Technological Studies and the Curriculum in Higher Education

Abstract

constitutes intolerable ignorance in a person who holds a college degree is a perennial question in higher education. Over time, any particular answer loses its adequacy with changes in the knowledge required for competent participation in society and alterations in the significiant beliefs and values of a culture. Various institutions of higher chose the late 1970s as the acceptable time for elaborating a contemporary answer. They began their inquiry by reexamining the studies required of undergraduate students. Two of the most publicized inquiries were the reviews of general requirements conducted by the faculties of Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley. Many other institutions, however, have also undertaken similar reviews of their curricula (The Chronicle of Higher Education 1978a-c). Among the various issues at stake in the proposed revisions is the amount of time given to preparation for entry into an occupation as compared with the time allocated to liberal or humanistic studies. obvious instrumental worth of technological studies argues for their inclusion in a curriculum. But since time and resources are limited, any attention given to technology reduces the time available for the humanities. Hence, in devising a curriculum suitable at the college level, a decision has to be made on the extent to which career preparation and vocational training are appropriate norms for arranging studies. following statement is typical of the way this issue is currently posed: The growing realization that technocratic-specialist is the key to elite occupational positions in an advanced industrial society has raised serious questions about the claims to legitimacy of older norms of American higher education (Schaffer 1978, p. 411). defenders of the older norms, however, see yet another form of barbarism in technological studies. Thus, in a recent collection of essays on the curriculum in higher education, a professor of English asks, What can be done to counteract the further technologizing of higher education? (Marx 1975, p. 12).