The Political Determinants of Curriculum Development

The aim of this paper is to emphasise the point that curriculum development in schools is determined as much by political considerations as by purely educational principles. Such a reminder might make class teachers more effective in presenting their views towards the initiators of education policy. The experience of the Shef-field History Curriculum Group (SHCG) in encouraging a number of innovatory projects provides the fieldwork data linked to specific developments in schools. One of the fundamental problems in trying to design an appropriate cur-riculum is that there is often only limited agreement on what should be covered. There is endless debate about the content and strategy for implementation so that what might suit one school will not necessarily suit another. Somehow a set of teach-ing aims and objectives emerges out of a multiplicity of parameters: availability of resources, pressures from exam boards, personal whim and a naive belief that there are some fundamental certainties which derive from our cultural heritage. This process, taking place as it does against the pressures of a teacher’s day, is assumed to be curriculum development in action. In fact, this is akin to inspire