Curriculum, more than a journey on a map

Abstract

In the contemporary world, systems and processes of state-sponsored and state-recognized mass education (henceforth, formal education) are based on ideas that liken curriculum to maps. According to such perspectives, one role of curriculum in formal education is to prescribe how large numbers of people might be oriented to regard and live in the world in ways that sustain the sovereignty, prosperity, and influence of the nation-states that govern their lives (Lima, 2007; Pathak, 2013; Ramirez & Boli, 1987). As such, curricula, like maps, validate generalized representations of what constitutes the reality of the world and prescribe desirable and appropriate ways for all its users to know about and navigate through it. Informed by such ideas, processes of formal education typically begin with the articulation of state-defined or state-approved curricular aims, followed by the enactment of systems and procedures to achieve them. This logic of how curriculum ought to (and does) structure formal education operates with striking similarity in modern nation-states across the world despite differences in political systems, socio-economic structures, and cultural practices (DeMarrais & LeCompte, 1999; Meyer et al., 1997). This is reflected in the global ubiquity of phenomena such as curriculum policies, curriculum boards, official syllabi and textbooks, and the various social-political roles and processes associated with them. The notions of curriculum as maps that underpin formal education today were first generated by social and political elites in post-Enlightenment Western Europe. They applied these ideas to institute the first historical instances of mass schooling. In doing so, they sought to facilitate post-monarchic national integration and industrial capitalism at home, as well as resource extraction and colonial expansion abroad (Ramirez & Boli, 1987). Subsequently, the ruling classes of settler colonial, post-colonial, and other transitional monarchic societies across the world adapted these ideas and applied them to enable the consolidation and development of new nation-states (Chilcote, 2002; Irogbe, 2005; Leroy, 2016; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernández, 2013; Veracini, 2014). With their origins in these socio-historical processes, practices of creating and enacting curriculum for formal education in the modern era are deeply shaped by ruling class anxieties about holding on to power and social control in the context of nation-states. In choosing to approach curriculum in the spirit of drafting maps, social and political elites reveal their desires to define and enforce boundaries that constrain collective experiences in ways that help them secure legitimate power within the state apparatus and in society at large.