Abridged Too Far: evidence from teachers against the case for revising the Cox curriculum

In much of the recent debate over the teaching of English there has been a notable lack of empirical evidence on teachers’ thinking and classroom practice; this has particularly been true of the National Curriculum Council's case for revising the English Order. In the absence of such information, the study set out to gather evidence of teachers’ thinking and classroom practice in two fundamental areas of the English curriculum—the teaching of literature and media education—as a contribution to the debate. Sixty teachers responded to an attitude questionnaire and a sub‐sample of 20 teachers filled in a survey on the teaching of media education. The findings of the study seriously question the validity of the case for revising the Cox curriculum.