State control, religious deference and cultural reproduction: some problems with theorising curriculum and pedagogy in the Cambridge Primary Review

Abstract

This article offers a critique of the quality of theorising underlying proposals on curriculum and pedagogy in the Cambridge Primary Review. Despite its strengths, the review is seen as omitting consideration of three major areas in primary education: gifted pupils, teacher effectiveness research and the private sector. Questions are raised about the review's use of evidence about a broad and balanced curriculum and about ability grouping. The proposals for curriculum are seen as backward-looking and bureaucratic, while its treatment of religious education is judged to be overly deferential and inadvertently sustaining indoctrination. Its proposals for pedagogy give undue emphasis to a particular form of constructivism, dialogic teaching, whilst ignoring theories of social/cultural reproduction. It is concluded that the review missed an opportunity to propose three more radical and innovatory reforms: to increase school autonomy in curriculum matters; to theorise pedagogy so as to include learning beyond the school; and, to integrate recent findings from educational effectiveness research into theorising pedagogy.