Accounting_for_a_World_Curriculum

ohn Meyer and David Kamens [Edited from: Meyer, J.W. and Kamens, D.H. (1992) ‘Conclusion: accounting for a world curriculum’, in Meyer, J.W., Kamens, D.H. and Benavot, A., with Cha., Y.K. and Wong, S.Y. (eds) School Knowledge for the Masses: World Models and National Primary Curricular Categories in the Twentieth Century, London: Falmer Press, pp. 165-75] The most important finding in our research is the relative homogeneity of the world's primary curricular outlines in the twentieth century. This is true descriptively - in the sense that there is considerably less variation among curricular outlines than reasonable arguments would have predicted. And it is true in an explanatory sense -factors that vary among countries play a smaller role than most theories would have proposed, in affecting variations among curricula. Further, we notice a pronounced tendency for curricular changes in particular countries to parallel each other and to take the form of conformity to world curricular patterns. It turns out, thus, that through this century one may speak of a relatively clear 'world primary curriculum' operating, at least as an official standard, in almost all countries. A bit more than a third of the student's time is to be spent on language - and mainly on national language(s), not on local or foreign or classical ones. About one-sixth of the time goes to mathematics. A set of other subjects is practically always found (especially since the Second World War), with each subject taking 10 per cent of curricular time, or a bit less – social science, science, arts and physical education. Religious or moral education, and vocational education, are less universally present, and get only 5 per cent of the time. All other possible subjects -and many are found in one or another country at one or another time -take up in total less than a twentieth of the curriculum in the typical case. The stylized character of the overall outline of the curriculum, or its readability in terms of world norms, is striking. Put simply, curricular categories, and even allocations of time to these categories, conform to the standard world outline. What then explains the world curriculum and its evolution' It is difficult to address such questions in empirical terms, but some general arguments may be useful. The nineteenth-century rise of the modern secular mass curriculum seems closely linked to the rise of the model of the national state, with a universalized citizenry closely linked to a national culture (in language and art and, in a sense, physical education) and organized around rationalistic themes of social and natural progress (emphasizing science, mathematics, and social science, in addition to more traditional subjects). Themes left from an older Christendom - classical languages and literatures, and a strong emphasis on religion – were attenuated (though religion remained, especially in those countries where it was tied to a national state). Two dimensions are built into this educational model - we may be so habituated to them as not to notice how distinct they are. First, there is the nominally a rational or irrational side - the construction of what Anderson (1983) calls the 'imagined national community', or what Thomas et al. (1987), call the 'ontology of modernity'. Here we have the laborious construction of national languages (often at considerable cost to both local practice and international exchange), of national culture and history. Here we also have the surprising emphasis on tightly linking the identity of the individual child to national society through art and culture and physical education. Second, there is the rationalistic side of this same constructed world - the scientific and social scientific emphasis on the rationality and progressiveness of the national societies being constructed. Both dimensions are strikingly built into the modern curriculum as it develops, and both are now found everywhere: there seem to be no countries left whose curricula lack a strong sense of national identity; and none left whose curricula lack most of the modern rationalities. Through the subsequent century, this model of the high national state and society seems to have remained relatively constant in the world curriculum - if anything, intensified as it became more universal. The one dramatic change since the First World War, is the shift towards a more integrated social studies subject - which is arguably a reflection of the more and more complete interpenetration of state and society characteristic of the twentieth century. We may be nearing the end of the high period of the national state as sovereign and autonomous social system in a world society imagined to be anarchic. The citizen status of individuals is being redefined in terms of their human rights in a larger system; there is a worldwide discussion of the limits on national sovereignty, and national societies are seen as in a worldwide natural and social environment requiring greater attention. Our curricular data may not be detailed enough to capture many of the educational shifts that might follow such changes. But some findings of our analyses could well be reflecting them. There is, for one thing, the expansion in modern foreign language instruction and particularly the emphasis on English as a world medium of communication rather than the simple retention of any language of the colonial period. There is also the expansion of social studies - with the potential vision of human societies anywhere as comparable and comprehensible rather than a narrower vision of national history and geography. There may also be a slight rise in instruction in moral education rather than religion reflective of a more universalistic approach to basic norms. Aside from arguments explaining substantive changes in the world curriculum, our observations permit clear arguments about the processes involved. The developments we observe over the past century have two clear properties we must note. First, they occur in the centres of world educational communication. The nineteenth-century development of the modern curriculum occurred in the European centres, spreading outward from them in waves of imitation - sometimes coerced through colonial power and authority, sometimes more voluntaristic (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983 ). Similarly with the mid-twentieth-century changes we observe - they seem to reflect the dominance of the models of the metropolitan powers, and more recently, the hegemonic United States. Perhaps future changes in world curricular customs will reflect a more egalitarian system -for example, through discussions in such forums as UNESCO, which might give more peripheral countries more relative influence. But in the period of our observations, the world centres have been dominant. Second, the main changes we observe over time in the world curriculum have been structured by the conceptions of the educational professionals and scientists. They are theorized changes, rather than changes that seem simply to reflect raw power. Every one of them -changes in language instruction, the rise of science and expansion of mathematics, the reorganization of social science instruction, the rise of aesthetic and physical education, and so on - is a creature of elaborate educational theorizing, whatever its possible ultimate origins in power or interest. It is important not to overstate the power of the educational professionals as local interest groups, or as agents of local forces. But it is equally important to see that such groups - operating on their central terrain as agents of great scientific truths in a more universalistic way - embody and represent wider world cultural forces, and gain authority as they do so. Their authority rests on knowledge claims, and in good part such claims tend to have not only a universalistic flavour but a worldwide structural location. With all this said, it seems obvious that idiosyncratic features of the metropolitan powers (and in particular the United States, since the Second World War) and their professional theorists play a considerable role in the evolution of the world curriculum. It is not simply a matter of the worldwide evolution of the natural principles of the modern nation-state. A rather liberal version of this nation-state has been politically and educationally dominant in our period - clearly the world curriculum would have looked very different with different outcomes of the First and Second World Wars. This suggests that future changes in the types of countries that are most dominant in world society may also produce changes in curricular emphasis.