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AED5007: Curriculum
Literature Review
One of the problems with analysing writing about curriculum theory is that most writers dont focus
so much on curriculum but other issues which may impact upon curriculum. A case in support of this
point of view is many of the readings in this course on curriculum. A quick browse through The
Curriculum Studies Reader (eds Flinders & Thornton 2013) shows that writers that are referred to in
the context of curriculum theory may discuss a range of topics but high on the list seem to the
pedagogy defined as the principles, practice, or profession of teaching and sociology defined
as the study of the development, organization, functioning, and classification of human societies
by the Collins English Dictionary (2009). As part of this review, I intend to contrast in terms of
curriculum theory: My Pedagogical Creed by John Dewey and from The Curriculum Studies
Reader with The Melbourne Declaration on Education Goals for Young Australians which was
developed by Education Ministers in collaboration with the Catholic and independent school
sectors, following public consultation on the draft declaration. (MCEECDYA 2009)
The Melbourne declaration was a document developed under the auspices of the previous federal
ALP government to establish the overall goals or outcomes to come out of the education system for
young people. The document is made up of a preamble, a set of goals and a set of actions for
working towards those goals. The preamble outlines two key principles that underpin the document.
Firstly that schools play a major role in the social and psychological development of the individual.
Also, that economic and social needs of the nation are served by schools in concert with the
community at large; that families and the broader community also have a role to play here.
Technological change and globalisation are considered to be a large part of the context here. In
particular the adopters of this report considered that:
Rapid and continuing advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) are
changing the ways people share, use, develop and process information and technology. (p5)
And as such there is a need to broaden the base of students skills in this area. It is also considered
important to maintain the competitiveness of the standards of Australian schooling as compared
with other OECD countries. But issues of equity should not fall by the wayside as part of the skilling
up of Australia and indeed it should be a priority. There is currently a problem with those coming
from a low socioeconomic background being underrepresented in those who achieve and
overrepresented in those who do not. The preamble also strongly emphasises literacy and numeracy
skills as well as things that have not been traditionally taught in school. For example, social
interaction and digital technology skills are highlighted as important.
The next section of the document outlines the goals for the next ten years although they are not
really goals as the word is normally used, but more like statements of faith. In the context of
curriculum they outline a series of ideals to be upheld by the national school system. These two
goals are:
1. Australian schooling promotes equity and excellence
2. All young Australians become:
a. Successful learners
b. Confident and creative individuals
c. Active and informed citizens (page 7)
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The first goal is about balancing excellence in education with equity issues but at this point
excellence is not clearly defined. All the boxes are ticked in regards to special equity groups such as
indigenous people, women, people of colour, gay, poor, and so on as well as combating
disadvantage coming from disability, drawing the broader community into the education process
and promoting individualised learning pathways.
The second goal is about individuals becoming self-actualised individuals through the learning
process. It provides greater detail on the definition of each of the sub goals that were listed but in
terms of principles for analysis does not provide us with much more detail and so I will jump ahead
to the section Commitment to Action. This section outlines a range of ways that the actions will be
achieved.
The section on developing stronger partnerships seems to suggest working closer with communities
but the only concrete example they use is of indigenous communities. In the next section on
Supporting quality teaching and learning, puts forward the idea that the burden of quality in
teaching and learning sits with teachers and principles. The next section, Strengthening quality
childhood education espouses the view that the early years of childhood are crucial for developing
strong individuals and as such there is a need for a strong emphasis on childhood education. The
following section, Enhancing middle years development emphasise that the late primary school
years and early high school years are the years when students are introduced to formal education in
the true sense and also the years where there is the most danger of students becoming disengaged
from formal education. Hence this is a period when it is important to focus on bolster that
engagement. The next section, Supporting senior years of schooling and youth transitions puts an
emphasis on the importance of transferring to higher education as part of maximising the
opportunities of young people. It also asserts the importance of relationships between education
facilities and between them and employers. It is significant, I think, that it does not emphasise the
importance higher education for the well-rounded development of the individual.
Although all of the above has implications for curriculum, the next section, Promoting world-class
curriculum and assessment makes this more explicit. There are three sub-principles outlined in this
section:
A solid foundation in knowledge, understanding, skills and values on which further learning
and adult life can be built
Deep knowledge, understanding skills and values that will enable advanced learning and an
ability to create new ideas and translate them into practical applications
General capabilities that underpin flexible and analytical thinking, a capacity to work with
others and an ability to move across subject disciplines to develop new expertise
In other words, not only is doing things important. Underpinning knowledge, theory and values are
just as important. While general capabilities are important they are not everything and should not
be the sole focus of curriculum. This is largely at odds with a purely competency based approach to
what needs to be learnt.
The document then goes on to outline the learning areas to be focused on. These are essentially
subjects in the older approach to curriculum, with a view that English and Mathematics are
fundamental subjects at all levels but that other subjects such as humanities and the social science
would become more significant as the years progress.
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The final section I will analyse is the section Strengthening accountability and transparency mainly
because it has implications for the context of the learner, which forms part of the hidden curriculum.
This section emphasises accountability through data collection which is considered to be important
information for students, teachers, parents and the broader community. Sources of this data include
student outcomes, data on overall performance of the school (presumably through some sort of
standardised testing) and information about the context of the school, what extracurricular
programs are offered and so on.
The second work I will analyse is John Deweys My Pedagogic Creed in (eds Flinders & Thornton
2013). This paper is laid out as a series of beliefs about learning and how it is done effectively that
Dewey explores in the context of a childs development. My intention is to explore each of these and
compare this to the values and strategies outlined in the Melbourne Declaration.
The first of his articles of belief is that all education proceeds from participation in the consciousness
of their race. Now, in the modern era we are tempted here to understand this to mean the human
race. However some evidence that his views were more controversial, for example (Fallace 2010)
states that during his years at the University of Chicago, when he wrote the majority of his works on
education, Dewey considered American non-White minorities to be biologically and psychically equal
to Whites but socially deficient. However that does seem to be a minority view. Still it does suggest
that perhaps in this document he is referring to concepts such as racial memory. I think this is one
aspect of Deweys views that there is less focus on but the question is do they apply in the context of
the Melbourne Declaration. That really does depend on the interpretation of race. Even in the
parts of the declaration that refer to a specific racial grouping that of Indigenous Australians, it is in
the context of engaging with a broader social fabric and not of maintaining such separation. There is
another paragraph in this section that is important and raises another aspect of the relationship
between the individual and their community: Without insight into the psychological structure and
activities of the individual, the educative process will, therefore be haphazard and arbitrary. (Page
33) The question is whether there is much of an emphasis in the Melbourne Declaration on the
individual and their internal structure. There does not actually seem to be the declaration has an
external bias in my view. That is, it starts from the perspective of external development rather than
taking any position on the nature of the human beings involved, that it considers the social in
isolation from the psychological.
Deweys second article of belief is that school is a social institution and that the entire education
process can be nothing other than social (page 35). If we review the Melbourne declaration for the
degree that the drafters agreed with this statement, we find that they do in the sense that the
school should engage with various sectors of the community and in particular when it comes to
indigenous communities, they need to be not only engaged in a general sense but also indigenous
people need to be employed at various levels within the schools to reflect the needs of the
indigenous communities (page 15). This is also reflected in the section on page 11, Developing
stronger partnerships in which partnerships with not only parents and carers and schools but also
with the broader community is emphasised.
In his third article Dewey goes on further to state that education should be rooted in the social life of
the individual that the more removed the education process is from the social life of the individual,
the less effective it will be. If we review the Melbourne Declaration in terms of its view of the
human as a social being, we do not find a sense of starting from the home-life of the individual
which is something that Dewey favours but rather from the point of view of Australian culture. Now,
for many this may be the same thing but for others especially those from less fortunate
backgrounds, it is very much a different space. This is somewhat related to Bourdieus (2003 page
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21-24) concept of social capital that if you are not part of the target audience for the social
institution in question (part of a privileged group in this case, schools) then you are forever behind
the eight-ball in the sphere of said institution.
Deweys states in his fourth article that the pedagogical method should derive from the natural
development of young people. That the active, the outer develops before the passive and the inner.
He uses as examples of this the muscular system developing before the sensory apparatus and
partially that does indeed make sense. After all, how can something sense if it has not developed its
action yet? However I really dont know enough about biology to judge the truth of this. Dewey
argues that too much time early on is spent with children in a passive state. Another important idea
articulated here is that a childs interests need to be engaged, not humoured or repressed. Also,
Deweys idea that ideas are dynamic, not static entities is an interesting idea. How does this relate to
the assumptions about learners in the Melbourne Declaration? Firstly, there is a focus in the
declaration on the traditional 3 Rs reading, writing and arithmetic and other things coming later
which is contrary to Deweys view of the individual child and their development process. Aside from
this, the stages of development outlined in the declaration do seem to relate to physical first then
mental development, in line with Deweys views.
Deweys fifth article states that education is the fundamental method of social progress and
reform. In other words that without education, the enactment of laws will only ever produce partial
progress. For progress of society as a whole, there needs to be a consistent and effective education
system as the communitys true instrument of change. In a sense, this parallels the Melbourne
Declarations emphasis that Schools play a vital role in promoting in ensuring the nations
ongoing economic prosperity and social cohesion. (page 4)
In summary I think both documents show some level of agreement on the curricular needs of young
people but and I think that Dewey to some extent appears more sincere in the desired outcomes.
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Reference List
Bourdieu, P, The Forms of Capital in Ball, S December 18, 2003, Routledge Falmer Reader in
Sociology of Education, Routledge Farmer, London.
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. Retrieved April 3, 2014, from
Dictionary.com website.
Dewey, J, My Pedagogical Creed in Flinders, D and Thornton, S (eds) 2013, The Curriculum Studies
Reader (4
th
Edition), Routledge, New York and London.
Flinders, D and Thornton, S (eds) 2013, The Curriculum Studies Reader (4
th
Edition), Routledge, New
York and London.
Ministerial Council for Education, Employment 2008, Training and Youth Affairs, Melbourne
declaration on educational goals for young Australians, Melbourne, viewed 2 April 2014.

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Bibliography
Bourdieu, P, The Forms of Capital in Ball, S December 18, 2003, Routledge Falmer Reader in
Sociology of Education, Routledge Farmer, London.
Brennan, M, National curriculum: A political-educational tangle in 2011, Australian Journal of
Education, Vol 55, No 3 page 259-280.
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. Retrieved April 3, 2014, from
Dictionary.com website.
Dewey, J, My Pedagogical Creed in Flinders, D and Thornton, S (eds) 2013, The Curriculum Studies
Reader (4
th
Edition), Routledge, New York and London.
Ministerial Council for Education, Employment 2008, Training and Youth Affairs, Melbourne
declaration on educational goals for young Australians, Melbourne, viewed 2 April 2014.
Freire, P, Pedagogy of the Opressed in in Flinders, D and Thornton, S (eds) 2013, The Curriculum
Studies Reader (4
th
Edition), Routledge, New York and London.
Yates, L and Collins, C, The Absence of Knowledge in Australian Curriculum Reforms in 2011,
European Journal of Education, Vol. 45, No. 1,Part I