ABSTRACT
What principles should underpin the curriculum of the future? First, will the curriculum continue to be based on a clear separation between the theoretical knowledge to be acquired at school and the practical knowledge that people acquire in their everyday lives? And second, will the curriculum continue to take the disciplinary form that became established during the nineteenth century, or should it give far greater emphasis to the practical and social skills and knowledge that, many argue, adults are likely to need in a competitive global economy (RSA 1998)? Answers to these questions will depend, at least in part, on the assumptions that are made about the nature of knowledge, how and in what ways it changes and how the knowledge on which the curriculum is based differs (and should differ) from the everyday knowledge of communities and workplaces. As well as being concerned with these questions, this chapter continues the broader aim of this book, which in collaboration with others (see Muller 2000; Moore 2004 and Muller 2007 as well as Chapters 2 and 15 of this book) is to develop a more adequate basis for the sociology of education. It also breaks new ground for me as a sociologist in discussing the work of the Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky. Two of Vygotsky’s ideas are of particular importance to me. One is the distinction he makes between what one can learn on one’s own and what one can learn with a teacher, which is expressed in his concept of the ‘zone of proximal development’. The second idea is what he refers to as the relationship between theoretical and everyday concepts, which lies at the heart of pedagogy and the curriculum.
