The poetics and politics of curriculum as representation

Abstract

The notion of knowledge that is expressed in current notions of curriculum is fundamentally realist. Curriculum is not, however, as the realist notion implies, a site of transmission of knowledge conceived as a mere revelation of the ‘real’. Curriculum is itself a representation: not only a site in which signs that are produced in other places circulate, but also a place of production of signs in its own right. To conceive of curriculum as representation means to highlight the work of its production. There is a place here for a poetics of curriculum. However, to understand the curriculum as representation means also to emphasise its political effects. Representation is always authorised representation: the text that constitutes curriculum is not simply a text; it is a text of power. To conceive of curriculum as representation implies to see it simultaneously, inseparably, as a poetics and as a politics. © 1999 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.