ABSTRACT
Advocacy of practical reasoning as a means of solving curriculum problems implies acceptance of the proposition that changes in what is taught and how it is taught can be brought about in planned ways, or at least that this
is to an important degree possible. It also implies that the nature of curriculum change is such that, of a variety of approaches to planned change that might be supported, this one is most likely to be successful in defining and realizing curricular purposes. Arguments of this type touch on an area of deep controversy with far-reaching implications for the theory and practice of curriculum. The two basic points at issue are: can change be in any fundamental sense planned, or is the evolution of the curriculum determined by forces that tend in a particular and irreversible direction? And must proposals for curriculum change be based on some set of values, or some ideologicaJI position, or can they be, in some sense, value free? The approach through practical reasoning accepts that planning is possible, and that it must reflect ideological commitments. Two other, importantly different views of curriculum change are to be found in the literature of curriculum theory. For convenience of exposition, they are represented here in their extreme forms. The first claims that intentionality is indeed (or can be) the dominant factor in curriculum change, but assumes that a theory of practice can be nonideological. This is the position of writers of the school of Bobbitt and Tyler2 who deploy a managerial perspective on curriculum theory. Management is, by definition, capable of being effective, but what management achieves is thought of as politically and ideologically neutral. The second view claims that any attempt to intervene in curriculum matters must be politically and ideologically motivated, but that the changes that actually take place are attributable more to sociocultural necessity than to the realization of freely chosen goals through managerial intervention. This view is implied in the statements of writers such as Young and Ka1l6s.3When the argument is joined from the extreme positions, both sides are fairly invulnerable to the thrusts of the other, and the possibilities for achieving a synthesis are limited. The intentionalists cannot attack the inevitablists for being just as ideologically motivated as everyone else without admitting that they themselves are ideologically motivated, while the latter cannot mount substantial arguments against interventionism without admitting it may be effective-which they deny.40f course, many theorists, while tending toward one view or the other, avoid the extreme and put forward ideas that are not obviously incompatible with either position. Sometimes, even, extremists of both types will find themselves on the same side, as, for example, in denunciations of the arguments of the proponents of deschooling, which suggests that their views may not be diametrically opposed after all.
