The effects of educational reform on the content and status of the social subjects in England and Wales and the USA: A case study

Over the past decade educational reform has been taking place in the USA and in England and Wales. This paper traces the political pressures to change the social subjects curriculum on both sides of the Atlantic. In England and Wales the new National Curriculum aims to raise educational standards and to increase accountability through a national assessment system. In the USA the Federal Government has set to work on establishing national goals. There is evidence in both countries that the new curricula are emerging from a political process which imposes content and structures upon teachers with little consultation. The paper concentrates on how the social studies curriculum has been affected in this process. It explores the politics of curricular reform by comparing events in the USA and England and Wales and outlines the ways, particularly in the British context, in which the teaching profession has explored the limits of its power and has fought back against central control to make its voice heard.