Knowledge or competencies? A controversial question in contemporary curriculum debates

Abstract

The question of knowledge versus competency in contemporary curricula is controversial. In this article we endeavour to show that the controversy has much to do with the way society is conceptualized as either a class differentiated or a function differentiated society. We examine Michael Young’s input to the curriculum debate concerning the question of knowledge with the aim of showing that his knowledge-centred approach, which considers class and status to be the main structuring influences on society, does not address the problems captured by a function differentiated perspective (society differentiated in function systems). We demonstrate that to understand knowledge adequately in the context of the challenges of a modern function differentiated society it is better conceptualized within a competency context. Finally, we argue that criticism from a class perspective does not adequately target specific problems arising from function differentiation.

During the last 20 years, we have witnessed a shift in the focus of curriculum development towards student outcomes (Criblez et al., 2009; Klieme et al., 2003; Scholl, 2012; Ziener, 2008; Ziener and Kessler, 2012). In the European context, the shift has been promoted by the EU’s second-wave-policy during 2000–2010 (Lawn and Grek, 2012: 83ff.). The period is often referred to as the time in which focus changed from what students are being taught to what they learn (European Commission, 2004).

The European Commission’s working paper Schools for the 21st Century clarifies and stresses the desired movement from content goals to learning goals. The paper outlines how member states can redefine their curricula. Rather than creating lists of ‘inputs’ in the form of knowledge each school must pass on to the student, a curriculum should specify ‘outcomes’ in terms of knowledge, skills and competencies that the students are expected to develop during the course of schooling (European Commission, 2007b: 5).

The shift during the first decade of the 21st century from content goals to learning goals is also a shift from the content-based curriculum ‘that has dominated the curriculum scene in most countries’ educational histories’ (Englund, 2015: 48). As a result, the curriculum also changes from being a conditional programme under content and process control to being a goal-formulated expectational programme evaluated by outcome (Bachmann and Sivesind, 2012: 249; Hopmann, 2003). Focus shifts toward expectations of students’ acquisition of knowledge, skills, competencies and attitudes (European Commission, 2007a). Within educational design research, this has been coined a shift from forward curriculum design to backward curriculum design (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005). In the field of curriculum theory, the shift from content goals and knowledge to learning goals and competencies has led to controversies and debate about issues concerning the role of content and knowledge in curricula: What happens to knowledge when goals are formulated in competency terms (Englund et al., 2012; Young and Lambert, 2014)?

In this article, we want to show that the controversy over knowledge versus competencies in large part has to do with the way society is understood; that is, whether it is seen as differentiated by strata or functions. One of the major voices in this debate is Michael Young, a proponent of knowledge as the key term in curriculum development:

The question for the sociology of education becomes (. . .) to ask what kinds of knowledge should be the basis of the curriculum and how can they be made accessible to the majority of students (Young, 2008: 10).

In the following, we firstly examine Michael Young’s substantial input to the curriculum debate. Then we explain the theoretical basis for the sociological distinction between a conceptualization of society as either a class differentiated or a function differentiated society. This leads to a better understanding of the OECD competency approach to curriculum development. This clarification includes an account for the learning-to-learn agenda that motivates the competency approach. Finally, we argue that the way knowledge is understood within the competency context is more adequate in responding to challenges of modern society, and that challenges to curriculum theory from a class perspective do not capture the specific problems addressed by a modern function differentiated society.

Michael Young’s argument for knowledge

Michael Young is, within the academic area of sociology of the curriculum, an important and influential voice. He stands for the importance of knowledge in curricula. He observes that recent curriculum reforms ‘are leading to a reduction or even an “evacuation” of content’ (Young, 2014: 90). Young’s interest in curriculum theory stems from his background in sociology of education, and is motivated by a recognition of philosophy’s inappropriate dominance in curriculum issues (Young, 2015: 822). From a sociological perspective, he argues that we currently witness a crisis in curriculum theory (Young, 2013: 101, 103), and he ascribes it to the issue of knowledge. He asserts that students have an entitlement to knowledge, but relevantly asks: ‘what knowledge?’ (Young, 2013: 109; Young and Lambert, 2014: 11, 16, 23, 25).

Young not only claims that students are entitled to knowledge. He also asserts that the knowledge students acquire in schools has to be – of course, you might say – ‘important’ knowledge and that curriculum theory should start with the question of knowledge (Young, 2013: 103). He states important knowledge to be powerful knowledge and knowledge of the powerful, and these are key concepts in Young’s contributions to the current debate on curriculum. In other words Young not only argues for a greater emphasis on content in curricula, and a greater emphasis on knowledge, he also argues for powerful knowledge and knowledge of the powerful (Young and Lambert, 2014: ch. 3).

With reference to Karl Marx, Young understands the concept of knowledge of the powerful as the kind of knowledge people with power in society have the opportunity to define and possess; that is, the knowledge of the ruling class (Young, 2008: 14; Young and Lambert, 2014: 72). By powerful knowledge, he understands the intellectual power certain kinds of knowledge offer students and people with access to it (Young, 2008: 14).

With reference to the dialectical-materialist psychologist Lev Vygotsky, Young bases his understanding of powerful knowledge on a distinction between two types of knowledge, namely context-dependent knowledge and context-independent knowledge (or conceptual knowledge). Context-dependent knowledge is the everyday common-sense knowledge that students acquire in their daily life, and context-independent knowledge is the kind of knowledge that makes it possible for students to move beyond such context-dependent knowledge. Young explains that ‘conceptual knowledge (. . .) is not tied to particular cases and therefore provides a basis for generalizations and making claims to universality’ (Young, 2008: 15).

Vygotsky is of the opinion that the production of consciousness takes place in two qualitatively different ways. It happens partly through direct perception of the outside world, providing empirical knowledge, and through relationships with the outside world’s phenomena and their mutual relations and historicity, providing theoretical knowledge. This distinction is inspired by Marx’s view of the world as a double world. Marx distinguishes between an apparent world and a real world; between appearance and being (Marx, 1969 (1845)). In this view, it is possible to observe the world, but to really understand it, one must observe what is below the surface, namely its special traits of being. According to this understanding, it is possible to observe what is below the surface through scientific, theoretical and analytical work (Vygotsky, 1978) (Rasmussen, 2004: 201–210).

Recognition of the empirical world requires activity that transforms the object to a subjective form. Real recognition is achieved only when the learner learns theoretical knowledge; that is, when he or she not only knows that the leaves on the trees change colour in autumn and eventually fall off (appearance), but also has insight into the biological laws of this phenomenon (being). The latter understanding requires scientific knowledge. Because theoretical knowledge cannot be observed in the same way as empirical knowledge, it is the mission of education to introduce students to the cultural products that are relevant to society (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1985: 61ff.).

Young parallels the concepts of context-dependent knowledge and context-independent knowledge with Vygotsky’s concepts of empirical knowledge and theoretical knowledge. In a further elaboration of this argument, with Vygotsky Young says that – except in special cases – context-independent knowledge

requires curriculum structures located in schools and the support of teachers with specialist knowledge and links with universities that enable them to select, pace, and sequence contents (Young, 2008: 15).

Context-independent knowledge, like theoretical knowledge, must be communicated, it cannot be acquired directly as is the case for empirical knowledge. Therefore, Young believes that some types of knowledge (context-independent, theoretical knowledge) are more worthwhile than others, and that it must be reflected in the curriculum as powerful knowledge (Young, 2008: 13). In accordance with Vygotsky, he also refers to concept-based knowledge as differentiated from experiential knowledge as the basis for ‘higher forms of thought’ (Young and Lambert, 2014: 97–98). Moreover, he stresses that the main purpose of schools is ‘to enable all students to acquire knowledge that takes them beyond their experience’ (Young and Lambert, 2014: 10).

In other words, from a class perspective Young criticizes current curricula for neglecting or downplaying content and knowledge in curricula, saying that context-independent knowledge ‘is knowledge many will not have access to at home, among friends, or in the communities in which they live’ (Young and Lambert, 2014: 10). First, he claims that for curricula to be qualified, they must comprise powerful knowledge, which is conceptual curricular knowledge as distinguished from experiential and practical everyday knowledge. Second, he argues that students are entitled to powerful knowledge if they are not to be excluded from the societal strata of the powerful, thus reducing their life potential and barring them from access to the intellectual elite, and possible upwards social mobility.

It is obvious that Young’s criticism of current curricula is formulated from a class perspective of modern society. In the spirit of Marx, he understands modern society as a class-divided society predicated on an understanding of society as differentiated in strata or classes. According to prominent sociologists this understanding of society is an anachronism that is challenged by theories of society that do not conceptualize society as differentiated in strata, but rather in structures (Bell, 1976) or system/lifeworld-distinctions (Habermas, 1981), or probably most prominently in function systems (Luhmann, 1984):

Around 1800 the concept of class was used in almost hopeless vagueness and ambiguity (. . .) Function differentiation therefore requires a much sharper differentiation between the social system as a whole and the systems of interaction among those present (Luhmann, 1985: 121 and 130). ¹

Thus, our main criticism of Young is informed by the close link between his understanding of knowledge (the kind of knowledge he argues for) and his understanding of society as a class society.

Stratification or function differentiation

In the following, we introduce sociological theory of function differentiation in order to demonstrate that the way society is conceptualized influences the controversy over knowledge and competencies.

With concern (or perhaps even worry) the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann notes that current issues are often considered in the light of the past: Our current society is understood from the perspective of sociologists of the 17th and 18th century. This implies that society is seen as a stratified society (Luhmann, 1997; Moeller, 2012: vii). Luhmann is of the opinion that society’s form of differentiation determines its certain type (Luhmann, 2013: 87). He also states that it is possible to distinguish different types of society by looking at their respective forms of differentiation, and he sees society’s differentiation as a result of social development.

Luhmann distinguishes between four forms of societal differentiation (Luhmann, 2013: 12–14). In the 17th and 18th centuries, differentiation by strata became the dominant form of differentiation, after having replaced differentiation by segment and centre-periphery differentiation. Luhmann likens segment differentiation to archaic or tribal societies like Native American societies in North America. Further differentiation in a segment-differentiated society means creation of more and separate segments (tribes, houses). Individuals are identified primarily through the segment to which they belong, and exclusion from a segment means either inclusion in another segment or expulsion. Segment differentiation was replaced by centre/periphery differentiation. Ancient Rome is an example of a centre/periphery-differentiated society. This kind of society allows some kind of hierarchy and exclusion, and inclusion can happen by relocating to a segment in the periphery.

The horizontal centre/periphery differentiation is followed by (and often combined with) a vertical class differentiation; that is, by a society stratified in classes. Stratified societies create inequality, but in a form that is not like the centre/periphery-differentiated societies. In stratified societies, inequality is linked to rank and acceptance of differences in wealth and to an upper class – the aristocracy – that despite its smallness can claim its position. Social order is a direct result of differences in social status and status is obtained through birth. There is similarity within each layer, but inequality between layers. In a stratified society, a person can only belong to one stratum and is excluded from all others. Luhmann ascribes the stratified society to the period from the 16th to the 18th centuries – the late Middle Ages and early Modernity – the time when Modernity is born.

Even though Luhmann finds it difficult to date the exact beginning of function differentiation, he saw function differentiation as the decisive characteristic of modern societies that emerge from around 1800 (Luhmann, 2013: ch. 4.7). From then on, society’s differentiation in function systems is emerging as the prevailing form of differentiation. It occurred as a result of structural changes in 17th century Europe that particularly affected the nobility because their difference from the rest of the people gradually became devalued. It is worth noting that it did not happen because of competition from another upcoming stratum (Luhmann, 2013: 68). It happened as a result of evolutionary processes in society, with the differentiation of function systems such as religion, science, justice, arts and policy starting around the European renaissance. It accelerated because of the emerging differentiation of the economic system in the latter half of the 18th century. When Karl Marx and others focused on social classes and a distinction between a possessing class and a working class, it is the result of the description of the totality of society from the particular perspective of the economic system; that is, from the perspective of one function system. Social classes become related to individual careers, and class membership is reproduced by career: ‘career had become the most important mechanism for integrating individuals and society’ (Luhmann, 2013: 86). When Luhmann deals with ‘class society’, he does so as a historically interested sociologist, believing that modern society can no longer be understood as differentiated by class. He is not blind to inequalities and injustices in modern society, but as we will show in the next section he simply does not think that modern society is primarily differentiated by class, nor that it is hierarchically organized and determined by class membership.

Function systems’ reference to their environment

As already said, it is Luhmann’s opinion that modern society is function differentiated, and he emphasizes that each of the individual function systems establishes its own forms of participation, that are essentially neutral in terms of stratification. Each of society’s function systems has three – and only three – different system references. They can refer to society as a whole, to other function systems and to themselves. To distinguish between these three system references, reference to society as a whole is named function, reference to other subsystems is named performance, and a system’s reference to itself is called reflection (Luhmann, 2013: 96; 2017: 804–807).

The function of a function system relates to society as such, and the function manages exclusively the function of the particular function system. It means that the function system of education carries out education and teaching for society as a whole. The performance of a function system is related to society’s other function systems, so that the educational system provides services to society’s other function systems in the form of learning outcomes in a broad sense. Therefore, the maintenance and relevance of the education system depends on its ability to provide performance that enables other function systems to deliver their respective performance. Reflection allows function systems to consider their own function and performance.

In a function differentiated society, inclusion as well as exclusion no longer relates to class, but to function systems. Function systems are in principle neutral in terms of strata or class. Consequently, the reform ideas in the beginning of the 19th century all aimed at breaking down social privilege through an offer of education for all (Von Humboldt, 1969 (1809)). At that time, children’s lives and their opportunities in life (life chances) were no longer considered to be primarily predetermined by birth, and it became insufficient to equip children with learning outcomes corresponding to their social status. Increasingly, children’s lives were related to how they perform, more than to who they are, or rather who their parents are.

In functionally differentiated societies, stratification in the form of class still exists, although class is regarded as a by-product of the dynamics of function systems (Luhmann, 2013: 12). Stratification does not disappear when society passes into function differentiation as the dominant principle of differentiation, but stratification now relates to career and mobility that depends on education rather than birth.

Young’s argument for powerful knowledge as knowledge of the powerful is an attempt to level off the hierarchy of stratification by mobility. Within this stratified understanding of society, career and mobility were seen as important mechanisms for integration and inclusion into society, not least because of the hopeful expectation that social mobility will have upward rather than downward direction.

Inclusion, however, no longer occurs via class membership or ascension to higher classes, but through inclusion in society’s function systems. After compulsory school, inclusion can take place in continued participation in the educational system (youth education, post-compulsory education such as general or vocational upper secondary education), or it can be in the economic system in terms of employment. However, it can also be in other function systems to the extent that students leave school with the prerequisites for meeting the inclusion criteria of these systems. Function systems presuppose the potential inclusion of all, but exclude those who do not meet the requirements of a given system.

To continue in the educational system or to be included in the labour market sets particular requirements for students’ learning outcomes due to these systems’ criteria for inclusion. Hardly anyone would deny that the students’ individual as well as social backgrounds play a part in their school success and hence in their ability to comply with inclusion criteria of other systems. We still experience immense differences between students from families with different socio-economic characteristics, affecting the students’ access to the opportunities of society, which is well documented – from the Coleman report to the PISA-studies (Coleman et al., 1966; OECD, 2016). ‘Thanks to innumerable statistical studies, we are well informed about this stratum-specific selectivity’, Luhmann explains, but he stresses that this should not lead to the misunderstanding that these differences in social inequality can be ascribed to social class (Luhmann, 2013: 86).

The function systems in the education system’s and the school’s social environment are oriented towards their future. Students should become prepared for a future world, which is largely unknown. For this reason, the concept of future becomes essential in pedagogy. In the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, images of the future were national and often with the perspective of the unity of a people. Today, the educational system is largely globalized and the images of future less nationalistic (Binder, 2012: 326). Many countries and international organizations like the OECD, UNESCO, the World Bank and the EU are intensely engaged in reform policy that tries to predict future student competencies in what is named a ‘volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world’ (Schleicher, 2015: 1). ² Such reform initiatives are engaged in meeting challenges that come from the need to adapt schools’ curricula to a world of rapid economic and social change. The goal is to prepare students ‘for jobs that have not yet been created, for technologies that have not yet been invented, to solve problems that have not yet been anticipated’ (OECD, 2018). Such challenges do not call for intellectual regression and for thinking in terms of a stratified society divided into classes of oppressors and oppressed or the powerful and the powerless.

Content as competencies

Two main arguments for the competency agenda in curriculum development can be found in the inclusion criteria of society’s function systems. One is related to an increasing orientation towards future, and the other is related to the lifelong learning paradigm and the learning-to-learn agenda. In the following sections we will go through both these arguments using examples from contemporary curriculum planning, analyses and debates. The basic point is that a function differentiated society is an evolutionarily unpredictable society, in which a focus on fixed knowledge represents a dead end, and that it is a society in which the individual is included in and excluded from many different function systems, which demands abilities to reorient that, which is already known, into new contexts. These social demands cannot be accounted for by a content-based curriculum position. Furthermore, criticizing the competency-oriented curriculum position from a notion of society as a class society is equal to criticizing the current society from yesterday’s position.

Orientation towards future

In an attempt to meet the inclusion criteria from different function systems, as well as new demands to certain kinds of knowledge in a world characterized by overwhelming amounts of knowledge, attention is given to competencies that are more than just knowledge. OECD has been a leading force in promoting competencies in contemporary curricula starting with the DeSeCo (Definition and Selection of Competencies) project running from 1997 to 2003. The project aimed at answering the question:

What competencies – apart from reading, writing, and computing – are necessary for individuals to lead an overall successful life and for society to face the challenges of the present and the future? (OECD, 2003: 2)

The DeSeCo project defines competency as ‘the ability to successfully meet complex demands in a particular context’ (OECD, 2003: 2).

The tendency towards competency-driven curricula also found support from the EU with the European Reference Framework for Lifelong Learning (European Commission, 2007a). With this framework, the European Commission wanted to strengthen key competencies, defined as a composition of knowledge, skills and attitudes. In 2016, OECD launched The Future of Education and Skills 2030 project. This project sees competency as a holistic and dynamic concept that implies knowledge, skills, attitudes and values (OECD, 2018: 4). It aims at developing a common language for curriculum development by building broad categories of key competencies by adding three more categories of so-called transformative competencies to the DeSeCo competencies, (interacting in socially heterogeneous groups, acting autonomously, and using tools interactively) namely creating new value, reconciling tensions and dilemmas, and taking responsibility (OECD, 2018: 5).

We do not agree that the knowledge dimension is devalued in a competency-based curriculum (Leat et al., 2012; Scholl, 2012: 121). Instead, we argue that the knowledge dimension has changed from being the core of a curriculum to being a means for acquisition of competencies in line with skills, attitudes and values. Competency has become the core of the curriculum, but knowledge is not devalued or excluded from competency-based curricula; knowledge has been given a new meaning and a new position. Knowledge in competency-based curricula is – in very general terms – coined as content that is estimated to be of relevance for the promotion of the students’ competencies.

The learning-to-learn agenda

Another major driver for the turn to competencies in curriculum development has been the learning-to-learn formula, as well as the challenges for curriculum making arising from complexity created by the current massive expansion of knowledge.

As early as in 1979, Luhmann and Karl Eberhard Schoor – in their book Problems of Reflection in the System of Education – attracted attention to their empirical observation that the learning-to-learn formula was entering the education system during the 1970s’ lifelong learning initiatives. ³ Luhmann and Schoor explain that Wilhelm von Humboldt was already aware of the learning-to-learn formula, which he likened to what happens when students learn something. In his article Königsberg Schulplan, Humboldt writes that the student, when learning, is ‘(. . .) engaged in two ways, initially with learning itself, then with learning to learn’ (Von Humboldt, 1969 (1809): 170). ⁴ Humboldt stresses that when students learn something, they simultaneously learn to learn (Helmke, 2013: 40; Luhmann, 2002: 194). This distinction made by Humboldt is an early recognition of and adaptation to a function differentiated society. The ability to learn (Lernfähigkeit) as something that can be learned is to be seen as an expression of the function of the educational system. Meanwhile, learning something, such as knowledge and useful general abilities (verwendbaren Könnens), expresses the performance of the educational system (Luhmann and Schorr, n.d.: 99). Luhmann and Schoor take it a step further and claim that learning-to-learn in the 20th century has become an aim in itself, on top of aiming to learn something, due to demands for lifelong learning.

Learning is no longer only a matter of learning something (particular), but ‘to be permanently prepared to deal with the new by changing learned patterns of expectations’ (Luhmann and Schorr, n.d.: 96). In OECD’s curriculum development framework The Future of Education and Skills 2030, Humboldt’s as well as Luhmann’s understanding that learning something and learning-to-learn do not exclude each other, can be observed. The one perspective understands the ‘something’ in education as knowledge, while the other perspective understands the ‘something’ as knowledge acquisition or learning as such; that is, as learning how to learn in its own right (see also Schleicher, 2018: 237).

Learning something

The OECD project is clearly – as the title of the project indicates – directed at the future in its attempt to answer the question: ‘What knowledge, skills, attitudes and values will today’s students need to thrive and shape their world in 2030?’ (OECD, 2018: 2). This means that both the ‘knowledge’ and the ‘learning’ perspectives are seen from a future-oriented perspective and with focus on the learning-to-learn formula. The OECD framework determines curriculum content that dually promotes the learning-to-learn perspective. Both as literacy and as knowledge of the disciplines.

The acquisition of different kinds of foundational competencies such as literacy, numeracy, digital literacy, data literacy and health literacy as well as foreign languages is seen as a prerequisite for students’ ability to cope with and thrive into the future. However, such literacies are also seen as fundamental qualifications for learning and for learning-to-learn. Knowledge of the disciplines and the school subjects is still considered important as the raw material, through which new knowledge is shaped in addition to the paradox that it takes knowledge to learn knowledge (Luhmann, 1995: 328). It is a fundamental characteristic of learning, that new knowledge must be linked to something the learner already knows in order to be accessible for learning (Istance and Dumont, 2010: 323).

The Future of Education and Skills 2030 learning framework does not question the importance of knowledge as such, but it discusses what kinds of knowledge are important to teach in a world where the amount of knowledge continuously expands – both in its extent and in the speed at which it is produced. The virtual explosion of knowledge makes it difficult, if not impossible, to point to a definite content in education. The content of teaching, as well as the criteria for selection of content, become contingent.

One suggestion is that if new knowledge or teaching content is to enter a curriculum, it must be stated which knowledge can be taken out (Norges Offentlige Udredninger NOU, 2015: 41). This is a suggestion that handles the content question of the curriculum as a zero sum play, which it is not. Another well-known suggestion to overcome the overload of content (Stoffhuberei) in curricula is the idea of using the principle of examples as representative of categories, suggested in 1959 by Wolfgang Klafki. Following this principle, content in education can be selected, so that it has representative value; that is, it gives the students deeper knowledge and understanding of a topic as a category (Klafki, 1983 (1979/1959); 2001(1985): 166).

Klafki pursues the general consideration of categorical understanding of a topic as the idea that teaching should be concerned with clear examples of how science can clarify and solve individual and societal problems, and where the boundaries of science can be drawn. He then suggests that a considerable amount of content in syllabi, curricula and in teaching must include problems that are typical of a certain period, so called epochal key problems (Klafki, 1997: 224). Klafki points to epochal key problems such as peace, environment, social inequality, new technologies, developing versus highly developed countries, employment versus unemployment, social injustice, migration, mass media and others (Klafki, 1997: 224). Furthermore, in line with Humboldt, Klafki is of the opinion that the students taking part in teaching/learning-processes acquire knowledge of how to act as reflective and active subjects in a historical time, including learning how to learn (Klafki, 1997: 225).

The OECD learning framework for 2030 does not use the term epochal key problems with respect to knowledge disciplines. Instead, it uses terms like key concepts and big ideas in difference to detailed knowledge. Like epochal key problems, big ideas and key concepts are seen as an aid in addressing the problem of curriculum overload; they are meant to be generalizations, principles or key concepts of a discipline, which students are expected to understand. Big ideas, key disciplinary concepts and key aspects of a topic are seen as particularly important themes because of their transferable value across disciplines (Fadel et al., 2015: 81–82; OECD, 2018: 6).

In other words, competency-based curricula focus on both knowledge and the students’ ability to use knowledge: ‘Put simply, the world no longer rewards people just for what they know (. . .) but for what they can do with what they know’ (Schleicher, 2015). These intentions are followed up by demands for deep learning as opposed to surface learning. In the research field, there seems to be a consensus that deep learning is significant for students’ development within and across disciplines (Fullan et al., 2018; Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2014; Petty, 2009: 29). Deep learning focuses on students’ understanding of discipline-specific concepts and contexts that make them able to link new ideas to already known concepts and principles.

Learning how to learn

Over recent decades, we have also seen a growing interest in promoting specific learning competencies related to learning as such. Students are increasingly expected to demonstrate persistence and to implement and live up to expectations of their own mastery, planning, follow-through and evaluation of their own learning processes. Specifically, concepts like self-regulated learning, metacognition, learning-to-learn strategies and resilience have become pervasive (Fadel et al., 2015; Fullan et al., 2018; Norges Offentlige Udredninger NOU, 2014, 2015). These are concepts that have to do with developing the students’ ability to learn as a competency in itself.

Self-regulated learning means that students are able to take initiatives and control their own learning processes. Self-regulated students are good at managing time, setting higher learning goals and higher standards (De Corte, 2010: 50–51). Metacognition is thinking about thinking or thinking about learning; it is also called second order thinking. The term metacognition is commonly used with respect to selection and monitoring processes as well as more general activities of reflecting on and directing the students’ own thinking (Committee on Defining Deeper Learning and 21st Century Skills, 2012). It has been proposed that metacognition is taught with the aim of encouraging students to take charge of their own learning. As such, it is well documented that students’ active participation in and reflection on their own learning processes promotes learning (Helmke, 2013: 230; Petty, 2009: 275). Learning strategies can be seen as a help to improve students’ learning in an active and targeted way. Such strategies are considered to support reflections on why they learn, what they learn and how they learn.

It is commonly acknowledged that endurance is a considerable characteristic of learning, because learning takes time and can be boring as well as demanding. Resilience has become a commonly used concept for the ability to overcome obstacles in a positive manner, and for processes of adapting to adversity and to different sources of stress in the learning processes (Fadel et al., 2015: 137; OECD, 2016).

Content in contemporary curricula

The learning-to-learn agenda, which Luhmann and Schoor so perceptively noticed 50 years ago, has not excluded content from curricula, but it has changed the perception of content. Content is clearly distinguished into two different parts, focused on supporting further learning. One part is divided into the aspects of foundational literacies and disciplinary knowledge, and the second part consists of subjective abilities.

The first part and its two aspects are well known in curriculum theory and curriculum development. After the invention of letterpress printing, foundational literacies (in addition to a student’s mother tongue) were determined to be Latin and Greek, because those languages gave access to relevant literature and knowledge. Today, access to new knowledge is predicated on literacies such as literacy, numeracy, digital literacy, data literacy and foreign languages.

Due to the problem of overload of knowledge and the complexity that follows, content in curricula becomes a question of decision-making. A logical consequence is that the decided-upon content also can be changed and therefore different. In other words, the criteria for selection of content – as well as the selected content – become contingent on circumstance, so that every decision is contingent and relative (Luhmann, 1995: 106). For a long time, the curriculum content of school subjects was determined with reference to educational standards within the scientific disciplines. Today, the challenge from the explosion of knowledge causes problems with overloaded curricula, as mentioned previously. Today, content is proposed selected so that it supports the students’ learning-to-learn ability. Big ideas, generalizations, principles or key concepts of the scientific disciplines can as said be seen as an answer to that challenge.

Furthermore, countries that have introduced competency goal-driven curricula largely leave the question of content open for teachers to operationalize independently. Content goals are generally left contingent on teacher judgement as to what might be deemed relevant in order to promote the students’ acquisition of competencies. Knowledge goals are intended to guide the teachers’ selection of relevant content based on the teachers’ educational competencies and conscience, though it is imperative that the content does not become a matter of chance or is neglected (Wahlström, 2016: 120).

The second part focuses on the development of specific subjective qualities, which are important for learning and the ability to learn. Among other ways, the ability to learn can be learned when the intentional teaching pays specific attention to specific elements or techniques of importance for learning such as self-regulated learning, metacognition and resilience.

Self-regulated learning aims at developing the students’ ability to take initiatives and control their own learning processes, to plan, follow and evaluate their own learning processes as a basis for further learning. Metacognition deals with the students’ ability to do reflections on their own thinking and learning by getting used to asking questions like: What have I learned? Why do I learn? How have I learned what I have learned? Resilience is about how to handle stress and resistance in a positive way if it – as it often does – occurs during learning processes.

Conclusion

Young’s criticism of neglect of content in competency-oriented curricula and his argument for inclusion of powerful knowledge is formulated within a class perspective of society. This perspective makes it natural to conclude in normative corrective terms of injustice, exploitation and suppression as expressed by Luhmann 20 years ago in a prescient article:

If we see stratification we will tend to see (. . .) injustice, exploitation and suppression; and we may wish to find corrective devices or at least to formulate normative schemes and moral injunctions that stimulate a rhetoric of critique and protest. If on the other side, we see function differentiation, our description will point to autonomy of the function systems, to their high degree of indifference, coupled to high sensitivity and irritability, in very specific respects that vary from system to system (Luhmann, 1997: 74).

From our point of view, Young represents a normative and moralist tendency in curriculum theory, which does not capture the challenges of a modern, function differentiated society. His argument for a certain kind of knowledge writes itself into a traditional forward curriculum design approach that takes its departure in content. The forward design approach has been the major tradition in curriculum development, struggling with issues concerning selection as well as criteria for selection of content in a world where the amount of knowledge has expanded exponentially.

Curriculum development struggles with today’s challenge from rapid economic and social change and is no longer concerned only with knowledge, but also with skills, attitudes and values. Of course, knowledge – in the form of a well-organized knowledge base acquired by students – is important and necessary (Helmke, 2013: 41), but it is insufficient in itself. Knowledge is an important prerequisite for learning, but in a time with Google and other search engines that ‘know everything’, it becomes just as important what students can do with (their) knowledge. Students must be able to use knowledge to seek relevant new knowledge, use knowledge in new situations, and connect knowledge in new combinations. The demand from society’s function systems is not only that students possess knowledge regardless of whether it is powerful knowledge, but also that they can bring their acquired knowledge to use in different functional contexts and in unpredictable futures; that they are competent.

Criticism of contemporary competency-oriented curricula, which is based on grand masters of sociology who think of society as class differentiated with classes of oppressors and oppressed, does not capture the specific problems arising from function differentiation. This kind of criticism does not address the challenges of social mobility and inclusion. Function differentiation as the major principle of differentiation of modern society allows for conceptualization of social mobility and inclusion in new function systems through education. It does not mean a goodbye to criticism, but it means that for criticism to be relevant and exhaustive, it must – paraphrasing Luhmann (1997: 77) – stop exploring the old mazes with diminishing returns and instead move into new ones.