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Latin is currently being trialled as a subject in 40 state secondary schools in England. This paper focuses on one of the justifications of this trial: that teaching Latin in state secondary schools provides students with cultural capital which in turn counters social injustice. By taking the example of Latin as a starting point, I reach two conclusions about cultural capital. The first is that providing students with cultural capital can be good for some individuals, and so justified on a case-by-case basis depending on context. However, this justification does not hold for curriculum policy making. My second conclusion is that in the long term, pursuing cultural capital as part of curriculum policy exacerbates the social injustices it purports to address. Wherever an activity is introduced for the sake of cultural capital rather than its educational value, educationally valuable activities risk being pushed off the curriculum, potentially degrading the educational value of the curriculum. In the case of teaching Latin, it may provide benefits to particular students, but as part of curriculum policy it risks exacerbating social injustices and undermining the educational value of school curricula. Going beyond the place of Latin on the curriculum, I argue that all appeals to cultural capital provide a poor basis for curriculum policy making.

R. S. Peters and a small group of contemporaries set the foundations for analytic philosophy of education in the 1960s, a field which continues to this day. This article asks about the value of analytic philosophy of education today, and proposes alterations to its initial aims and methods to make its value clearer. I outline some critiques of analytic philosophy of education, and respond by clarifying its aims. The key insight is that if analytic philosophy of education is explicitly aligned with recent trends in social philosophy to focus on ameliorative analysis, then its value and relevance as a method in educational studies becomes clearer. Ameliorative analysis starts with the social role that a concept plays, and analyses it with this purpose in mind. I illustrate how R. S. Peters analysis of education would be approached differently with ameliorative analysis in mind, and conclude by pointing to some interesting points of discussion that arise from this approach.

The concept of 'knowledge' is central to education, particularly when it comes to the school curriculum. This paper makes the case for engaging in conceptual analysis, and in particularly conceptual engineering, in educational studies. Conceptual engineering emphasises analysing concepts with their purposes in mind. To illustrate the importance of this sort of conceptual analysis in education, I track the educational impact of three concepts of knowledge: (1) the traditional philosophical concept of knowledge as justified, true belief; (2) Michael Young's concept of 'knowledge of the powerful'; and (3) Young's concept of 'powerful knowledge'. I argue that knowledge as justified, true belief is too abstracted from educational purposes to provide much guidance for curriculum planning. Young's 'knowledge of the powerful' prioritises the social role that knowledge can play over its value to individual students. Finally, 'powerful knowledge' is too unclear to provide appropriate guidance to policy makers and practitioners. By examining the interactions between these concepts of knowledge and historical policy and practice in education, I conclude that the focus of conceptual engineering on clarity about the purposes of education is central to good conceptual analysis.

In this paper, I ask whether educational value is determined in any way by intrinsic value. The aim of the paper is to explore whether appeals to the intrinsic value of an activity or state of affairs can justify proposed educational value. I turn to Korsgaard's work on the concept of intrinsic value to cast light on the relationship between intrinsic value and educational value. Korsgaard claims that the often held distinction between intrinsic and instrumental value conflates two separate distinctions. These are the intrinsic/extrinsic value distinction and the final/instrumental value distinction. These two distinctions will be considered with regard to literature that appeals to intrinsic value. The distinctions between intrinsic/extrinsic value and final/instrumental value will be used to clarify puzzles which arise when philosophers of education use the concept of intrinsic value to make claims about educational value. I argue that the intrinsic/extrinsic value distinction has little bearing on an activity's educational value. The instrumental/final value distinction is relevant, but does not imply that activities with final value are any more educationally valuable than those with instrumental value. I conclude that, regardless of the distinction being appealed to, general intrinsic value has little bearing on educational value.

The New Welsh Curriculum sets itself apart from its predecessors through the use of explicit aims; these are the Four Purposes of the New Welsh Curriculum. At the same time, it sets out six Areas of Learning and Experience which incorporate traditional school subjects and emphasise the importance of providing a broad and balanced education. In this paper, I ask whether these two strands, the Four Purposes and the six Areas of Learning and Experience, can be united into a single coherent curriculum. I argue that if the curriculum is entirely driven by the Four Purposes, then much of the content associated with traditional school subjects in the Areas of Learning and Experience is redundant. On the contrary, if the Areas of Learning and Experience are prioritised, then the Four Purposes are unlikely to be met. In response, I propose that the content associated with Areas of Learning and Experience can be understood a prerequisite for meeting the Four Purposes, but the content is not sufficient on its own. This reconciles some of the tension between the two curriculum strands, but means that the Areas of Learning and Experience will need to be supplemented by additional activities in order for the New Welsh Curriculum to achieve its purposes.

In this article, I outline three critiques of analytic philosophy; that it is (1) irrelevant to individuals and society; (2) unconstructive; and (3) excessively technical. These critiques are linked to skepticism about the educational value of analytic philosophy. In response, I suggest that if analytic philosophy provides constructive guidance about prominent and pressing questions, then it holds potential educational value. I identify a body of prominent and pressing questions that are addressed by analytic philosophy as a discipline. Because analytic philosophy is often concerned with the analysis of ordinary concepts, there is at least some potential educational value to analytic philosophy insofar as it provides guidance about the meaning of ordinary concepts that ground ordinary questions. Taking P. F. Strawson's paradigmatically analytic account of philosophy, I show that analytic philosophy can directly address ordinary questions in a constructive manner. Analytic philosophy is neither (1) irrelevant, (2) unconstructive, nor (3) excessively technical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]