suggests that its starting point must be the structured differentiation of knowledge. It develops this idea through a discussion of the ideas of Emile Durkheim and Basil Bernstein and refers to some of those who have developed Bernstein’s ideas since his death. Section 6 concludes the paper with some reflections on the previous analysis and its implications for a future agenda for the sociology of the curriculum in the uncertain era that we face of an increasingly global economy and the ever expanding role of information and communication technologies.