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Despite the ‘progressive’ influence of the English Plowden Report and Scottish Primary Memorandum on British primary curricula from the 1960s onwards, secondary education has generally continued to follow a more traditional subject-centred route and post-war educational theorists have not generally been favourably inclined to other than subject-based modes of curriculum planning and organisation. However, in the light of current curriculum reviews on both sides of the Scottish border – calling for more educationally meaningful curricula – the perennial issue of how school knowledge might best be ordered for the coherent educational experience of pupils seems worth revisiting. To this end, this paper examines some of the influential post-war philosophical arguments against integrated and interdisciplinary approaches to the curricular organisation of knowledge, concluding that they are not as compelling as they might formerly have seemed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proceeds through four stages. First, it provides an account of the origins and evolution of the concept of educational theory. Second, it uses this historical narrative to show how what we now call ‘educational theory’ is deeply rooted in the foundationalist discourse of late nineteenth and early twentieth century modernity. Third, it outlines and defends a postfoundationalist critique of the foundationalist epistemological assumptions on which our understanding of educational theory has been erected. Finally, it argues that the only conclusion to draw from this postfoundationalist critique is that educational theory has run its course and should now be brought to a dignified end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the application of epistemology in the curriculum of educational studies in Great Britain. Question on academic politics and general education policy; Provision for justification of education; Use of epistemology in the content and organization of educational teaching and research.

This article focuses on a case study of the disciplines thesis and the curriculum. It also examines the thesis and its implications in relation to mathematics. The thesis is associated with educationists P.H. Hirst and P.H. Phenix and it is in the works of these two theorists that it can be found in its most developed forms. The practical significance of the disciplines thesis lies in its use in justifying or criticizing patterns of curricular organization. While both Hirst and Phenix are cautious about the implications of the disciplines thesis for curriculum design. It is clear that both are sympathetic to the argument that it is in general desirable to base curricular units on distinct, logically defined, disciplines such as mathematics. The disciplines thesis then provides a weak foundation for a defense of the traditional curriculum. As the case of mathematics illustrates, traditional subject divisions do not accord with the logical distinctions at the heart of the disciplines thesis. It is concluded in this study that the critical weakness of the disciplines thesis lies in the ambiguity with which the term discipline is used.