22 Curriculum as the Site of Power Struggle

Shalini Suryanarayana

Curriculum as the Site of Power Struggle

The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

— Carl Jung

Introduction

This module is part of an informative and thought provoking set of modules on education and its institutions. This module in particular introduces you to the concept of the curriculum and its various characteristics. When we deliberate the issues of theorizing about teaching and learning in a structured manner, we have to take into reference the design and content of the curriculum that is imparted. The systematized processes of classroom teaching bound into the institutional hierarchical organisation, and by the limits set by the syllabus, to a large extent, takes learning beyond the subjective experiences and meanings of classroom actors. Sometimes this is thought to quell creativity and originality – people who come out of the educational system are all cast in the same mould so to speak; but experiments with alternative educational systems have been difficult to standardize and execute on a large scale. The time tested system of teaching and learning with predefined performance expectations and predesigned curricula therefore remains the pedagogic norm across cultures and nation states.

What is curriculum?

All organized school and university education is effected through a curriculum. The word curriculum is derived from the Latin verb currere which means to run/to proceed; and curriculum originally meant a race or the course of a race. As early as the seventeenth century, the University of Glasgow referred to its “course” of study as a curriculum, and by the nineteenth century European universities routinely referred to their curriculum to describe both the complete course of study (as for a degree in a specific discipline) and particular courses and their contents.

The idea of curriculum has therefore been in place since antiquity but the nuanced understanding of the implications of the curriculum are relatively recent. According to John Kerr (Changing the Curriculum, 1968) curriculum is, “All the learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside the school” (cited in Kelly, 1983:10). This definition introduces us to the key features of a curriculum:

a. That it is planned and guided, i.e., we have to specify in advance our goals and how we are going about

attaining them.

b. The school is the agency that plans and executes the learning

Though this definition uses the word school to mean ‘schools’ but the term can also be used to refer to all educational institutions. The word school is usually used as a generic term for an educational institution and often faculties and centres in universities are called schools; sometimes universities themselves are conversationally and commonsensically referred to as ‘school’. This varied usage is possibly because the school is the most familiar and basic of all institutions in the educational domain, and one that majority of individuals necessarily come into contact with at least for some part of their lifetimes sometimes with state interventions such as free and compulsory primary education, etc. However, college and university syllabi are also planned and guided with varying degrees of precision even though the curricula of institutions and programmes of higher learning usually have greater fluidity and flexibility. Teachers at universities and colleges, and sometimes students too, participate in choosing the contents of their teaching and learning curriculum.

Since curriculum is all the knowledge that is imparted, it is dynamic in nature. As knowledge systems expand, curricula are also modified to incorporate new ideas and new knowledge. For instance, computer learning was not a part of school curricula two decades ago. Today it is almost obligatory for adults to be computer literate in order to get on with their lives. So computer literacy has made its way into the institutional curriculums. Similarly moral education may or may not be part of contemporary school curricula. Usually moral rules are bound together with religion and the secularization of education has put some constraints on imparting moral and spiritual learning. In this way we can sense that curriculum is not just a body of knowledge to be imparted; it is also wrought with ideology and world view; it is in fact a process; and could be an instrument of political and ideological indoctrination especially at the stage of primary education when a child is still in his formative years.

Curriculum and Syllabus

The above understanding of curriculum also tells us that curriculum is a broader concept than the syllabus. It is, however, not uncommon to equate a curriculum with a syllabus. The word syllabus literally means a list or a table of contents or itinerary. These are only one aspect of the curriculum; the curriculum being much more comprehensive than just that. We are all familiar for instance, with courses leading to certain examinations such as the syllabus associated with CBSE, or for examinations such as those conducted by the UPSC. These are purely syllabi. Curriculum on the other hand would also include the plan and the vision behind the selection of topics and readings that the syllabus contains. Curriculum is in a sense both a means and the end for the educational discourse.

Curriculum theory

One of the earliest theorists on the idea of a curriculum was American educationist John Franklin Bobbitt (1918; 1928). In The Curriculum, Bobbitt has written as follows:

“The central theory [of curriculum] is simple. Human life, however varied, consists in the performance of specific activities. Education that prepares for life is one that prepares definitely and adequately for these specific activities.” … “The curriculum will then be that series of experiences which children and youth must have by way of obtaining those objectives (1918: 42).”

For Bobbitt, the curriculum is a means to attaining socially desirable objectives. Curriculum is understood through the “deeds- experiences” the student ought to undergo to become a socially acceptable adult. It is these future adults who will constitute the society visualised for the future. So the curriculum reflects an image of what society and individuals ought to be like.

This ideal of building society through the curriculum is also evidenced in the works of philosopher John Dewey. According to Dewey, education and learning are social and interactive processes, and the school itself is a social institution through which social reform can and should be initiated. In addition, he believed that students thrive in an environment where they are allowed to experience and interact with the curriculum, and all students should have the opportunity to take active part in their own learning. Dewey makes a strong case for the importance of education not only as a place to gain content knowledge, but also as a place to “learn how to live” . In addition to helping students realize their full potential, Dewey goes on to acknowledge that education and schooling are instrumental in creating social change and reform.

He argues that in order for education to be most effective, content must be presented in a way that allows the student to relate the information to prior experiences, thus deepening the connection with this new knowledge.

The problem with these progressive ideologies is that the moment we conceptualise the curriculum as an agent of social change in a ‘desirable’ direction we empower the practitioners of the curriculum into taking decisions about the future of people and of society. As this happens, students and even teachers teaching the curriculum become progressively disempowered and their voices get considerably muted and stifled.

Structures of power within the curriculum

According to educational theorist Michael Apple, there is considerable element of ideology in a curriculum. Apple has examined the relationship between structures of power with the form and content of the curriculum. He highlights the selective nature of education whereby education like all other institutions of society, functions selectively to exclude certain groups while favouring others.

We have often talked about the disciplining nature of schools. But one must also realise that schools as the manifest face of the educational system also function through the curriculum. Schooling teaches us what meanings to accord to the world we live in. For instance, our curriculum teaches us to appreciate or denigrate certain historical actors and events, depending upon the governing ideology of the day. Education preserves and distributes what is perceived to be “legitimate knowledge” – knowledge that “we all must have ”. Schools confer cultural legitimacy on the knowledge of specific groups. Those groups which are politically, economically and culturally dominant use their power to make their knowledge as the ‘knowledge for all’. Control over the educational curriculum becomes important as this by far the most effective means of indoctrination of young minds.

Michael Apple sees schools as enmeshed in a nexus of political, economic and cultural institutions which are all basically unequal and become a site for the execution of that inequality. These other powerful institutions are the source for the genesis of structural inequalities of power and privilege. Schools in tandem with these institutions reinforce and reproduce these inequalities through their curricular, pedagogical, and evaluative practices, and these are reinforced in the day-to-day life in classrooms. School subculture and curriculum play a significant role in preserving and perpetuating these inequalities. In that sense curriculum is an instrument of social engineering and assigned to the wrong hands, could be a dangerous weapon of self-serving manipulation.

At a macro level, sociologists Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (1976) have related schools to the overall system of social stratification. According to Bowles and Gintis schools (their curriculum included) act to furnish the economy with a labour force equipped with the necessary skills and appropriate personalities and attitudes. Schools become the instruments of production of a submissive, obedient and disciplined workforce. This is a ‘hidden’ function of schooling because it is contrary to the professed ideology of schooling, in which the school is viewed as a device to promote social reform and social mobility. The ‘hidden curriculum’ operates through a ‘ correspondence’ between the structure of schooling and the economic system. The nature of work and social relations fostered in the educational system mirror those in capitalist society. For example, students have to obey orders; they have no control over the curriculum, and as such gain little intrinsic satisfaction from school work. According to Bowles and Gintis, these conditions mirror students’ future positions in the workforce as there too the alienated worker has no control over work and experiences little intrinsic satisfaction. The school is a mechanism for the reproduction of the existing social relations of production.

There are thus two central concerns in the context of the curriculum — that it is the arena for the transmission of ideologies and hence a conflicted space and that, schools through their entire structure and functioning and especially through the value preferences inbuilt into the curriculum play a predominant role in the reproduction of inequality. Since knowledge is power, whoever controls the nature, content and transmission of knowledge stands to gain immense power in society. The curriculum essentially becomes an agenda for implementation of the perspectives of the powerful. Therefore the curriculum emerges as one of the crucial sites for the enactment of the struggle for power and influence that exists in the wider society.

Of course the curriculum is not always or entirely unidirectional. It is also an interaction among teachers and students, administrators and at a broader level – the government and wider society. In contemporary democracies and civil societies there are several countervailing influences that place restrictions on the hegemony of the curriculum and its enforcers. According to Lawrence Stenhouse (1975), “A curriculum is an attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice.”

Regarded this way a curriculum becomes more or less a process evolving even as it accomplishes its objectives. Students and teachers are seen to have a dialogic relationship where students’ voices are also heard and they are not mere objects to be acted upon. This view gives a certain sense of flexibility to the curriculum and empowers the learner. It also makes each classroom interaction unique and filled with life rather than one in which predefined contents are imparted to passively compliant learners.

Although modern institutions especially those of higher learning are evolving towards this thinking, yet there is an element of power when it comes to deciding what is to be the subject matter of the curriculum. Even when teachers are directly involved in crafting the curriculum, their own values and ideologies infiltrate the domain of decision making. This is especially so in the fields of social sciences where knowledge is often ideologically defined. Other determining criteria may be the market worthiness of a programme of study. Sometimes pragmatism dictates the choice of subjects and themes therein, as educational institutions and educational programmes also have to sustain themselves. Therefore the power play that occurs in the arena of the curriculum is very intricate, complex and subtle.

Some theorists have imbued the curriculum with the idea of praxis in order to make an explicit and clearly stated commitment to emancipation. In this conceptualisation, students are not just informed learners but co-creators of knowledge. This is the pedagogic model suggested, for instance, by Paulo Freire, at the heart of which is praxis, that is informed, committed action. In the Pedagogy of the Oppressed , Paulo Freire has proposed a pedagogic paradigm that involves a ‘new’ relationship between teacher, student, and society. Dedicated to the underprivileged or the ‘oppressed’, and based on his own experiences while helping Brazilian adults to read and write, the work encloses a detailed Marxist class analysis in its exploration of the relationship between the teacher and the taught. Freire critiques the traditional educational paradigm as one that tames people and calls instead for a ‘liberating’ education. For Freire ‘education for domestication’ conditions people into resigning to their lot in life. ‘Libertarian’ education on the other hand gives people self-confidence and a sense of being able to choose their own destiny. Freire has argued for a system of education that emphasizes learning as an act of culture and freedom. Freire calls for a dialogic exchange between teachers and students, where both learn, both question, both reflect and both participate in the creation of meaning. In true Marxian tradition, Freire believes that in order to be able to transcend their oppression, the oppressed must first become fully conscious of their condition. Further, they must come to the understanding that oppression is not a natural or inevitable condition, but an injustice that they are capable of overcoming through struggle. It is through their ignorance about the nature of their condition, that the oppressed tend to take on the values of the oppressors – accepting their prescriptions, and oftentimes participating in the process of transmitting the oppressive order. They have to strive to recognise and acknowledge their condition and creatively visualise another world free of that oppression. It is here that the notion of praxis comes into play as a liberating process. Freire exhorts the oppressed to liberate themselves through praxis or informed, concerted, revolutionary action. Those who are oppressed have a duty towards themselves to strive to redeem themselves from their oppression. The oppressed have to free themselves and their oppressors alike. Invoking the ideas of dialectics postulated by Marx and Engels, Freire observes, “ This then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. … Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both” (2005: 44). “When praxis comes forward as action, it becomes a means by which the oppressed can apply their latent creativity to the labour of liberation.”

According to Grundy, “Critical pedagogy goes beyond situating the learning experience within the experience of the learner: it is a process which takes the experiences of both the learner and the teacher and, through dialogue and negotiation, recognizes them both as problematic… [It] allows, indeed encourages, students and teachers together to confront the real problems of their existence and relationships… When students confront the real problems of their existence they will soon also be faced with their own oppression (Grundy 1987: 105).” So the curriculum is not seen simply as “a set of plans to be implemented, but rather is constituted through an active process in which planning, acting and evaluating are all reciprocally related and integrated into the process” (Grundy 1987: 115).

Evaluation

Schools are a major agency of socialization. Social control in a sense first begins with the process of schooling. The curriculum is an important contributor to this. All accepted values and knowledge systems are conveyed to learners through the curriculum, making control over the curriculum an important part of gaining power in society. Hence it is inevitable that despite all democratic safeguards, the curriculum shall remain a site for the struggle for power and control. It is sometimes alleged that schools and schooling promote a ‘hidden curriculum ’ – one of competition, conformity, compliance, and inequality, propagated by those who have power in order to further consolidate their position. According to Ivan Illich (Deschooling Society, 1971), schools are repressive institutions that stifle creative expression, instil conformity and crush pupils into not only accepting the interests of the powerful but also regarding these to be just. This to Illich is the hidden curriculum operating in schools. The student has no control over what he learns and how he learns it. The teaching regime is an authoritarian one and in order to be regarded successful the student must learn to comply and conform. The best student is not necessarily the most learned or skilled or the most exceptionally brilliant. The best student is one who can perform best within the system. Those who excel at conforming are selected for the next level and are suitably rewarded. Illich feels that more than imparting skills and competence, schools teach and reinforce a world view that equates “teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, (and ) a diploma with competence” (1971:4). Since the school is the agency that grants the seal of credentials that have acceptance in the labour market, it carries with it an immense coercive power to exact conformity. Graduating from schools of such nature, students as citizens continue to use the same yardsticks through their life in all walks of their lives, perpetuating inequality and the struggle for power within the system. Illich thus sharply critical of the educational system, views it as the basis of the problem with modern industrial society. Schools as the primary agency of socialization become the first and most critical stage in nurturing “mindless, conforming and easily manipulated” citizens. In schools pupils are taught to conform, and that conformity is rewarded; individuality and originality are not given due respect.

You may have observed for instance in your own career as a student that most institutions have standardised syllabi and examination patterns. Certain texts have to be consulted and answers have to be written according to pre-set norms. Attendance and other behaviour regulations have also to be complied with. All in all it is the curriculum that dominates. While this is necessary for the survival of the institution and to maintain order in society, no one can deny that such strictures tend to curb innovativeness and do stifle creativity. As an individual a student learns deference to authority, gets lulled into regarding a certain amount of alienation as the natural state of being, and learns to consume and value the services of the institution and thereby to forget how to think for oneself. There is commodification of education. Education in the prescribed format is socially rewarded and hence becomes a coveted object of consumption to be devoured in ever increasing quantities. For Illich these lessons (at school) prepare the individual for his role as a mindless consumer to whom the passive consumption of the goods and services of industrial society becomes an end in itself.

There is undoubtedly that struggle for voice in the context of schooling – teachers’ voice as well as that of the students. At the same time schools are also the principal breeding ground for social change and social justice. It is knowledge, however biased and lopsided it may seem, that provides the ability to question and explore beyond the prescriptions that are being handed out. Further, there is bound to be an inbuilt asymmetry in the pedagogic regime no matter how liberal the mode of education. This is the asymmetry between ignorance and knowledge – the ignorance of the learner and the knowledge of the teacher. The process of learning seeks to eliminate this asymmetry by empowering the learner with knowledge and with the ability to question.

Conclusion

In this lesson we have seen that a curriculum is a far more significant and comprehensive conceptual and pedagogic category than one would have reckoned. It is more than just a syllabus or a list of contents or prescribed readings. It can be understood most as the agenda for education – the course through which an educational programme is chartered. However, we also saw that theorists have regarded the curriculum as a process that evolves in the course of its execution. Exponents of critical pedagogy such as Paulo Freire have instilled praxis into the domain of the curriculum. All three conceptualisations – curriculum as product, as a process and as praxis have an element of truth. In fact curriculum is a programme for implementation, the process of implementation and the site for praxis – all at the same time. In each of these manifestations of the curriculum there is interplay between participant actors, as well as a struggle for dominance and control. It is also necessary to pay attention to the social context in which curriculum is created. The classroom and the curriculum are both essentially a reflection of society. The social milieu in which learning is enacted is not just a mute witness but also an active participant in the pedagogic process. You will learn more about this facet of education in another lesson on “Education and Society”.

REFERENCES

• Apple, Michael W. 1979. Ideology and Curriculum. London: Routledge.
• Bowles, S and Gintis, H. 1976. Schooling in Capitalist America. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Bobbitt, F. 1918. The Curriculum. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Britzman, Deborah, P. “Who has the Floor? Curriculum, Teaching and the English Student Teacher’s Struggle for Voice.” In Curriculum Inquiry19, No. 2, (summer, 1989) 143-162. JSTOR: accessed 25-4-2014
• Dewey, J. 1902. The Child and the Curriculum, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Dewey, J. 1938. Experience and Education, New York: Macmillan.
• Freire, Paulo. (1972) 2005. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Ed. New York: Continuum Books.
• Grundy, S. 1987. Curriculum: Product or Praxis? Lewes: Falmer Press.
•  Illich, Ivan. 1971. Deschooling Society. New York, Harper & Row.
• Kelly, A.V. 1983/2004. The Curriculum: Theory and Practice (Fifth Edition).London: SAGE Publications.
•  Lois Weis, Cameron McCarthy, Greg Dimitriadis. 2006. Curriculum, and the New Sociology of Education: Revisiting the Work of Michael Apple. Taylor & Francis.
• Stenhouse, L. 1975. An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development. London: Heinemann.