CULTURE AND THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

What do we mean by ‘Culture’?

The word ‘culture’ is problematical because it has two connotations.  First of all there is the ‘anthropological’ meaning used to describe all the aspects of the way of life of a social group.  For example, we talk of American Indian culture as a term that embraces religion, custom, law and the arts.  Secondly there is the view of culture as being ‘high culture’, that is, the set of aesthetic values associated with the elite sector of a society’s creative activities.  For example, we regard a person as ‘cultured’ if they attend the opera, but not necessarily so if they are an expert on pop music.

The relationship of the School to Culture

In the educational world, both meanings of the word are relevant and a further problem is added because there is confusion about the role of the school in dealing with culture.  Is the school there to reflect the current social attitudes towards culture in its anthropological and aesthetic versions, or does it exist to transform the nature of culture in both its meanings?

Let us take the anthropological view first: if a school exists in an area in which the prevalent cultural norms are hierarchical and male-dominated, based on alcohol abuse and the materialistic values of consumerism, is it the duty of the school to try to educate children away from values which teachers might feel are less than satisfactory?

In the aesthetic field, if a child’s parents find the music of Mantovani the summit of cultural achievement in the musical sphere, what is the school’s effect upon family relationships if children are exposed to a wider range of musical experience and told that there is something more to appreciate in the music of Mozart?

Culture defines Culture

The problem gains another dimension by the fact that the two meanings of ‘culture’ affect each other.  The anthropological sense of culture defines what will be regarded as high status aesthetic culture.  For example, the general cultural norms of the United States, while more or less following European notions of cultural status, nonetheless accord status to aesthetic forms such as modern dance and jazz, which stem from the historical traditions of the U.S and its relationship with black minorities.  Even within Europe there are variations in aesthetic cultural norms that are a result of the surrounding ‘social’ culture: in Italy opera attracts audiences from a far wider range of social classes than it does in Britain.

The Changing Nature of Culture

There have been two major changes in the nature of aesthetic culture in the 20th century.  The first has been the ‘levelling out’ of the hierarchical view of culture.  More value has been given to artistic expression previously regarded as rustic and ‘primitive’.  This is seen in the collections that were made of folk songs and dances at the beginning of the century and in the founding of institutions such as the Folk Museums to preserve rural crafts. 

The second change has been the influx of new cultures.  This is not a new phenomenon in Britain of course - the island has been washed with waves of incomers throughout its history, but the 20th century has brought a wider range of exotic influences more rapidly into British society than say, previous incursions such as those of Huguenots or Jews.  The schools have been intimately affected by this process of change because they have been in the front line of the debate as to whether incomers should adapt to the prevailing norms of the surrounding and dominant anthropological culture, or should insist that the surrounding culture make allowances for the culture (in both senses) the incomers bring with them.  Whereas the schools might possibly have worked out solutions to this question, the water has unfortunately been muddied by political intervention which has made the question of multiple cultures in schools a very hot potato indeed.

The Role of Teachers as Transmitters of Culture

Whatever the national, local or school policies on the transmission of cultural norms to pupils, in practice the individual teacher will deliver the message to those in his/her care.  Teachers, by definition, represent what their society sees as successful educational outcomes because they have passed all the examinations that society has set to form its teachers.  Candidates who have exhibited behaviour contrary to the expected norms have, in the main, been filtered out of the system.  It is probably true to say, therefore, that teachers transmit a version of knowledge which represents, in the words of M.F.D. Young “conscious or unconscious cultural choices which accord with the values and beliefs of dominant groups at a particular time” (Young, Knowledge and Control,1978, p.38).

The French writer Bourdieu makes the same point about the reproduction of prevailing norms by the educational process, and it becomes clear from the writings of men like Young and Bourdieu that schools are perceived as vitally important links in the chain of cultural continuity.  At a time of cultural change, when a society is examining what its values are and should be, schools are therefore put under a spotlight so that the ruling group may observe what cultural values are being transmitted.  This results in an examination of the curriculum of the school, in the reconsideration of ‘high status’ and ‘low status’ knowledge and in the investigation of the possibilities of a common core of knowledge which might do away with the distinction between the two.

British education in the late 1980’s passed through precisely this phase: the National Curriculum seeks to provide a common core of knowledge which our society feels is essential to unite the membership of the British tribe. The GCSE examination has been created as a unified rite of passage to certify membership of that tribe, superseding the old tripartite system of GCE, CSE and non-examined pupils.  A curious quirk in this reform is that provision has been made for the preservation of a small sector of elite culture based on the traditional values (literary knowledge rather than practical, abstract rather than practical, ancient rather than modern).  This has been brought about by allowing the private sector of British education to be exempted from the National Curriculum of common core knowledge which is being imposed upon children attending state schools. 

The idea introduced above of the schools as transmitters of culture gives the idea of a conservative system, passing on a predetermined set of values.  This is the case, but it must be remembered that to many pupils (and even more so to some parents) the acculturisation process is a dynamic one, in that progress from one social class to another may be attained through the acquisition of elements of an elite aesthetic culture.  This situation presents the teacher with a moral problem: there may be valid arguments against perpetuating an outdated set of aesthetic values formed by a privileged social class, and yet if, in this less than best of all possible worlds, it is still the case that a bright child from a less privileged class can improve his/her life chances by playing the cultural game, what right do we have to propose a more ‘authentic’ form of culture which we feel to be more in tune with the world we live in?

Culture and the Future

If teachers are to introduce a new culture, the problem that they face is to decide on what form it should take.  It is easy enough to say that Latin and grand opera are relics of a past best forgotten, but we have failed to prescribe what an acceptable form of aesthetic culture should be in the future.  A culture evolves, and the crisis of the 20th century teacher is that s/he is at the end of one period of our national culture, before a new phase has clearly revealed itself.