Curriculum Theory

Curriculum theory is the academic field that examines, and helps shape, the content, structure and purpose of educational curricula, drawing on educational, philosophical, psychological and sociological perspectives to ask what should be taught, to whom, and why. Historians trace its origins in the United States to debates such as Yale's 1828 Report on the Defense of the Classics, which defended a classical curriculum built on memorization, though the word curriculum itself first appeared in university records at Leiden University in 1582. Several major schools of thought have shaped the field since: an early faculty-psychology view treating the mind as a muscle strengthened through memorization and mental discipline; the Herbartians, who from the 1890s rejected rote memorization as having little educational value; the social efficiency movement, which argued curriculum should directly prepare students for adult work; the progressive reform movement linked to John Dewey, which favored child-centered curricula matched to a learner's developmental stage; and, from the 1960s and 1970s, a reconceptualist movement that challenged earlier traditions by incorporating social, racial, gender and other perspectives into curriculum debate.