Content Selection in Advanced Courses

Advanced high-school courses, such as Advanced Placement (AP) courses in the United States, present a content selection conundrum of major proportions. Judicious content selection is necessary if students are to learn subject matter meaningfully, but the sheer breadth of tested material in these courses promotes nearly the opposite: "test-prep" teaching and mere "coverage" of the curriculum. This paper contributes elements of a theory of content selection that is aimed at meaningful learning (Bransford) and centered on the ideas of agency and constraint (Giddens), curricular structure (Bruner and Schwab), and knowledge and power in curriculum practice (Young). We also present the practical tool we used to select content for emphasis in a high-school government and politics course--an "advanced" course where selecting anything for emphasis is perceived as costly.