International Response: What Counts as Curriculum?

When I think “Curriculum Studies,” I think, What knowledge is of most worth? (Pinar, 2012) or Whose knowledge is of most worth? (Apple, 2004). In these questions, and the field as I understand it, the question of knowledge is central (Green, 2017). It immediately strikes me then that these chapters may not all fall into the curriculum studies field I know. Then again, the Latin origin of the term “curriculum”—to run the course (Pinar, 2012)—also signifies the field as related to a notion of a broadly defined “course.” Is it that in these chapters “curriculum” is the course, and the topics covered relate to the fairness of that course for rural students? As I write this, I am on extended fieldwork in remote communities in the far west of the state of New South Wales, on the Australian continent, and on the lands of First Nations peoples (whom I will not name to maintain the anonymity of the research sites). The town I am in now has about 700 residents and a K-12 school with about 65 students. It is about 180 kilometers (111 miles) to the nearest small town, itself the same distance to what may be termed a large center, and of the three nearby towns two are on dirt roads impassable after rain. Here I am immersed in the perspectives on education, and the knowledge system it is founded upon, of those positioned as falling behind in the curriculum race. Whose rules are the race run by though, what is the course, are there obstacles, and how are the winners determined?