Is it possible to base systemic curriculum reform on principles of social justice?

Abstract

In 1998 Willis and Johnson (1998) asked the question in the title of this paper of the Australian curriculum. In 2005 we want to ask the same of two related curriculum development processes in South Africa: Curriculum 2005 (C2005) in 1997, and the Revised National Curriculum Statements (RNCS) in 2002. In this paper we want to argue that, firstly, given South Africa's apartheid history, an affirmative response to such a question is not only possible but necessary. Secondly, the curriculum policies not only embody the principles of social justice, but articulate a pluralistic notion of social justice. Thirdly, within this pluralistic notion of social justice the policy statements gloss over the tensions in the achievement of social justice. This paper uses an analytic framework used by Gewirtz (2000, 2002) and Power and Gewirtz (2001), that identifies three facets of social in/justice: distributive, cultural and associational, in analyzing Natural Science Curriculum statements and interviews with policymake...