Cambridge Journal of Education

ISSN: 0305-764X (Print) 1469-3577 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccje20

For Knowledge: Tradition, progressivism and

progress in education—reconstructing the
curriculum debate

Rob Moore

To cite this article: Rob Moore (2000) For Knowledge: Tradition, progressivism and progress
in education—reconstructing the curriculum debate, Cambridge Journal of Education, 30:1,
17-36, DOI: 10.1080/03057640050005753

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03057640050005753

Published online: 01 Jul 2010.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 2102

View related articles

Citing articles: 4 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ccje20
Cam bridge Journal of Education, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2000 17

For K nowledge: tradition,

progressivism and progress in
educationÐ reconstructing the
curriculum debate
ROB MOORE
Education Studies Departm ent, Homerton College, Cam bridge, U K

A BSTRACT This paper draws upon realist theories of knowledge a nd naturalised epistemolo-
gies in the philosophy of science in order to argue that da tabases around the school curriculum
could bene® t from such approaches. It is suggested that the traditional/progressive distinction
that has structured much of the curriculum debate for a long time is both of little value in
describing how schools actually work and outm oded in terms of understandings of knowledge.
Realist approaches m ake a reappraisal possible because they begin from the understanding that
knowledge is socially and historically constructed but do so in a way that avoids the relativism
and reductionism that results when epistmology and the sociology of knowledge are seen as
opposed rather than com plem entary. The paper reviews a number of ways in which knowledge
has been conceived of as social in educational thinking and, from a realist perspective, criticises
their reductive and relativist tendencies whilst outlining a realist epistemological alterna tive.

INTROD UCTION
D ebates about the school curriculum have a tendency to becom e heated. What
should be taught in schools is an issue that has shown a rem arkable capacity to
excite public opinion. The past 20 years have been punctuated by episodes of
con¯ ict over virtually every aspect of the curriculum from the obvious candi-
dates such as sex education to central areas such as E nglish and history and even
m athematics. The reason why the curriculum can cause these eruptions of
public controversy is that what we know affects who we are (or are perceived to
be). Issues of knowledge entail issues of identity. Central to the debates around
E nglish and history, for instance, have been disputes over `Englishness’ . How
these subjects are taught is seen as associated with various representations of
`the nation’ and its heritage, of how we de® ne ourselves individually and
collectively and who exactly `we’ are. In this respect, the organisation of school
knowledge is treated as equivalent to a representation of social order incorporat-
ing principles of inclusion and exclusion, of hierarchy and power. For fem inists
that organisation has been seen as re¯ ecting principles of patriarchy; for m ulti-

0305-764X /00/010017 -20 Ó 2000 University of C ambridge School of Education

18 R. M oore

culturalists, ethnocentrism and white dominance. For neo-conservatives, the

`basics’ they wish to get `back to’ are those of an im agined golden past. M y
purpose in this paper is to explore various aspects of the social dim ension of the
curriculum in order illuminate the relationship between curriculum reform and
its social context in order to assess the wider im plications for curriculum debate.

E ducational Exp ansion and the Social C ontext of C urriculum D ebate

There is an internal logic to the history of curriculum debates: that of educa-
tional expansion (Moore & Hickox, 1999). If we look back over the history of
curriculum reform and public debate, its periods of greatest vigour coincide with
periods of expansion at various levels: for exam ple, in secondary schools with
the raising of the school leaving age to 16 in 1972 (ROSLA), the knock-on effect
in `the new sixth form ’ , the im pact of the Youth Training Schem e upon the
further education sector. Or again, the past decade of higher education expan-
sion is associated with m oves such as m odularisation, especially in the old
polytechnic sector where the changes were m ost pronounced. Curriculum
reform generally responds to signi® cant changes in the student population, not
just in size but in social com position. The N ewsom Report (which provided the
background to ROSL A), for instance, was concerned that the inherited curricu-
lum was not `relevant’ to those non-academ ic pupils who form ed `half our
future’ . W hen change does occur, it is invariably presented as a solution to a
perceived problem . Typically, the established curriculum is judged inappropri-
ate to certain new conditions.
The quest for `relevance’ was central to the numerous curriculum initiatives
pioneered by the Schools Council in preparation for ROSL A and led to the
introduction of the CSE examination alongside O-levels and their eventual
fusion as GCSEs. At the tim e of ROSL A, the underlying issue was that of
`class’ : the core problem was perceived as that of working class boys. The
introduction of `the world of work’ into the curriculum was largely for their
bene® t. The changing social and, therefore, educational aspirations of wom en
later resulted in m ajor curriculum initiatives, often inspired by fem inist research
(W einer 1994; Arnot et al., 1999) and the m ost signi® cant developm ents of
m ulticulturalism tended to occur in those places where the ethnic com position
of the school population had undergone signi® cant change. The substantive
history of curriculum change is thus essentially a social history.
The observation in the opening paragraph, therefore, is not purely abstract.
The reason why curriculum debates can becom e public to such a considerable
and intense degree is that the im m anent identity issues are triggered by actual
events and circumstances, by m ovem ents and forces of social change. The
recurring controversies concerning teaching about the family and m arriage arise
precisely because these institutions are changing and, m ost signi® cantly, diversi-
fying. Initiatives such as anti-sexist education and m ulticulturalism did not occur
sim ply because they are good ideas but because they were ideas whose tim e had
com e as social conditions changed. Curriculum reform tends to occur at
 Reconstructing the Curriculum Debate 19

m om ents when social change is interacting with (or triggering) educational

changeÐ and curriculum debates inevitably becom e enmeshed with broader
debates m ediated by politicians and the press. W hat is taught in schools can
never be a neutral or innocent decision or sim ply an outcom e of changes in
educational theory. Because we are what we know (though by no m eans all of
what we know com es from school), school knowledge will inevitably be conten-
tious to varying degrees depending upon circum stances.
Hence, in the ® rst instance, the curriculum is `social’ :
· because the educational learning process is `transform ational’ Ð it aims to
change the person in som e way deem ed desirable in society; and
· because, historically, curriculum change tends to be associated with
social change (often re¯ ected in the social com position of the school
system ) and because debates about the curriculum have been enmeshed
with (or som etim es a proxy for) broader debates and con¯ icts around
those societal changes.
The organisation of school knowledge is often `read’ as a representation of social
order and, as such, it is im possible to talk about the one without involving the
other or to avoid the con¯ icts and wider controversies this can give rise to.
Describing the curriculum in this way also points towards an in¯ uential
approach to curriculum analysis which takes the view that knowledge and,
therefore, the school curriculum is social as its starting point. In a variety of
ways, curriculum arrangem ents are accounted for in term s of analyses of the
social. It is to this approach that I will now turn.

T he Social C onstruction of the C urriculum

The idea that the curriculum should be derived from and/or directed towards
social organisation takes a wide range of form s, m any of which are in opposition
to each other. One that has been especially com m on and in¯ uential in the
post-war period is the `technical± functionalist’ view that school knowledge
should be related to the developing needs of the econom y. This is not sim ply
vocationalism in the narrow sense, but rather involves com plex accounts of
social change under such headings as, `advanced industrial society’ , `post-
industrial society’ , `post-Fordist society’ , etc. As the frequent use of the term
`post’ suggests, these theories argue that society is undergoing som e really
radical change involving a break with the past, necessitating a m ajor revision of
school knowledge and the education system . M ost m ajor education reports
begin by describing a scenario of this type. Often such accounts are celebratory,
however, pessim istic (usually conservative) versions typically describe change in
term s of decline and urge a return to som e previous, putatively happier state
(`back to basics’ ). Yet others, which m ight be term ed `critical’ theories, describe
society in term s of power, inequality and oppression and advocate curriculum
change as a way of redressing these relations (anti-sexist approaches to the
curriculum , for instance). I will return to these approaches in m ore detail below.
20 R. M oore

This broad fam ily of perspectives shares the basic principle of explicating
the curriculum in term s of over-arching understandings of social order and
change. It can be contrasted with two alternative approaches that attem pt the
opposite: to de® ne the curriculum in opposition to the social.
The ® rst of these alternatives can be termed `positivist’ . This view (associ-
ated with logical positivist theories of knowledge and science) sees the social as
representing, actually or potentially, the distortion of knowledge through histori-
cally received m etaphysics or superstition, arbitrary traditional authority, bias
and sectional interest. K nowledge is secure only when founded upon what can
be em pirically dem onstrated to be in fa ct the case. Although this kind of
positivism ceased to have any serious standing in epistem ology and the philoso-
phy of science m any decades ago (it was dealt a fatal blow by K arl Popper in the
1930s), its spectre still haunts certain areas of contem porary thinking in the
hum anities and social sciences (see M oore & M uller, 1999).
The second alternative approach can be term ed `progressive’ Ð m ore exactly
a variety of progressivism m ore in¯ uenced by the Rom antic tradition than by
D ewey’ s Am erican pragm atism and it is, perhaps, peculiarly English. Essen-
tially, it adopts the kind of child-centred approach that sees education as a
`drawing-out’ rather than a putting-in of knowledge. Inspired by Rom antic ideas
of individual creativity, advocates of this approach declare that they treat each
child as a unique individual and reject virtually all categorising (e.g. as boy or
girl, black or white, working or m iddle class) as stereotyping. In the Rousseau-
nian tradition, `society’ is seen as som ething im posed from outside and as
corrupting the child’ s nature. Society’ s in¯ uence (through the fam ily, peer
pressure, popular culture, the m edia) m ust be held at bay in order for the `true’
or `authentic’ self to em erge. In this view, the desirable curriculum would be no
m ore than the particular way in which each individual child realises its true self
through its voyage of `discovery’ in the classroom or wider contexts of learning.
This Rom antic progressivism (reinforced by a distillation of Piagetian develop-
m ental psychology) signi® cantly inform ed the 1967 Plowden Report and the
tradition in English primary education to which it gave rise.
Whereas the positivists, essentially, want to get society out of knowledge,
the progressives, fundamentally, want to get society out of the child. They share
the view that `the social’ corrupts or distorts and they also seek to give a central
role to experience. For the positivists, knowledge is that which is true of everyone
on the basis of sensory experience when social distortions are rem ovedÐ true for
the self. For the progressives, knowledge, or at least authentic knowledge, is that
which is true for the particular individual when the distortions of the social are
rem ovedÐ true to the self. Both, in the last analysis, are form s of asocial
em piricism . The one absolutist, the other essentialist. Both are wrong. K nowl-
edge is intrinsically and inescapably social. But to recognise this fact is not to
pronounce any easy or sim ple answer to the problem of knowledge and its
relationship to the curriculum .
In addition to absolutism and essentialism , there is a third kind of error,
one particularly fashionable at the mom ent: reductionism and perspectivism . I will
 Reconstructing the Curriculum Debate 21

now turn to these issues in relation to the broad fam ily of perspectives that does
relate knowledge to society.

SOCIETY, RED UCTION ISM AN D THE PRO BLE M OF K NOW L EDG E

Those approaches that relate the curriculum to m odels of social order and
change rely in the ® rst place upon a description of society or som e key feature of
it. In som e cases, they are based in historical accounts of social change such as
the presum ed em ergence of `post-industrial’ or `post-m odern’ society. In other
cases they take a critical description of society as currently constituted as their
starting point. The exem plary case is that of M arxism , which describes society
as `capitalist’ and then goes on to analyse education in term s of its role in
reproducing capitalist class relations (Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Moore, 1988). In
a sim ilar fashion, fem inist accounts proceed from an analysis of society as
`patriarchal’ , while m ulticultural, anti-racist and post-colonial theories begin
with race relations and the legacy of im perialism . On this basis school knowl-
edge com es to be labelled as `bourgeois’ , `m ale’ or `androcentric’ , `white’ or
`E urocentric’ , etc. I shall begin, however, with a `liberal’ version of a reduction-
ist approach (technical± functionalist) that takes the `logic of industrialism ’ as its
starting point (G oldthorpe, 1996).

T he C urriculum and the Logic of Economic C hange

The opening paragraph of the N ew Labour governm ent’ s white paper, Learning
to Succeed: a new fram ework for post-16 learning (June 1999), announces at the
outset that:

The challenge we face to equip individuals, em ployers and the country

to m eet the dem ands of the 21st century is im m ense and im m ediate.
In the inform ation and knowledge-based econom y, investm ent in
hum an capitalÐ in the intellect and creativity of peopleÐ is replacing
past patterns of investm ent in plant, m achinery and physical labour.
To continue to com pete, we m ust equip ourselves for this new world
with new and better skills. W e m ust im prove levels of knowledge and
understanding and develop the adaptability to respond to change.

This echoes sim ilar proclam ations in earlier docum ents such as the N ewsom
and Plowden reports. In tone and substance this manner of announcing and
contextualising calls for educational change is continuous with approaches that
can be read back to the early 1950s and the in¯ uence at that tim e of `technical±
functionalist’ accounts of `advanced industrial society’ . I am not concerned here
with the accuracy of such accounts (though it is interesting to note that we seem
to have been in a perm anent state of radical transition for the last 50 years
(K umar, 1997)! Typically, established curriculum arrangem ents are presented
as de® cient on the basis of a contrast between how things were and how they will
22 R. M oore

be. For instance, Michael F.D. Young supports his m odel of the `curriculum of
the future’ , in this way:
Starting with the English and Welsh system of post-com pulsory edu-
cation and training has an advantage from the point of view of this
analysis as it can be seen as a `worst case’ . It is an exam ple of a highly
industrialised country which com bines low participation, deep social
class divisions and a curriculum that has changed little in half a century
or m ore. Paradoxically, it is the backwardness of the system in E ngland
and Wales that m ay provide us with insights that do not arise so
directly in the m ore advanced system s found in m any of the countries
elsewhere in Europe. (Young, 1998, p. 64)
The apparent backwardness of the English system has long been a cause of
com plaint from educational reform ers. Young’ s account is typical in drawing a
parallel between English class divisions, educational divisions (especially in the
organisation of knowledge) and economic inef® ciencies. In this respect, it can be
located within that broader set of positions som etim es referred to as `declinism’
(Edgerton, 1996; Beck, 1998). Essentially, the argum ent is that the English
educational tradition is exceptional in its narrowly academ ic form and the
priority it gives to the humanities over the sciences and technology and to
liberal± hum anist values (Mathieson & Bernbaum , 1991). As Young puts it, `the
system ¼ is characterised by a continuing cleavage between social classes, a
deeply divided system of quali® cations and a narrow and elitist academ ic
curriculum ’ (ibid., p. 65). D eclinists, such as Correlli Barnett (1986) see this
kind of com bination of factors as responsible for Britain’ s long-term , relative
econom ic decline. The liberal± hum anist academ ic curriculum is held to be
anti-m odern and anti-industrial. This argum ent calls for the m odernisation of
the curriculum by raising the status of science and technology and also by
vocationalising its content (as with GN VQs).
The `m odernisers’ , then, call for curriculum reform in order to: (i) address
problem s of social inequality and class division; (ii) im prove econom ic ef® ciency
and international com petitiveness, a them e very m uch to the fore in the 1999
W hite Paper (above). The issues here are extrem ely com plex and it is not m y
intention to review them in any detail (Collins, 1976; Robinson, 1997). Clearly,
the validity of such calls for curriculum change depend upon the veracity of the
social and economic analysis that provides the rationale for the educational
reform proposed. This has three aspects: ® rst, how accurately does the declinist
analysis describe the English education system ; secondly, how convincingly does
it describe the socio-econom ic situation; thirdly, how plausible is its account of
the causal links between the two? The following points can be m ade.
First, the declinist position im plicitly relies upon a `logic of norm al develop-
m ent’ from which Britain is held to have deviated (Ahier, 1996). This begs an
im portant question: maybe, as Hobsbawn long ago suggested, it is only to be
expected that a country the size of Britain, no longer a great im perial power,
should `decline’ in relative econom ic term s? In fact, it would be quite rem ark-
 Reconstructing the Curriculum Debate 23

able if the country that was the m ost econom ically advanced in the m iddle of the
nineteenth century was still so 150 years later! Is the phenomenon really
`decline’ and is it really a problem ?
Secondly, however accurate the declinist description of the conservative
character of English education, this has not prevented it from being am ongst the
m ost m eritocratic in the Western world; a point noted long ago by Ralph Turner
in his classic paper on `sponsored’ and `contest’ m obility (Turner, 1961) and
borne out by m ore recent com parative studies (M uÈ ller & K arle, 1996). Sim i-
larly, as critics of declinism such as Edgerton (op. cit.) point out, this cultural
conservatism has not prevented British higher education from being highly
innovative, especially in the sciences and technologyÐ precisely the areas where,
according to the declinists, it should be weakest. Indeed, if we take Cam bridge
U niversity as a case, it is exactly where it is most conservative that the `narrow
and elitist academ ic curriculum ’ of English liberal education has been m ost
innovative. This is not because the educational culture is conservative, but
because cultural features of this type do not have a major im pact upon educa-
tional outcom es. This was precisely Turner’ s point in his sem inal paper [1]:
education system s can vary profoundly in how they organise social m obility
through education, but this does not affect the am ount of m obility generated
which, in fact, is rem arkably sim ilar between advanced industrial societies
despite m ajor educational and cultural differences.
Thirdly, the kind of link between educational and econom ic perform ance
presum ed by the declinist type argum ent has never been substantiated
(Robinson, 1997). Education, obviously, is a signi® cant factor in econom ic
perform ance, but it is only one am ongst m any and does not have the centrality
that this argument implies. The kinds of things attributed to educational failures
by the declinists can often be better accounted for in other ways (Ahier, 1996).
The assum ptions of causality m ade by this econom istic argum ent lack plausibil-
ity because: (i) they have not been substantiated em pirically; (ii) because there
are m ore plausible ways of accounting for m any of the things they are concerned
with.
In summ ary, m oderniser/declinist m odels of curriculum reform begin by
describing a parallel between the organisation of school knowledge and the
social and econom ic order. This description is located within an historical
account of social and economic change. Educational organisation is seen as
backward and held accountable for a range of social and econom ic problem s.
Curriculum reform is required in order to m eet the needs of social and
econom ic change and to rem edy these inherited de® ciencies.
These accounts give disproportionate and inappropriate em phasis to the
role of the educational culture and the values represented by the curriculum . The
established curriculum is seen as anti-m odern and anti-industrial and as perpet-
uating outdated class attitudes. It is the culturalist dim ension of the argum ent
which is m ost suspect. There is little evidence that these things have a m ajor
im pact upon educational outcom es. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the
cultural aspects of education and the curriculum can vary signi® cantly between
24 R. M oore

countries and over tim e with little or no correlation with the m acrostructure of
educational and social outcom es or with relative national econom ic perform -
ance. In this, as in the next exam ple below, the centrality given to issues of
culture and identity resonates with the m anner in which curriculum debates
have taken place in the public sphere. But it m ay be that this em phasis is
m isplaced and som e alternative centre of gravity should be de® ned for curricu-
lum debates in the future?

T he C urriculum and the Logic of Inequality

The type of argum ent described above generally presents itself as ideologically
neutral. This was one of the early features of technical± functionalism at-
tacked by M arxist critics such as Bowles & Gintis (1976). The curriculum
m odel is derived from what is seen as the purely technical characteristics of
econom ic development; the `logic of industrialism ’ rather than `the logic of
capitalism ’ (G oldthorpe, 1996). I will now consider two other approaches that
derive their understandings of curriculum from broader analyses of society and
do take account of ideology: anti-sexist and m ulticultural (and anti-racist)
education.
Both positions begin with the proposition that knowledge is socially con-
structed and, therefore, em bodies those aspects of social order to do with the
relations of inequality between the sexes and ethnic groups. It is, therefore,
im portant to reveal/uncover these effects through curriculum analysis, to ident-
ify their role in reproducing relations of inequality and also to develop alterna-
tive form s of curriculum that m ay help redress the balance (W einer, 1994).
Although these approaches have been given a contem porary spin by post-struc-
turalist ideas about the `fractured self’ , they are essentially located within a
sym bolic± interactionist tradition of concerns with identity form ation, self-im age
and self-esteem (Jones & M oore, 1996; W ineburg, 1987). This tradition intro-
duces into curriculum analysis the additional dim ension of `the hidden curricu-
lum ’ and processes such as stereotyping and teacher expectation [2]. The
curriculum (and all other aspects of the educational process) is seen as repre-
senting as `norm al’ , with the hidden aim of reproducing, social relationships
which are in fact relationships of inequality and social oppression. W hereas the
m odernisers take the econom y as their focus, these approaches, respectively,
take patriarchy and racism as the m eans for decoding curriculum organisation,
and their chosen objectives for social change (in them selves m ore than reason-
able) provide the rationale for curriculum reform .
Initially, both approaches developed from attem pts to em ploy sym bolic±
interactionist theories of identity form ation as ways of explaining the educational
underachievem ent of blacks and girls. Yet, however accurate descriptions of the
curriculum m ight be in term s of m ale or white bias, they cannot be held to have
the effects traditionally attributed to them : it is girls and m any ethnic m inority
groups who now do best in education and white, especially working class, boys
who lag behind (Moore, 1996) [3]. This is not to suggest that because girls and
 Reconstructing the Curriculum Debate 25

blacks do well the curriculum cannot be sexist or racist, but that, to the degree
that it is, this does not prevent those groups, on the whole, succeeding in term s
of superior levels of attainm ent.
Taken together we have, here, a set of accounts that link the curriculum to
descriptions of the social system . They argue that English education and its
curriculum is:

· anti-m odern, anti-industrial and elitist, but nevertheless, the English

system is am ongst the m ost m eritocratic in the W est and a world leader
in scienti® c innovation, especially in its m ost traditional sectors; and
· institutionally biased against females and blacks, but nevertheless girls
and blacks in fact have levels of attainm ent superior to those of certain
categories of white boys.

As I have stressed, these counter-intuitive facts do not necessarily im ply

that the descriptions offered are necessarily wrong, but rather, that the kinds of
things the descriptions describe do not signi® cantly in¯ uence the kinds of
outcom es represented by the facts. Consequently, it m ight be necessary to
re-evaluate this approach to curriculum analysis and reform whether in its
`m oderniser’ , fem inist or m ulticulturalist form . However valuable culturalist
approaches m ight be in producing descriptions of the curriculum or justi® ed in
urging certain changes on principle, they do not actually explain very m uch [4].
In order to see why this is so and where else curriculum analysis can turn,
it m ust be noted that what all these approaches share in com m on (despite their
signi® cant ideological differences) is that their basic principle is reductionist.
They af® rm that knowledge is social, but then proceed as if it is nothing but
social, i.e. in their analyses of knowledge and the curriculum , there is only the
econom y, patriarchy, racism , etc. The one thing which does not ® gure in these
accounts is knowledge itself, i.e. knowledge understood as social but retaining an
epistem ological basis for the kinds of autonom y speci® c to it. Reductionism
begins with knowledge and reduces it to a social base where it is revealed as the
`standpoint’ of a particular social group representing its lim ited experience and
partial interests.

Standpoints, the C urriculum and `Naturalised’ E pistemology

So far, the curriculum has been discussed as `social’ in three im portantly distinct
senses.

[1] It is imm anently social in that learning is seen as a process that

transform s (or `cultivates’ ) the pupil in a particular, socially desirable
way.
[2] This process, however, will always be contentious in a com plex, liberal
society. Public debates around the curriculum (and its transform ative
aim s) tend to occur under conditions of educational and social change
and, therefore, to re¯ ect the wider tensions and con¯ icts of those
26 R. M oore

situations. In addition to the curriculum being im m anently social,

curriculum debates are, thus, socially contextualised.
[3] There is a wide range of approaches to the curriculum that take its
relationship to the social as their central point of departure. These are:
(a) approaches that de® ne school knowledge in opposition to the social:
positivist absolutism and progressive essentialism ;
(b) approaches that take the econom y as their focus and suggest that
the curriculum should be related to its needs as understood in term s of
a broader account of social change: m odernisers who look forward to a
break with the past (`post’ theories) and wish to change the curriculum
in response, and traditionalists who look back to a past `golden age’ and
see curriculum change as restoring that happier state;
(c) critical approaches that, in an oppositional m anner, relate the
curriculum to currently existing relations of dom ination and subordina-
tion: M arxist, fem inist and m ulticultural/anti-racist.

Of these, only positivisim , is properly speaking a theory of knowledge (i.e. an

epistem ology). Progressivism is a form of psychologism and the rest are form s
of sociological reductionism . These various reductionist accounts in effect
abolish knowledge as a category by denying it any intrinsic basis of autonom y.
They m ake all knowledge sym m etrical rather than seek for dem arcation criteria.
K nowledge is accounted for and directed towards things outside itself in society:
the econom y, social change, class, gender and race relations, etc. It is, as
Bernstein has observed, as if education is never anything m ore than a `relay’ for
other things (Bernstein, 1990). In som e cases (e.g. the m odernisers) this tends
to be a reductionism through neglect; they sim ply are not m uch concerned with
epistem ological issues. But for others, reductionism is developed as an explicit
theoretical principle; m ost notably, today, in `standpoint theory’ . Although
having its origins in M arxist debates, this position is now m ost strongly
associated with certain fem inists [5]. These reductionist accounts can be term ed
`externalist’ theories of the curriculum in that they begin and end outside
knowledge itself. The question now isÐ is there an `internalist’ approach that
can take knowledge as its starting point and provide an epistemological fram ework
or dim ension to curriculum debate? The reasons for posing this question have
to do, I will argue, with problem s within curriculum debate itself and to do with
reductionism .
The curriculum , as has been noted, has periodically becom e a topic of
heated public debate conducted in term s of the con¯ ict between `traditionalism’
and `progressivism ’ . These, in turn, are characteristically understood as `knowl-
edge-centred’ and `child-centred’ , respectively. They were especially prom inent
in organising the high pro® le education disputes of the 1980s leading to the
E ducation Reform Act of 1988 and the establishing of the National Curriculum .
It m ust be noted, however, that the Thatcherite neo-conservative defenders of
the knowledge-based curriculum did not defend it on epistem ological grounds.
Their concern, as m uch as the progressives, was with knowledge and social
 Reconstructing the Curriculum Debate 27

order. The `traditional’ , back to basics, curriculum represents and, they believe,
inculcates principles of order, discipline and respect for authority, i.e. reduction
to conservative social order. This `traditionalist’ versus `progressivist’ con¯ ict is
not about knowledge, but about how different organisations of knowledge can be
held to represent con¯ icting models of society.
The problem with reductionism , in this context, is that it effectively
presents curriculum issues as con¯ icts between social groups. Reductionism
traces knowledge back to group perspectives and interests and represents
knowledge relations as social relations, and knowledge issues as social issues
(dem ocratic m odernisers versus academ ic elitists, m iddle class versus working
class, m ale versus fem ale, white versus black). K nowledge ceases to be under-
stood as som ething in itself and is seen, instead, as representing the partial
standpoints and interests of groups. Reductionism politicises and ideologises
curriculum (and broader educational) debates through a series of default
settings that autom atically translate statem ents about knowledge into statem ents
about knowers (Beck, 1999; M oore & M uller, 1999; Maton, in press). The
question always becom es, not what has been said, but who would say this! The
discursive logic of reductionism in all its form s is, thus, a kind of sham ing by
nam ing. For the neo-conservative traditionalists, it is to point the ® nger at
progressives and pronounce, perm issive; and for progressives to counter with
reactionary; for fem inists to cry m ale; for m ulticulturalists to declare white; for
m odernisers to denounce the academ ic elitists! Identifying the standpoint of the
argum ent becom es the substitute for engaging with it.
These positions also tend to be linked with substantive claim s about the
effects of the curriculum that are at least contentious, if not highly dubious: the
econom ic consequences of liberalism ± hum anism , the effects on pupil attain-
m ent of sexist and racist bias, etc. This is true also for traditionalism and
progressivism . Although at one level they orchestrate the social dim ension of the
debate, they also refer back to schools them selves. The New Right critics of
progressivism in the 1980s were m aking substantive claim s about the extent and
effects of progressivism in the schools and the progressives them selves defended
their cause with equally concrete claim s. Yet educational research from the m id
1970s onwards has dem onstrated that these two term s have little or no value as
ways of describing actual schools and what goes on inside them . When re-
searchers such as Bennett (1976, 1989) and Galton (1980) set out to evaluate
the claim s m ade on behalf of these rival m odels, they found great dif® culty in
actually locating any schools or teachers who ® tted the descriptions! W hatever
the New Right claim ed about declining educational and social standards, it
could not actually have been the result of widespread progressivism , because
there was no such thing.
The suggestion that curriculum debate should look afresh at knowledge and
at speci® cally `internalist’ accounts of knowledge re¯ ects, then, the view that the
received context of debate and the m anner in which it has been conducted for
so long are deeply ¯ awed. This is so in three m ajor respects.
First, the widespread reductionism of approaches to standpoints and inter-
28 R. M oore

ests has tended to ideologise curriculum debates in ways that, to quote Neville
Bennett on traditionalism and progressivism , `generate m ore political heat than
pedagogic light’ (Bennett, 1989, p. 226).
Secondly, the em phasis upon the social consequences of curriculum organ-
isation is associated with substantive claim s that are at best only ever half truths
but have the effect of greatly exaggerating both what schools can do and what
they can be held accountable for. Schools and teachers have been over-
burdened with responsibility and blam e by largely unwarranted claim s about the
effects of the curriculum .
Thirdly, the traditional/progressive dichotom y that has fram ed and struc-
tured the debate for m uch of the post-war period has little real relationship to
what schools are actually like or how teachers in fact work.
I will now consider a fourth, `internalist’ , way in which the curriculum can
be considered as `social’ through an exam ination of the problem s of reduction-
ism . Against reductionism , knowledge is seen as having its own intrinsic
principles and an epistem ological basis of autonom y, but against positivism , this
is also understood as inescapably social in character.

T he `Naturalisation’ of Knowledge
In contrast to the in¯ uence of post-m odernist ideas in recent tim es, develop-
m ents in post-positivist philosophy of science appear to have attracted little
interest in education or in m uch of sociology. Although positivism no longer
occupies a signi® cant place in the philosophy of science, it survives as a spectre
haunting the humanities and social sciences. For num erous post-m odernists and
certain fem inists, the language of science, and reason m ore generally, is only
ever presented (and therefore m isrepresented) in positivist term s (see for exam -
ple Usher & Edwards, 1994; see M oore & M uller, 1999). Ward describes the
consequences of this as follows:

Standpoint epistem ologies replace scienti® c realism ’ s accent on the

objective, the universal and the foundational with an em phasis on the
perspective, the local and the contingent. For som e, such a m ove
allows for m arginalised voices and other silenced perspectives to be
raised to the epistem ic level (or above) of professional science. In all
the above approaches, science com es to be recognised as sim ply being
another perspective em ploying various rhetorical devices of conviction;
although certainly one backed by considerable power and
status ¼ gender class and race are seen as forever im posing an `ines-
capable lim itation’ on all thought. Here, the interpreter is seen as
always being em bedded within the culture, class, race and gender
system s of a given society. As a result, her or his knowledge products
invariably bear the m ark of that social perspective. (W ard, 1997,
p. 780)
 Reconstructing the Curriculum Debate 29

It is not the case that all of the reductionist tendencies that I outlined earlier
would want to be identi® ed with standpoint theory. As I suggested, som e, such
as varieties of technical± functionalism are m ore reductionist by neglect rather
than by epistemic intention. However, standpoint approaches can be seen as
raising the principles and im plications of reductionism to the level of a theory.
Strictly speaking, standpoint theory is not an epistem ology at all, but an
anti-epistem ology. W hereas traditionally epistem ology has sought to discover the
conditions for knowledge, standpoint theory says that there are no such condi-
tions: knowledge is no m ore than the perspectives of those occupying particular
standpoints and on this basis all are equal [6]. Against epistem ology’ s quest for
dem arcation criteria and an understanding of what it is for hum an beings to be
rational, standpoint theorists argue that the entire project was fundam entally
m isconceived from the outset. There never were and never can be anything
other than perspectives and a relativist `dem ocracy of representation’ (W ard,
1997, p. 777).
The varieties of epistem ological realism that prevail within the philosophy
of science today in the place of positivism , though drawing upon a long tradition
of K antian rationalism , have largely taken shape through the debates that
developed in response to Thom as K uhn’ s sem inal work The Structure of Scienti® c
Revolutions (K uhn, 1970) and Popper’ s earlier critique of positivism [7]. It is
im portant to note that the contrast between standpoint theory and realism is not
that the form er is `social’ and the latter is not. Realist theories of knowledge take
its intrinsically social character as their starting point, but draw radically
different conclusions from standpoint theorists and others within the post-
m odernist cam p. As Holm wood (1995, p. 423) observes, `Although m any
com m entators have seen a parallel between these developm ents in the philoso-
phy of science and criticism s of positivism in the social sciences, there is no
sim ple convergence between them’ . The differences are crucial and have
signi® cant im plications for approaches to school knowledge and the justi® cation
of curricular arrangem ents and, indeed, for our understanding of the role of
education in a liberal dem ocracy. The force of the attack upon knowledge-
centred approaches to the curriculum in the 1960s and 1970s signi® cantly
depended upon a strategy of associating them with positivistic and form alistic
versions of internalist epistem ology. In his recent retrospective comm ents on
this period, Young writes as follows:

By the end of the 1960s the approach to the philosophy of education

associated with Peters and Hirst had established a dom inant role in
education studies and in the curriculum of teacher education. It was to
have a profound in¯ uence on debates about the curriculum . Starting
from a view of knowledge which they traced back to K ant, they
criticised the new topic-based and integrated syllabi which they saw as
neglecting the fundam ental `form s of knowledge’ which everyone
needed to m ake sense of the world. It was not subjects, which Hirst
recognised were socially constructed ways that teachers organise
30 R. M oore

knowledge, but form s of understanding, which he claimed were not open

to debate or change. However, in the debates that followed, the
distinction between school subjects and form s of understanding easily
got lost and the philosophy of education becam e associated with
opposition to a socio-historical view of the curriculum and at that tim e
served to lim it m ore fundam ental debates. (Young, 1998, p. 12)
For im m ediate purposes, the signi® cant contrast is that between `socio-
historical’ approaches that see knowledge as socially constructed within particu-
lar historical circumstances and those which see it (or its fundam ental cate-
gories) as unchanging and outside history. As with the positivist (em piricist)
version, so the K antian (rationalist) approach is also seen as putting knowledge
outside society and history [8].
However, at that tim e the full force of the anti-positivist position within
epistem ology was yet to m ake itself felt. Although both post-m odernism and
realism m ight be seen as having a com m on point of departure in the critique of
positivism , the crucial difference is that within the philosophy of science,
post-positivist approaches have developed as `naturalised’ theories which bring
epistem ology and the sociology of knowledge together. These `naturalised’
epistem ologies renounce the aim of producing purely form al accounts of knowl-
edge detached from social and historical circum stances. They reject both
absolutism and relativism in favour of falliblism by developing socially located
accounts of knowledge which recognise that knowledge is provisional but also
that dem arcation criteria are possible whereby we can judge som e kinds of
accounts as qualitatively distinct from and better than others (though not
constituting absolute truths). In Holm wood’ s words:
There is no `® xed point’ to explanationÐ whether that be the stand-
point of a `single scienti® c m ethod’ , or, equally, the `standpoint of the
oppressed’ Ð but the conclusion does not need to be the relativistic
position that there are sim ply different points of view and no criteria
for distinguishing between them . Standards of evaluation m ay and,
indeed, do shift in the process of the developm ent of explanations
which transform theoretical objects and relations, but scienti® c judge-
m ents are `indeterm inate’ only in the sense that there is no one,
pre-given way forward, not in the sense that judgem ents of superior
adequacy cannot be m ade. Superior adequacy m ust be an issue of the
greater inclusiveness, or resourcefulness, of one theoretical schem e
over another. (H olm wood, 1995, p. 424)
The inherent problem s of standpoint approaches can be illustrated by consider-
ing em bedded contradictions at their very centre.

R elativism and the Problem s of Stand point T heory and Reductionism

Relativism is the consequence of reductionism in this form and is widespread
across a range of post-m odern approaches in the humanities and social sciences.
 Reconstructing the Curriculum Debate 31

Although there is an extensive literature rebutting relativism , there is also a basic

and succinct form ulation that reveals its fatal, internal contradiction: if it is true
that all truth is relative, then that particula r truth is not relativeÐ in which case
it is not true that all truth is relative. The truth that all truth is relative m ust itself
be non-relative in order to be true, in which case it isn’ t true because there is
at least one truth that is not relativeÐ its own! This is not sim ply a rather neat
philosophical knockdown argum ent. It glosses over a general problem with
relativism that m oves back into the m ore speci® c kinds of positions related to
standpoint theory and reductionism . The view that truth is relative is itself an
account or description of the world. It says: `this is how things are: truth is
relativeÐ we live in a world such as this’ . But, of course, it is precisely statem ents
of this type that the proposition is aim ing to outlaw. In effect, relativism covertly
exem pts itself from its own claim s (a) by having itself to be true non-relativisti-
cally and (b) by retaining for its own description of the world precisely the
veridical status it denies all others or, indeed, as being possible for any descrip-
tion (including, therefore, its own). Through these hidden, covert self-
exem ptions, relativism in fact im plicitly contains within itself exactly the kinds
of basic principles and procedures that it rejects.
All form s of reductionism com e up against this problem in one form or
another. For instance, fem inist attempts to show that school knowledge is `m ale’
im plicitly presuppose procedures that in them selves are gender neutral. It would
not be good enough to argue that from a fem inist standpoint this knowledge is
m ale, because it could equally be that from all other standpoints it is not. W ith
no independent basis for m aking judgements (no judgements of `superior
adequacy’ as Holm wood says above), whether or not knowledge is `m ale’
depends entirely upon one’ s standpoint and it is just as `true’ that the knowledge
is not m ale as that it is depending on where you stand. The problem for at least
som e (but by no m eans all [9]) fem inists is that in order to make their
argum ents that knowledge (or reason) is `m ale’ it has to be conceded that there
are truth-generating procedures (and the truths thus generated) that are not
gendered because they represent the `standpoint of knowledge’ itself rather than
m erely that of a particular group. M arxist theorists ran into precisely this
problem in the 1970s when trying to establish a uniquely privileged standpoint
for `the class theoretical position of the proletariat’ whilst m aintaining the claim
that M arxism is a science.
However, this could suggest a distinction between reductive kinds of
`knowledge’ that represent the standpoints of groups, and som e other `pure’
kinds of knowledge that are free of social contam ination. This (positivistic!)
distinction is as false as reductionism . Rather, the point is that all knowledge-
producing procedures are social and as such inevitably bear the traces of their
conditions of production. Hence, being in som e sense, form or degree `classed’ ,
`gendered’ or `raced’ , etc., does not, in itself, provide a basis for dem arcation
between form s of knowledge. If it is accepted that knowledge is social, then this
ceases to be a basis for epistem ological demarcation criteria. But the fact that all
knowledge is social does not m ean that all knowledge is epistem ologically equal.
32 R. M oore

The question is: are there fundam ental differences in the ways in which different
types of knowledge are social? The following points can be m ade here.
What follows from designating knowledge as social by identifying it with
particular groups, as does standpoint theory? As Harvey Siegel (1997) has
pointed out, to say that knowledge is `m ale’ (or whatever) does not m ean that
it is wrong. It would have to be dem onstrated that the `m aleness’ of the
knowledge has, in particula r cases, certain signi® cant epistem ological or social
consequences for this statem ent to be anything m ore than a trivial observation
(such as `this knowledge was produced at 12.34 pm on a Saturday in October’ ).
The `m aleness’ may be signi® cant, but it might not beÐ this would be contin-
gent upon other factors, the effects of which would have to established.
Assume that a fem ale, fem inist researcher did establish that, for a particular
case, `m aleness’ was signi® cant. Although, contingently, the facts that she is
fem ale and fem inist m ay well contribute to her being the one who cam e to
establish this fact, these things do not affect whether or not it actually is a fact.
In the sam e way, the `m aleness’ of m en does not m ake the truths of `m ale’
knowledge trueÐ sex is not a truth criterion. Although there m ay well be ways
in which knowledge might be seen as `m ale’ or `fem ale’ (because all knowledge
is social, all knowledge will bear traces of the social, including its gender
relations) this gendering m ay be m erely innocuous and, in any case, epistem o-
logically irrelevant to its truth status.
The basic problem is that reductionism has got it only half right. It is true
that knowledge is social and that all knowledge must contain the traces of its
conditions of production. But a crucial distinction m ust be m ade between the
production of knowledge and its emergent properties, i.e. knowledge is socially
produced, but at the sam e tim e has the capacity to transcend the social
conditions under which it is produced. Standpoint theory argues that alternative
views of the dom inant form of the social as given can only be generated by
alternative standpoints. The difference between standpoints is only one of relative
power. To substitute one standpoint for another is only to swap like for like by
changing the power relations between groups and, hence, between standpoints.
There is a fundam ental difference between this and arguing that alternative
views are generated by the transcendental capacity of knowledge. It is precisely
this em ergent or transcendental property of knowledge that continually reap-
pears as the hidden truth that reductionism and relativism attem pt to hide from
them selves.
The emergent property of knowledge is itself intrinsically socialÐ it is
som ething that people do in a particular, socially organised, way. It depends
upon a distinctive `con® guration’ (to use Ward’ s (1996, 1997) term ) of values,
principles and social procedures that becam e institutionalised and achieved
suf® cient autonom y from traditional sites of power (the state, religion) to
constitute itself as a culture and m odel of social organisation in its own right
(crucially, in the ancient universities of the W est in the early m odern period).
These properties form what W ard refers to as the `associational m echanism of
the com m unity of science’ : the `unique codes it uses to organise itself and the
 Reconstructing the Curriculum Debate 33

world’ (1997, p. 786). Reductionist accounts of knowledge m ay well enumerate

all the ways in which science is sym m etrical with other forms of knowledge, but
no am ount of thick description can override the `sim ple truth’ (L untley, 1995)
that in one crucial way it is not. It is here, in the relationship between the
`distinct epistemology of science’ and its `discrete social form or associational
code’ (W ard, op. cit., p. 787) that we ® nd the source of a new perspective upon
the curriculum, one that transcends the ideologically overburdened and substan-
tively attenuated dichotom ies of the traditional/progressive debate. Although its
paradigm form is science, it has im plications far beyond the com m unity of
science. Critical secular rationalism provides a code for the conduct of social life
in general as well as for the specialised practices of science and liberal scholar-
ship.

CON CL USIO N
M ichael Young has distinguished between the process whereby the growth of
knowledge has involved increasing specialisation and differentiation and that
whereby it has been associated with `differential social evaluation’ and
`strati® cation’ (Young, 1998, pp. 15± 16, m y em phasis). Reductionism con¯ ates
the two by reducing the form er to the latter. The organisation of knowledge (its
specialisation and differentiation) is no m ore than a re¯ ection of social differen-
tiation and strati® cation. The realist argum ent is that the growth of knowledge
has a logic of its ownÐ a logic that is also social in character. Young believes that
there is no `necessary relationship between the two processes. It is possible that
greater differentiation could be associated with reduced strati® cation in a society
where the fragm enting tendencies of differentiation are balanced by the integra-
tive trend of less strati® cation’ (loc. cit.). In order for this aim to be realised it
is as im portant that we develop non-reductive understandings of the social logic
of knowledge as that we explore the logic of social differentiation. As Ward’ s
argum ent im plies, it is within the associational codes of critical rationalism that
we discover the historical paradigm of non-arbitrary social order and where the
power is lodged to challenge unreasonable, unjust and m endacious im positions
of social power. Progressivism delivered knowledge into the hands of `tradition’ .
Historically, in the W est, it was precisely the authority of tradition that critical
rationalism challenged. By developing approaches to the curriculum inform ed
by realist understandings of knowledge, it m ight be rescued for the project of
em ancipation. The curriculum of the future should be the curriculum of
knowledge.
Correspondence: Rob Moore, Hom erton College, Hills Road, Cam bridge
CB2 2PH, U K . E m ail: rob.m oore@ cwcom .net

NOTE S
[1] In fact Turner pointed out that evidence suggested that the English `sponsored’ system was
m ore meritocratic than the American `contest’ type; a point that for most comm entators was
com pletely counter-intuitive.
34 R. M oore

[2] This approach, has shown a rem arkable capacity to survive in educational thought despite a
considerable history of critical problem s illustrated by the myth of `teacher expectation’
associated with Rosenthal & Jacobson’ s P ygm alion in the C lassroom (1968) (W ineburg, 1987).
[3] The situation of girls is well docum ented. The situation for blacks is more com plex and is
effectively sum marised in the Com m ission for Racial Equality’ s factsheet, Education and
Training in Britain (Comm ission for Racial Equality, 1998). It is important to stress that
although black pupils excel in achievement they are also dram atically over-represented at the
de® cit end of the educational spectrum, especially boys and exclusion.
[4] This is not an argument against either anti-sexist or m ulticultural education in principle, both
of which can be perfectly properly and powerfully supported for reasons quite distinct from
these particular sociological kinds of causal issues.
[5] Ironically, standpoint theory has its origins in concerns (and the severe theoretical problem )
that the working class had not adopted the appropriate `standpoint of the oppressed’ and that
those who had were not, in the m ain, working class, but m iddle class intellectuals, like Marx
himself!
[6] Or, in a self-contradictory manoeuvre, the standpoints of the `oppressed’ are privileged as
m ore authentic and, in that sense, m ore valid.
[7] See, for instance, the following for reviews of the developm ent of post-positivist theories of
science and knowledge, `naturalised’ epistem ology and realism : Harre & Krausz (1996), from
within the philosophy of science; Fay (1996), from within social theory; Collier (1994) for an
extremely accessible introduction to the `critical realism’ of Roy Bhaskar; Papineau (1996) for
a useful collection; W ard (1996) for a lucid and original contribution from the sociology of
science. M ost of these also provide critiques of post-m odernism and standpoint theory along
the lines of that sketched in this paper, but, in particular, see Luntley (1995).
[8] This problem in Kant was, of course, fam ously addressed by Durkheim. W ard (1996)
provides a good introduction to Durkheim’ s fundam ental contribution and Schmaus (1994)
provides a highly scholarly study that is relevant to m any of the fundam ental issues in this
paper.
[9] See, for instance, Karen Green’ s The W om an of Reason for a substantial treatm ent of these
issues (G reen, 1995).

REFERENCE S
A H IE R , J. (1996) Explaining econom ic decline and teaching children about industry: som e
unintended continuities?, in: J. A H IE R , B. C O SIN & M. H ALES (Eds) D iversity and C hange:
education, policy and selectio n (London, Routledge).
A RN O T , M., D AVID , M. & W E IN ER , G . (1999) C losing the Gender Gap: post-war education and social
change (Cambridge, Polity Press).
B ARN ETT , C. (1986) The Audit of W ar: the illusion and reality of Britain as a great nation (London,
MacM illan).
B ECK , J. (1998) M orality and C itizenship in Education (London, Cassell).
B ECK , J. (1999) Makeover or takeover? The strange death of educational autonom y in neo-liberal
England, British Journal of Sociology of Education , 20, pp. 223± 238.
B EN N ETT , N. (1976) Teaching Styles and P upil P rogress (London, Open Books).
B EN N ETT , N. (1989) Changing perspectives on teaching± learning processes in the post-Plowden
era, in: P. M U RPHY & B. M O O N (Eds) Developm ents in Learning and Assessm ent (London,
Hodder & Stoughton).
B ER NSTEIN , B. (1990) The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse: class, codes and control , Vol. 4
(London, Routledge).
B O W LES , S. & G IN TIS , H. (1976) Schooling in C apitalist Am erica (London, Routledge).
C OL LIE R , A (1994) C ritical Realism : an introdu ction to Roy Bhaskar’ s philosophy (London, Verso).
 Reconstructing the Curriculum Debate 35

C OL LIN S , R. (1976) Functional and con¯ ict theories of educational strati® cation, in: J. K ARABE L
& A.H. H ALSEY (Eds) Power and Ideology in E ducation (New York, NY, Oxford University
Press).
C OMM ISSION FOR R ACIAL E Q UAL ITY (1998) E ducation and Training in Britain , CRE Factsheets
(London, CRE).
E D GE RTO N , D. (1996) Science, Technology and the British Industrial `Decline’ 1870± 1970 (Cam -
bridge, Cam bridge University Press).
F AY , B. (1996) C ontem porary P hilosophy of Social Science (Oxford, Blackwell).
G ALTO N , M. (1980) Inside the P rim ary C lassroom (London, Routledge).
G O LD THORPE , J. (1996) Class analysis and the reorientation of class theory: the persistence of
class differentials in educational attainment, British Journal of Sociology , 49, pp. 481± 505.
G REE N , K (1995) The W om an of Reason (Cam bridge, Polity Press).
H ARRE , R. & K R AUSZ , M. (1996) Varieties of Relativism (Oxford, Blackwell).
H O LM W O OD , J. (1995) Feminism and epistem ology, Sociology , 29, pp. 411± 428.
JO N ES , L. & M OORE , R. (1996) Equal opportunities, the curriculum and the subject, in: J. A HIER ,
B. C OSIN & M. H ALES (Eds) Diversity and C hange: education, policy and selection (London,
Routledge).
K UH N , T. (1970) The Structur e of Scienti® c Revolution s (Chicago, IL, U niversity of Chicago Press).
K UM A R , K. (1997) The post-m odern condition, in: A.H. H AL SEY , H. L AUD ER , P. B RO W N & A.S.
W E LLS (Eds) E ducation, C ulture, E conom y, Society (Oxford, Oxford U niversity Press).
L U NTL EY , M. (1995) Reason, Truth and Self: the postm odern recondi tioned (London, Routledge).
M ATH IESO N , M . & B E RNB AUM , G . (1991) The British disease: a British tradition?, in: R. M O OR E
& J. O ZG E (Eds) C urriculum Policy (Oxford, Pergam on/OU ).
M ATO N , K . (in press) Languages of legitimation: the structuring signi® cance for intellectual ® elds
of strategic knowledge claim s, British Journal of Sociology of E ducation , 21.
M OORE , R. (1988) The correspondence principle and the M arxist sociology of education, in: M .
C O LE (Ed.) Bow les and Gintis Revisited : correspondenc e and contradiction in educational theory
(Lewes, Falm er Press).
M OORE , R. (1996) Back to the future: the problem of change and the possibilities of advance in
the sociology of education, British Journal of Sociology of Education , 17, pp. 145± 162.
M OORE , R. & H ICKO X , M . (1999) Vocationalism and educational change, in: M . F LU DE & S.
S IEM INSK I (Eds) E ducation, Training and the Future of W ork , Vol. 2: Developm ents in vocational
education and training (London, Routledge/OU ).
M OORE , R. & M U LLER , J. (1999) The discourse of `voice’ and the problem of knowledge and
identity in the sociology of education, British Journal of Sociology of Education , 20, pp. 190±
206.
M UÈ L LER , W . & K AR LE , W. (1996) Social selection in educational systems in Europe, in: J. A HIER ,
B. C OSIN & M. H ALES (Eds) Diversity and C hange: education, policy and selection (London,
Routledge).
P APIN EAU , D. (Ed.) (1996) The P hilosophy of Science (Oxford, Oxford U niversity Press).
R O BINSON , P. (1997) L iteracy, N um eracy and E conom ic Perform ance (London, London School of
Econom ics).
S CH M AU S , W. (1994) Durkheim ’ s P hilosophy of Science and the Sociology of K nowledge (Chicago, IL,
U niversity of C hicago Press).
S IEG EL , H. (1997) Rationality Redeem ed? (London, Routledge).
T U RN ER , R. (1961) Modes of ascent through education: sponsored and contest mobility, in: A.H.
H ALSEY , J. F LO U D & C.A. A ND ERSO N (Eds) E ducation, Econo m y and Society (London,
Collier-MacMillan).
U SHER , R. & E D W ARD S , R. (1994) Postm odernism and Education (London, Routledge).
W ARD . S. (1996) Recon ® guring Truth: Postm odernism , Science Studies, and the Search for a New
M odel of K nowledge (Lanham , M D, Rowm an and Little® eld).
W ARD , S. (1997) Being objective about objectivity: the ironies of standpoint epistem ological
critiques of science, Sociology , 31, pp. 773± 791.
36 R. M oore

W EINER , G . (1994) Fem inism s in Education: an introduction (Buckingham, Open U niversity Press).
W IN EBU RG , A. (1987) The self-ful® lment of the self-ful® lling prophecy, E ducational Researcher , 16,
pp. 28± 37.
Y O U NG , M.F.D. (1998) The C urriculum of the Future: from the new sociology of education to a critical
theory of learning (London, Falm er Press).