Knowledge And Power Control

In the 19^th century, Herbert Spencer, a famous British sociologist, put forward a famous question"What knowledge is of most worth?", his technical rationality and scientism pattern of answering thisquestion has had far-reaching impacts on the research of cutriculum over the 20th century. Both earlier F.Bobbitt's Activity Analysis and W.W.Charters' Job Analysis, or later the famous Tyler's Rationale,they all did their best to pursue efficiency,objectivity,forecast and control.From the mid-20th centuryon, the structure-functionism research of curriculum was strongly influenced by the political andideological analysis of curriculum. Curriculum was seen as something political rather than a technicalquestion (for example, the design of cutriculum), a representative symbol is another question "Whoseknowledge is of most worth?", expounded by Michael W. Apple in the United States, emphasizingwhose interests had the curriculum embodied, and whose knowledge had become socially legitimate inschools. Therefore, curricula is not simply delivery systems of fact, they are also resu1ts of political,economic, and cultural activities of class struggles and compromises. Cutricula is conceived. designed,and authored by people with real power. Legitimate knowledge in fact is the result of complex powerre1ations and struggles among identifiable class, race, gender, and religious groups. Thus, knowledgeand power are terms of an indissoluble couplet. Based on this perspective, this research on curriculumculture revolves around the main topic of knowledge. power and control. and attempts to find somecultural characteristics of curriculum, the relationship between culture and cutriculum, as well as somecultural behavior in practice. Narnely, this article will study curriculum culture from three aspects; text,relationship. and praxis. The research of curriculum culture as texts means analyzing the culture information that alreadyexists in texts, which includes two aspectst the content and the structure. The cultural characteristic ofthe curriculum contents is represented by its value. namely, the contents are neither neutral andobjective knowledge, nor absolute mith, they are value-loaded and ideology-penetrated. The study ofAmerica and Chinese primary and secondary cutricula obviously showed the strong influence oftechnical rationality and utilitarian ideology Thus, the contents cannot depart from the simcture, thecultural characteristic of the curriculum structure is its ability to control. The concept of BasilBernstein's chassification and frarne and Apple's theory of control can help us analyze the relationshipbetween power and cutriculum structure, expound the control ofcutriculum structure. At the sarne time,we can also explain it by reviewing the stwctures of the national, local and school cunrriculalongitudinally and the structures of all subjects horizontally. Different countries have differentorganizations on the struct'Ures of curricula. AIso due to different historical phases in a country there aredifferent power stnJctures even in one councy The changes in proportion in national, 1ocaI and schooIcurricula can indicate the different distribution ofcuniculum power, and also reveal the strong or weakdegree of control by different power groups. Horizonta1 curriculum structUres indicate unequal statusesamong different subjectS, thus come forth high status knowledge and low status knowIedge. The statuschange of curriculum refiectS the change of social power structure. Since curriculum is va1ue-1oadedand ideology-penetrated, in order to promote the healthy development of curriculum, we consider itnecessary to criticize and reflect on it.The research on the re1ationship betWeen curriculum and cuIture is to discuss the interactionbetween curriculum and cultUre. All cun-icula grow on the specific culture soil and context, and cultureis the matrix of curriculum, simultaneously curriculum is the eXhibition of cultu...