Are the traditional curricula dispensable? A feature pattern to compare different types of curriculum and a critical view of educational standards and essential curricula in Germany

Abstract

The results of international school achievement studies had major educational implications in many European countries, especially for the control concepts of education. This becomes exemplarily apparent in Germany, in which a large-scale educational reform was set in motion. Thereby, the education system was set from an input- to output-oriented control. Part of this reform involved the adoption of new curriculum types. A striking feature of this enactment was, among other things, that while it initiated studies of school curricula, it was shown at the same time that there are currently no established sophisticated theoretical tools for analysis of curricula - neither in Europe in general nor in Germany in particular. In this article, therefore, a curriculum-theoretical instrument is presented, which allows a systematic analysis of the structure of curricula. This instrument was developed based on German curricula, which are taken as examples. There should be generalisable impetus for European curriculum research.