Cultural Roots

Cultural Roots of the Curriculum

A curriculum does not invent its values; it inherits them from the culture around it. This chapter shows how a curriculum’s objectives, content, and discipline all trace back to cultural roots, how cultures split education into a common part for everyone and a special part for particular roles, and how science, specialization, and the rise of cities have unsettled both.

How a curriculum’s objectives, subject matter, and discipline all reflect the universals and social controls of its culture

Common and Special Education

The split between education for everyone, built on the cultural core, and education for particular social or vocational roles

Education for Class and Vocation

How special education can train learners for a social class or a vocation, and where dual education systems come from

Science and Cultural Change

How invention creates and destroys jobs, shrinks distance, and forces the hard work of cultural reintegration

Specialization and Division of Labour

How isolate-and-conquer drives specialization through industry, medicine, law, and teaching, and fragments the curriculum

Community Life and the City

How tight-knit community life gave way to the urban individual, shaped more by occupation than by community