Lawrence Stenhouse

The Humanities Curriculum Project

The Project has been funded for three years jointly by the Nuffield Foundation and the Schools Council, and has been given the following remit: To offer to schools and to teachers such stimulus, support and materials as may be appropriate to the mounting, as an element in general education of enquiry-based courses, which cross the subject boundaries between English, history, geography, religious studies and social studies. The project is expected to concentrate on such support as will in particular meet the needs of adolescent pupils of average and below average academic ability. This is essentially a curriculum project, that is to say, it is primarily concerned with the content of education. Any observations about classroom strategies and methods must be seen in the setting of the content, from which they logically derive. We understand by the humanities the study of both Tinman behaviour and human experience. The study of human behaviour is broadly the concern of the social sciences: history, Tinman geography, psychology and sociology. In some sense, these studies aspire to examine human behaviour objectively, viewing it as caused or as dictated by purposes which can be understood from observation rather than detailed subjective analysis. The study of Tinman experience is reflected in the arts and in the biographical aspect of history. It is concerned with the subjective or existential aspects of human life, and one important criterion by which judgments of the arts are made is fidelity to human experience.

The Study of Samples and the Study of Cases

*Presidential Address to the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, September 1979.

The humanities curriculum project: The rationale

in short, a controversial issue is one which divides teachers, pupils and parents. Eritishers and Americans do not need to remind one another that in modern pluralist democracies controversial issues abound, Even where there is a widespread consensus of principle, there is disagreement in the interpretation of principles in practice, Most will think war. highly undesirable; but disagreement will flare as soon as we discuss particular wars. Ought the British to have gone into Suez? Should America he in Vie‘narri? What are rights and wrongs of the Arab-Israeli conflict? This is the front line of values: where principles meet practicr,!.

The Relevance of Practice to Theory.

This article will focus on a line of research and development that was initiated by the Humanities Curriculum Project, a British curriculum project, which ran from 1967 to 1972 and which has already been reported in Theory Into Practice (Stenhouse, 1971). The research line in question is one that has been closely associated with the Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE) at the University of East Anglia, and it shares with a number of other initiatives associated with that Centre a tradition which needs some comment if misunderstanding is to be avoided.

An Appeal for Evidence of the Effectiveness of an Alternative Role to that of Neutral Chairman in Promoting Rational Inquiry into Moral Issues: A Reply to John T. Hyland

The Humanities Project did not address itself to moral education as such, nor did it question whether it is legitimate for teachers to influence the moral beliefs and opinions of their pupils. However, it has a relation to the problems as Hyland poses them: it is relevant to the development of rationality and autonomy in students, since it explored experimentally the conditions constraining an appeal to reason in the schools.

Culture and Education

Education and Science. Qualitatively new relations emerged in the history of education of the Republic of Tajikistan by the support of the President of the country Emomali Rahmon during the state independence of the Republic of Tajikistan in order to implement the state policy, which are reflected in the Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan as well as in the laws and other legal acts. Despite the difficulties and troubles of the past time, the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan considers education as one of the priority areas of the country and protects it. In 1991-1992 academic years, the number of general education institutions reached 3179, which 614 of them were primary schools, 634 schools of general compulsory education, 1916 schools of general secondary education, a gymnasium and 14 schools for children with mental and physical disabilities. In 2010, a total number of those facilities reached 3,747, including 540 primary schools, 678 main schools, 2,311 secondary educational institutions. Thus, during this period the number of schools increased by 518. In connection with the transition to self-financing of secondary educational institutions, 113 day schools branches at high schools were opened. At the time of independence a lot of changes have been made to the establishment of new educational institutions and the reconstruction of the existing. Directly with the state support 1200 school buildings designed for 311 thousand students were put in commission in the country. Opening of new modern schools and taking into account the emergence of new methods of teaching various subjects gave a great leap in education. If in the 1991-1992 years, only one new modern school (Gymnasium) was functioning, then in 2010 their number reached 157, 89 gymnasiums (61 public, 28 – not state), 59 high schools (53 state, 6 not state) and 12 private schools covering 70,030 students (including 21,965 girls). The establishment of modern institutions high schools and presidential schools, in particular the Presidential Lyceum a boarding school for gifted children in Dushanbe, the Presidents school for gifted children in Chkalovsk, the Presidential Lyceum named after Abuabdullo Rudaki for gifted children in Tursunzade present the great achievements in the sphere of education since independence. The Presidential school for gifted students in Bokhtar district, the Presidential Lyceum for talented students in Khorog and the Presidential International School for gifted children in Dushanbe will be established at the beginning of 2011-2012 academic years. During the years of independence the financing of secondary educational institutions has also increased and the bulk of financing was given precisely to this area of education. While in 2000 the secondary educational institutions were allocated 27.6 million somoni, in 2010 their funding totaled 707.3 million somoni. Over the period of 2004-2008 406 schools with over 90 thousand places for pupils for a total of 83 million somoni were constructed and put into operation. In 2009, through the involvement of different funding sources (government, investment, private, non-government) 216 school buildings with 40 thousand places for pupils for a total of 124 million somoni were built and put in commission on the eve of Constitution Day of the Republic of Tajikistan. Number of boarding schools is also increased over the independence. While in 1991 the number of schools was limited to 41 and 5 of them were national, in 2010 this number had risen to 78 with 13 of them being national. During Tajikistans sovereignty about 200 arts of textbooks with the number of printed copies of 18 million and the total amount of 72 million somoni have been published. At that time the publication of textbooks for institutions in the Tajik language was completed. Nowadays, textbooks in Kyrgyz, Turkmen and Uzbek languages are being published. 65 primary professional and technical educational institutions are currently functioning in Tajikistan. In the 2010-2011 academic years, students were taught by 1210 teachers and 1077 masters. The funding for secondary professional and technical institutions increased by 22 times since 2000. The number of higher educational institutions since the independence has increased. While in 1991,