The publication of the Curriculum Development Centre's
discussion paper 'Core Curriculum for Australian Schools' in June
1980 stimulated discussion of the concept of core curriculum in
Australia. The driving force came from the Foundation Director
of the CDC, Dr Malcolm Skilbeck. This study discusses the themes
and directions to which Skilbeck was committed through a study of
his work prior to his return to Australia in 1975 and his
subsequent writings.
The study considers Skilbeck's work against general thinking
on educational matters in Australia and overseas. The initial
discussion centres on Skilbeck's work in the United Kingdom prior
to 1975. This concludes that his views were moulded by his own
research on the American progressive educator John Dewey and that
Dewey's ideals of a democratic society moulded and sustained by a
democratic core curriculum have been dominant in all Skilbeck's
subsequent thinking. The study reviews the establishment,
working and conclusions of the CDC Core Curriculum and Values
Education Working Party.
In two subsequent chapters, the study looks at Skilbeck's
approach to cultural mapping and school-based curriculum
development as the two fundamental Planks of his approach to the
development and implementation of a core curriculum for
Australian schools. The study shows that Skilbeck's concept of
cultural mapping is helpful but does not succeed in providing an
effective basis for the articulation of national guidelines. In
consequence, the CDC did not succeed in providing a framework
sufficient to hold together the infinite range of possibilities
opened UP by school-based action.
The study considers the limited published reactions to the
CDC Paper. It notes that the termination of the CDC by the
Committee for Review of Commonwealth Functions in early 1931
prevented the fuller dissemination and debate of the topic during
19S1 and subsequently. The study notes that responses were
disaapointingly few and in many cases failed to address the
central questions raised by the CDC paper, in particular the idea
of national curriculum guidelines and their application through
school-based curriculum development. The major responses came in
the State of Victoria where local circumstances encouraged
discussion of the issues raised by the CDC.
The study concludes that the CDC discussion paper was a
valuable stimulus to discussion of curricular foundations at the
time it was released but represented a point of view that was not
fully understood or appreciated at the time. It laid the
foundation for the renaissance of the general concept as
'democratic curriculum' in 1986 and provides important
indications of the potential for the development of the
Participation and Equity Program.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219446 |
| Date | January 1985 |
| Creators | Welch, Ian, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Ian Welch |
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