Curriculum design and transformation*

Print Moreno Juan

After Miss Emily Sedley's six years' stay at the boarding house, I have the honor and pleasure of recommending her to her parents as a young lady well worthy of taking a proper position in their chosen and refined circle. All the virtues that distinguish a noble English young lady... are inherent in dear Miss Sedley... In music and dancing, in spelling, in all types of embroidery and needlework, she will, without a doubt, fulfill the most ardent wishes of her friends. In geography, its success leaves much to be desired; in addition, it is recommended for the next three years to strictly use the dorsal ruler for four hours a day as a means of acquiring that dignified posture and grace that is so necessary for every young society girl. In relation to the rules of piety and morality, Miss Sedley will show herself worthy... (W. Thackeray. Vanity Fair (1848). Chapter I. Translated by M. Dyakonov).

Introduction

The school curriculum is a socio-historical construct, reflected in general ideas about what knowledge is and what the hierarchy of knowledge is; these systemic ideas, in turn, are reflected directly or indirectly in legal and administrative regulations, in standards for assessing knowledge and skills that the school provides, in textbooks and manuals, as well as in teaching and learning practices. According to Goodson (2000), the result of an analytical study of such a program should be an understanding of the processes of canonization of certain forms of knowledge and their integration into a system used by political power. This work is devoted to describing two main driving forces that influence the development and improvement of the school curriculum, shaping it as a social institution. These forces operate on the change/control axis, on the one hand, and on the consensus/conflict axis, on the other. Specific elements of program design are considered to better understand the action of both forces. Next, four possible scenarios for the evolution of school curricula are highlighted that can be used to analyze current global trends in reforming school education. The constructed analytical paradigm is illustrated by a description of specific areas of transformation of modern curricula and examples from the practical experience of countries belonging to different regions of the world.

The influence of the change/control factor on the transformation of the curriculum

The force acting on the change/control axis largely determines the decisions of curriculum designers, acting as a kind of engine of change. Many authors who have studied innovations in education and reforming the school system have, in one way or another, used a comprehensive explanatory model that takes this factor into account. Rodríguez Romero (2001), who reviewed the literature on the issue, formulated the general findings in terms of “stability/change.” Quoting Popkewitz, he argues that “the analysis of stability is usually neglected in studies of educational change” (Popkewitz 1983: 175). However, regardless of the context and strategic goals, analysis of the practical implementation of reforms and, more specifically, all the circumstances influencing their implementation, has for many decades provided us with information about the individual and institutional features of reforms, as well as about the conditions in which this stability is manifested and affirmed.

In my comparative study of GCSEs, I suggested that what really drives curriculum transformation is change and control rather than stability and control (Moreno 1992). The best illustration of this is state examinations: in many countries, “external” examinations are used as a tool that can change the school curriculum in a desirable direction, offering a whole system of incentives for students, parents, teachers and local education authorities. The relationship between external control and changes in the school curriculum is deeply dialectical in nature, allowing us to better understand and explain the issues that interest us. This view of the evolution of the program not only allows us to describe this phenomenon itself, the processes and tools of change and control, but also opens up opportunities for the analysis of more complex issues related to the control of change and, naturally, with the mechanisms of change in the control system.

Using the state exam as a tool, the Ministry of Education can direct the improvement of the school curriculum in the right direction - for example, give it a universal or, on the contrary, specialized character, professional or, on the contrary, academic orientation, introduce more or less stringent performance criteria, shift the emphasis to certain areas of knowledge, skills and abilities. Such an examination can simultaneously serve the functions of updating and reproducing, changing the program and monitoring its implementation (Eckstein and Noah 1993). In other words, the content of state examinations is an extremely convenient subject for political use, both in terms of political debate - or "policy talk" (Tyack and Cuban 1995), and from the point of view of practical management, which makes it possible to control and change the content of the school curriculum. all levels of decision making.

As for external examinations as a tool for program change, they can be very effectively used to legitimize and strengthen the position of new academic subjects and areas of knowledge, increasing their market value and at the same time usually (though not always) devaluing other disciplines. Of course, examinations in this case reflect broader and more significant socio-cultural, economic and political trends, but there can be little doubt that the visible presence of a particular subject in the GCSE syllabus reinforces the social status of that area of ​​knowledge. And this directly or indirectly affects the status of the corresponding professional communities. That is why the struggle to gain a privileged position for a subject in the school curriculum (and to maintain it in the future) takes place mainly in the framework of state public examinations, which students must pass at crucial moments in their school life. Thus, in many educational systems, the increase in the number and diversification of examinations - measures aimed at including new areas of knowledge in the upper secondary school curriculum - have played a key role in the development of these disciplines, their approval and recognition in both secondary and higher education.

In addition, evolution in the content and format of examinations may lead to changes in pedagogical methods and strategies. Thus, teachers usually resort to certain programs and pedagogical techniques depending on what kind of state exam their students will have to take - a standardized test offering multiple choice, an essay, an oral exam, or a practical test. In all these cases, teachers and school authorities appropriately formulate and modify the content of the curriculum, develop practical exercises and use those educational materials that can ensure successful passing of examinations. In other words, the school curriculum under these conditions can be determined not so much by recommended textbooks and other aids, but by the influence of external tests and exams. “Preparing for exams” is a formula that can briefly describe what happens in primary and secondary schools, especially immediately before external tests or exams conducted by a higher authority. The observed trend towards an increase in the number of essays and an increase in their diagnostic potential is obviously related to the tightening of reporting requirements for schools and teachers, but it also seems to have a serious impact on the appearance of the school curriculum.

The role of curricula in setting the educational “agenda”

The function of monitoring curricula is implemented in a parallel and additional manner in relation to the function of changing them. Perhaps the best illustration of this circumstance is the close connection between the content and results of exams, on the one hand, and public assessment of the level of school education in the country, on the other. Increasing public and media attention to examination and test results and their political use - especially in international comparative studies of school quality - has a significant impact not only on debates about vocational and university education, but also on general policy debates. Thus, the content, format and specific structure of tests and exams have a decisive impact on the creation and improvement of educational programs in their traditional sense. As a consequence, both teachers and students are forced to adapt their choice of curriculum subjects to the nature and specific methods of reward embedded in tests and examinations (which, generally speaking, blocks potential initiatives aimed at changing the curriculum). Schools and local education authorities, although they have some autonomy in educational matters, have to carefully weigh the options available to them. Even publishers that produce educational literature are guided when creating their product by external exams and tests - their format, content and priorities in the selection of skills to be tested. In addition, tests and examinations, as mechanisms for assessing the quality of education, perform a control function, ensuring that all schools under the authority of a given administration operate according to unified and consistently structured curricula.

In relation to the change/control axis, the school curriculum appears to be consistent with agenda-setting theory. This theory was proposed by McCombs and Shaw (1972) in relation to the media. According to its authors, the media determine our perception of the world by limiting the subject field of our thoughts: they do not so much force us to think something specific as they decide for us what we should think about in general. As a consequence, this theory argues, people exposed to the same media consider the same issues to be important, i.e., their “agens” are the same, no matter how sharply their personal opinions on each of these differ. problems. Translating this theory into our area of ​​interest, we can argue that the curriculum sets the “agenda” for students, teachers, parents, school administrators and other participants in the educational process. Although the specific content and dominant teaching practices in different areas of the program may vary significantly, by its general framework parameters the program dictates to everyone what to think about and what importance to attach to this or that issue. Interest groups united around a particular academic discipline are based on the fact that schoolchildren studying in the same programs will have the same idea about the value of each area of ​​​​knowledge and the hierarchy of these areas.

This brings us to the second, additional factor determining the design and transformation of school programs.

The influence of the conflict/consensus factor on the transformation of the curriculum

In the curriculum one can see a platform for public interaction, a permanent public, political and even election arena. Its transformation reflects the process of professional debate between teachers, their representatives and school administrators, as well as debates between various interested public institutions at the local, regional and national levels. Being an arena of ideological clashes and political struggle, the school curriculum reflects ideological, religious, professional, economic, corporate and purely educational interests.

In many countries, the issue of school curriculum figures prominently in political debates and even in election campaigns. It inevitably gives rise to ideological clashes, conflicts of interest and complex consensus-building processes. Nowadays, education is perceived by society and politicians as a strategic sector of the economy, and this helps to understand why politicians associate success in education not only with the country’s competitiveness in the global economic market, but even with the interests of national defense. From this point of view, the slogans and labels they use only politicize topics that are constantly discussed in discussions about education, translating them into the language of the media. If we collect all such stereotypes of election campaigns related to education, we will get a kind of “fund” of standard arguments. Some of them are deeply rooted in society and culture, others are just a product of “political chatter” that parasitizes the discussion of the school curriculum and related practices.

It is worth mentioning, for example, one of the most frequent and enduring discourses related to the field of education. Emerging simultaneously (and even earlier) with the emergence of the state school system, this discourse is a set of complaints and claims caused by the “declining level” of school education and the knowledge that school provides. This decline is explained by the wrong government policies and one or another of its measures, and sometimes they see it as a symptom of the general decline and degradation of education, calling for a “return to the roots.” When skillfully manipulated, this discourse can have a huge impact on public opinion, sometimes creating a feeling of an acute threat to national security. Perhaps the clearest example is the United States, where education reform has been touted—at least since the late 1950s Sputnik shock—as a key element of national security. (The National Defense Education Act adopted at that time has now become legendary). More recently, the media and individual politicians have similarly used the results of research conducted by PlSA, the Program for International Student Assessment; this applies primarily to Germany, Chile and Spain.

Fighting for a place in the curriculum

The consensus/conflict factor, like the change/control factor, helps to understand how curricula are created and evolve. Considering this process as a continuous series of conflicts, clashes and increasing tensions, accompanied by an equally continuous search for the necessary, albeit temporary, agreement, we obtain a tool for analyzing the problem not only at the macro-, but also, above all, at the micropolitical level - i.e. e. analysis of the life of a specific school, teachers or classes (where the program is implemented). The school curriculum, viewed from this angle, is a discussion space in which stakeholders each time try to develop an agreed solution suitable for a given specific situation. Thus, the design and transformation of the school curriculum appears as a cyclical, evolutionary and highly situational process: after all, the task of its compilers is to continuously improve, for each specific school, a program based on comprehensive curricula. Moreover, this process - discussion and the search for agreement as its possible result - always requires the adoption of practical decisions. Senge (1994) distinguishes two types of consensus: leveling consensus, when a minimum common denominator is sought for many individual points of view, and forward-looking consensus, which goes beyond private views. In other words, consensus may imply a conservative search for a minimum common denominator or, conversely, the willingness of those who make school curriculum decisions to assume more binding moral responsibility. It is this second type of consensus that is postulated as the goal of conscious or, as Habermas calls it, “communicative rationalism.”

However, leaving aside the types of consensus that relate mainly to the current curriculum, we should note that the driving force of “consensus/conflict” manifests itself primarily in the struggle for the place of discipline in the curriculum, since it is this that underlies political debates and defines confrontation at different levels of social life. In modern society, social groups and individual citizens, wanting to prove that some area of ​​knowledge or useful skill is of exceptional importance and should be of paramount importance, most often resort to the following argument: “this should be taught in school.” Or, translated into professional academic language: this discipline should be included in the school curriculum, since all citizens should be involved in it. In the media, reports of non-governmental organizations and speeches of politicians, we constantly come across statements that schools need to teach the history of cinema or, say, chess, or how to protect themselves from HIV and AIDS. Schools are also advised to spend time - and therefore money - on promoting the fight against smoking and alcoholism, and teaching children how to behave in the event of a natural disaster. Schoolchildren need to be taught how to use the Internet; Every class should have practical lessons in poetry; The program should include compulsory teaching of at least two foreign languages ​​to children, and should begin at an early age if possible. And the compilers of the school curriculum should not forget about the most important democratic values, the study of which must be incorporated in one way or another into each subject and into the cross-cutting themes of the school course. The list of these values ​​includes: gender equality, environmental protection, civic ethics, consumer culture and even the ability to drive a car. Schools cannot remain aloof from discussions of racism and xenophobia, and therefore it is necessary to increase the number of teaching hours devoted to ethnic minorities, minor languages ​​and cultures. In the classroom, the child must learn to think, but at the same time gain practical skills that are not related to cognitive procedures; It is also clear that a school that wants to maintain its attractiveness for students and their parents must adapt its program to the needs of the modern labor market - hence the need to emphasize the applied aspect of all, even the most academic subjects. It is clear that the list of such wishes can be extended to a good ten pages!

The problem, however, is not even the continuous increase in the number of requirements for the school curriculum, but that these requirements are usually formulated in a very radical way: we are talking not just about the place for an academic discipline in the program, but about the fact that new knowledge or skill should become mandatory for all students, that is, all citizens without exception should be included in it. The more important a certain area is declared, the greater the role it should play in the program, the more time should be allocated to it. To cite a well-known historical anecdote: in the 19th century, an American governor strongly urged his state legislature to introduce the criminal code as a compulsory teaching tool in all high schools (Tanner and Tanner 1980: 218).

Various social groups, promoting new subjects, skills and areas of knowledge, put pressure on the school curriculum. These new participants in the educational process demand training hours, human and material resources and, ultimately, greater social recognition and economic reward. However, the school curriculum is not unlimited - on the contrary, in many countries it is increasingly being cut back by financial restrictions. As a result, a fierce struggle breaks out between all these competitors and pressure groups, expressing the clash of a variety of interests, primarily professional and corporate. Let's look at a few of the most significant examples. Behind the demand to introduce one or another cross-cutting, interdisciplinary topic into the school curriculum, one finds, first of all, relevant specialists who consider their field of knowledge to be more in demand and, therefore, more valuable. Philologists and teachers of foreign languages, especially those that are less common, are behind the demand to increase the number of compulsory and elective foreign languages. It is also quite clear who is interested in the dissemination of information and communication technologies - both as a subject and as a way of teaching. In short, one who has won a strong place for his discipline in the school curriculum almost automatically occupies a favorable position in the system of socio-economic rewards and, as a consequence, in the labor market and in the hierarchy of professions.

Moreover, in all the examples given, completely different, political interests are also visible. It is known that the social and financial components of HIV and AIDS education programs are large in African secondary schools (World Bank 2005a). The growth of knowledge of foreign languages ​​in a country is now considered one of the most accurate indicators of national competitiveness and, in particular, the capabilities of its market and tourism potential. The rate of penetration and, more importantly, effective use of computers in secondary schools is almost exactly the same as national competitiveness. No one will be surprised if a quantitative method is proposed to evaluate the direct and indirect benefits (including budget savings) that come from introducing chess into the school curriculum—say, reducing impulsivity and increasing judgment in students who play this game.

On the contrary, if a decision is made to remove classical languages ​​from the compulsory subjects of the program - or to abandon them altogether - the interests of teachers of Latin and Greek are seriously affected. Their profession is falling in value, and their opportunities to find work are narrowing. If the subject receives a strong place in the program, then conditions are created to attract the most capable students, and thereby the corresponding professions in the labor market maintain or increase their status. The formation and improvement in students of what Bernstein called “commitment to the subject” (Bernstein 1977) - that is, to use a less literary and less precise expression, their specialization - turns out to be one of the most significant and interesting correlates of the influence of the factor " conflict/consensus" on the school curriculum. It is in this context that research on school discipline formation should be placed (Goodson 1985; 1987b).

Schooling as a way to construct personal and collective identity

Considering school education systems in the “conflict/consensus” coordinates, it can be stated that they are faced with new problems arising from globalization and related to the role of educational institutions in constructing personal and collective identity in a multinational and multicultural society that strives to remain democratic. Never before in the history of schooling has the dialectical balance of consensus and conflict been so threatened—both in strategic decision-making and in the daily life of the school. Moreover, this applies not only to the curriculum, the consideration of which we have so far limited ourselves to.

Against the backdrop of national identities being erased in the process of globalization, paradoxically, many local identities are emerging, rooted in religion, language and ethnic characteristics. In other words, the more globalization asserts itself, the more actively local identities are formed, as if counteracting the logic of unification. Reacting to the identity crisis generated by globalization, many modern education systems seek to emphasize the role of local cultures and thereby compensate for the erasure of national identity. Local and regional administrations, taking advantage of the freedom granted to them by educational reforms based on the principle of decentralization, are actively introducing into the school curriculum the study of topics related to local traditions and even new subjects based on local cultural characteristics. The contradiction is that often these attempts to revive traditions and resurrect areas of knowledge associated with local cultural heritage indirectly only strengthen the academic aspect of the most traditional school subjects. Globalization leads to a paradoxical result: in many countries, schools are forced to take a defensive position, withdrawing into themselves and relying on narrow local values.

Globalization has undoubtedly changed the conditions for the formation of individual and collective identity. Those who find themselves lagging behind in the global market seek their identity in a variety of ways. One of the possibilities for self-identification for someone who does not know how - or does not want - to succeed in this market is religious fundamentalism. It is, paradoxically, also a phenomenon of globalization, since it offers a cultural identity that goes beyond individual national projects. And cultural identity - religious, ethnic, gender, local, national or global - is a means of protection from the incomprehensible and cruel global market, that supreme judge that imposes on the individual a final assessment of his worth. If school education—which is becoming increasingly democratic and widespread throughout the world—acts as an instrument of the global market and takes on the role of the first assessment of a person’s achievements and knowledge, then it is not surprising that “low students” are turning to the design and design of their identity through one of the above-mentioned “antidotes,” thereby rejecting the school as a source of collective identity. It is no coincidence that the confrontation between religious fundamentalists and the secular state largely takes place in the sphere of education.

And yet, for those who find themselves on the periphery of the global economy, school is not only an arena of struggle to define the content of the concept of “culture,” but also one of the most important ways to obtain the necessary knowledge and key skills. Minorities of all kinds face a dilemma: they need to be recognized for their distinctiveness, as an “other”, but at the same time not allow such recognition to become an obstacle to a global identity, which implies the possession of knowledge and skills that have a high value in world economy. The tragic paradox is that the dominant meritocratic ideology, based on free market ethics, takes a huge toll on minorities and other disadvantaged people. However, education offers them perhaps the only reliable way to integrate into modern life and move up the social ladder.

Scenarios for the possible evolution of the school curriculum

The above consideration of the factors “change/control” and “consensus/conflict” allows us to propose a new structure that will help analyze the processes of designing and modifying the school curriculum. This structure can be depicted very schematically as follows:

Although this model needs fine-tuning to present a clear and differentiated picture - both for the macro level at which school programs are created and for the micro level at which they operate in reality - four different scenarios for the possible evolution of programs can be tentatively identified. These scenarios are characterized by the following combinations of parameters we have identified: I) change/consensus; 2) change/conflict; 3) control/consensus; 4) control/conflict.

"change/consensus" scenarios

The best example here is the “big bang” in education - the large-scale educational reform that unfolded in the 1960s and 70s in different countries around the world. fall into this category The legendary campaigns to combat illiteracy in some developing countries, in particular Nicaragua and South Africa, . Scenarios of this type usually arise against the backdrop of school curriculum reform initiatives that accompany the process of forming and clarifying a new national identity in a particular country or ethnic community. In our time, the most clear illustration of such scenarios are projects to revive the national educational system in countries that have experienced complex and protracted conflicts - Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Cambodia (World Bank 2005b).

However, these scenarios also fit into the well-known comparative doctrine, according to which there are global patterns of institutionalization in the field of education, implying increasing convergence and unification of school curricula (Boli, Ramirez and Meyer 1985; Meyer and Ramirez 2000). It is quite remarkable that our knowledge society—or, in Gidzens's phrase, late modern society—has generated such a broad consensus regarding a certain set of skills that in the 21st century are considered absolutely necessary for the socialization of the individual and the competitiveness of the nation. Around the world, government reports and official documents emphasize the need to introduce programs in secondary education that would instill in students the skills of problem solving, teamwork, peaceful conflict resolution, ability to deal with complex and controversial circumstances, flexibility, lifelong learning, etc. . (See table below for a summary of the Definition and Selection of Competencies Project, DeSeCo). Although consensus appears to have been reached regarding the range of skills needed, questions regarding the correct balance of academic disciplines and pedagogical methods remain deeply controversial. In other words, the problem of such a modification of the traditional school curriculum that would ensure the development of key skills has still not been solved. Of course, such skills top the list of priorities (recall the previously discussed function of the curriculum as a way of defining a system of priorities), but the education system, especially at the secondary school level, is still far from being able to build an appropriate practical program.

Another global trend characteristic of this type of scenario is the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT) into school education. Almost all countries in different regions of the globe are investing heavily in ICT, with the ambitious goal of connecting every school to the Internet and providing primary and secondary schools with a sufficient number of computers (per student). However, the results of these huge investments, even in developed countries, seem to be disappointing or, as Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development reports put it, “dissatisfaction” (OECD 2004). An apparent paradox: skepticism about the positive impact of ICT on the quality of education is growing, yet governments in both developed and developing countries continue to increase spending (World Bank 2005c). The issue here is not the resistance of teachers to the use of ICT, which is often reported, but rather the problem is how to practically integrate ICT into the curriculum. The school curriculum has a certain internal “grammar” that prevents such innovations; This is precisely the main reason why ICTs are not used widely enough - or not quite adequately - in modern schools.

Change/Conflict Scenarios

As we have already said, the curriculum, especially in secondary schools, is an arena of political confrontation where different and directly opposing interests collide, often turning the reform process into a nightmare for education ministers. Change/conflict scenarios reflect power struggles that extend far beyond educational decision-making. Both nationally and internationally, we can talk about curriculum lobbying: “school” lobbyists are the players involved in such scenarios.

When discussing the implementation of this type of scenario, one must first take into account the public and democratic nature of modern education systems. Under these conditions, the cultural, ethnic, linguistic, educational, sexual and religious diversity of students plays an increasingly important role in curriculum reform, so that the curriculum essentially becomes a social artifact that can facilitate or, on the contrary, hinder the inclusion of a potential student in the educational process. The most significant changes taking place today in the school curriculum are dictated by policies that take into account individual uniqueness, that is, aimed at integrating into the general flow of marginal groups of the population for whom access to culture and knowledge is difficult, in other words, at using the school curriculum as a tool combating social exclusion. Some seemingly purely technical issues are important here: since interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches have proven ineffective in this area, they must be replaced by corrective “counterdisciplinary” approaches (Giroux 1994).

Directly related to the scenario under discussion is a phenomenon that can be called the “war for textbooks.” These wars, directly related to the curriculum wars we have already discussed, are primarily characteristic of the disciplines of civics, history, and social studies, but they are not limited to them. Here we can cite examples from the experience of different countries, recalling, say, the ban on presenting evolutionary theory in American science textbooks or the fierce resistance to attempts to highlight alternative views on history in Romania. Surprisingly, such wars have recently become international: for example, in April 2005, some changes to the World War II sections of Japanese history textbooks led to street riots and demonstrations in South Korea and China.

Finally, I would like to point out that the best illustration of the change/conflict scenario can be found in efforts to reduce curriculum overload, which is known to often lead students to fall behind in their studies, fail exams, and ultimately drop out of school. For example, in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, curriculum overload is a critical issue complicating school reform. In the early 1990s, attention in these regions was focused on eliminating the ideological bias that characterizes public school curricula and on revising textbooks for some key areas of knowledge. A few years later, traditional school disciplines were subject to correction, in which national elements were introduced; In addition, in accordance with the reform carried out at that time in the countries of the European Union, a number of new disciplines were included in school curricula. Currently, reformers are trying to build the program in such a way that it is based on generally accepted educational standards, prioritizes the formation of certain skills in schoolchildren, and is result-oriented. Despite the apparent modernization of the program, in almost all countries the practical result of the reforms was to overload the program and tighten the requirements for schoolchildren. In Ukraine, they study seventeen different disciplines, and in some academic streams, almost half of the students have only one lesson or one class session per week in certain subjects. In Uzbekistan, a schoolchild takes an average of twenty-eight different subjects (World Bank 2005a). These are extremes, of course, but there is no denying the fact that the majority of high school students around the world suffer from overcrowded timetables and an overly varied curriculum (McLean 1995).

Control/consensus scenarios

This category includes processes of transformation of curricula, occurring under the influence of decentralization, increased autonomy of schools and the desire for greater learning effectiveness. Over the past two decades, both developed and developing countries have aggressively pursued such reforms, believing that the least costly and most effective way to increase school completion rates and bring graduates into line with the demands of the 21st century is to improve management in general and the management of social services. in particular. Established perceptions of the need to redistribute power to regional and local authorities and new demands for teacher professionalism also contributed to the promotion of these “zero-cost” educational reforms (Carnoy 1999).

The desire to devolve control of the school curriculum to local institutions (while maintaining the directive role of the state) is also reflected in the fact that review and modification of the curriculum is now possible at the level of the individual school (Caldwell and Spinks 1998). The most striking examples are Australia and Canada, members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, as well as, among developing countries, Chile, El Salvador and South Africa. In this scenario, the emphasis is on building consensus among local teachers discussing a curriculum proposal with the participation of all stakeholders—parents, administrators, and sometimes the students themselves.

It is also worth mentioning strategies aimed at improving school education, including competitions where special grants are distributed, and the creation of innovative systems - they link the process of creating curricula, their adaptation and “fine-tuning” in school settings with the needs of teachers in need of improvement qualifications. In this context, the role of public services and external support institutions increases dramatically, functioning as monitoring buffers between local and regional educational authorities, on the one hand, and teachers and schools, on the other (Moreno 1999). In general, it can be argued that control/consensus scenarios create opportunities for updating programs both “from below” and “from above.”

Control/Conflict Scenarios

At the heart of these scenarios is the global trend towards standardization of school curricula. Of course, such standards cannot but be different for, say, Great Britain, France and the countries of the former USSR. However, everywhere they reflect increasing demands on learning outcomes and a corresponding decline in public and political interest in the “source material” and the details of the process itself. The legalization of standards as tools that define the content of school curricula suggests that the state exams and tests discussed in this article do have a decisive influence on how the curriculum is translated into actual classroom work.

The results of state exams become a criterion for decision-making by educational authorities, as well as for assessing the growing responsibility of educational service providers to taxpayers. Based on these results, the Ministry of Education can close schools, fire principals and teachers, or, conversely, hire new school inspectors and administrators; can make changes to textbooks or compress the program, reducing it to “basic elements”. In an increasingly complex world, politicians, journalists and the general public crave simple and, most importantly, unambiguous information. And what is more unambiguous than hierarchical classification? This is probably why the publication of tables that rank schools in each country or rank the countries themselves based on international comparative studies of student performance has such a strong impact on the media and public opinion in general.

This approach, while of course affecting all stakeholders in the field of education, actually leads to cuts in the school curriculum, which are observed in many countries. And the stripped-down program, reflected in standardized tests, shifts the attention of society and politicians only to basic knowledge and skills. In other words, a significant part of what is currently taught in school is pushed to the periphery of the field of vision, or even drops out of it altogether. In the extreme, this can lead to the consolidation of a very meager and artificial hierarchy of necessary school knowledge, as well as to a significant impoverishment of public ideas about what the results of education should be. But this approach also has a positive side: standardization, generally speaking, can be the most effective method of combating overload in school programs. Here their compilers are again faced with the eternal question: “What is considered a good education?”

External tests and examinations have been used in some countries to prove the (not very convincing, by the way) thesis that the public education system is ineffective and cannot be effective by definition. However, they can certainly also be used to identify areas, schools and even individual students that require more attention and targeted funding. The political use of tests and exams does not have to be just an excuse to reduce funding - it can be a good way of governing, allowing for greater investment in education and better spending of public money.

Conclusion

Around the world, education reform is increasingly focused on the school curriculum, which is why its structure and content are becoming the subject of intense controversy. However, the program demonstrates a high degree of sustainability; Moreover, it is difficult to name a country where the majority of individuals and organizations involved in education would not complain that changes in education, especially in secondary schools, are unproductive (World Bank 2005a). Citizens with a sense of bewilderment - and teachers with cold aloofness - watch as each new minister of education and his team attempts to rebuild and modify the program, but the actually working program, this, as we have already said, “school grammar”, preserves if you look at it from a historical perspective, its traditional features. On the one hand there is extreme mobility, on the other there is equally extreme stability. A very convincing confirmation of this paradox is given in one of the articles in this collection: it turns out that between 1980 and 2000, 41.7% of all countries in the world decided to move from a single secondary education program to a “multi-track” model, and the same number of countries - exactly 41.7% carried out strictly opposite reforms, that is, they adopted a unified secondary school program (Kamens and Benavot). There has been constant activity in the area of ​​curriculum reform, but very little progress; there is a lot of chatter here, but almost no established forms of serious discussion; There are plenty of declarations of intent, but rarely a thoughtful long-term strategy. It can even be argued that administrative activities in the field of school curriculum are very similar to financial policy: school curriculum development centers under ministries of education behave exactly like the Central Bank, raising or lowering the interest rate depending on the circumstances dictated by the constantly changing economic situation. Meanwhile, what is important is not so much the general sense of “progress” inspired by the constant reform of the school curriculum, but rather the extent to which these reforms - and their overall result in a historical perspective - meet the development of the needs of society and, in turn, participate in the definition and design of these needs.

In this article we tried to identify and understand these paradoxes. The axes “change/control” and “consensus/conflict” allow us to systematically describe the evolution of the school curriculum, taking into account all the influences, contradictions and political “games” that determine its design and transformation in the modern education system. In this context, a comprehensive research agenda can be outlined that will be useful to sociologists, curriculum historians, analysts, and comparative students of education. To begin with, it would be interesting to find out which of the four scenarios prevails in different regions and countries of the world and how this is related to their level of development and other political, economic and purely educational parameters. Another interesting question is how to use our approach to identify indicators of democratization of the school curriculum and analyze specific policies that serve such democratization in different countries and regions of the world.

Literature

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*Juan Manuel Moreno. The Dynamics of Curriculum Design and Development // School Knowledge in Comparative and Historical Perspective. Ed. by Benavot Aaron, Braslavsky Cecilia. The University of Hongkong: Springer, 2007. Translation from English by Maria Malikova.

Segmentation of education systems. Reforms of secondary education in France and Prussia (1865–1920)* National specifics of education in the era of globalization: will the experience of the PRC help us?*