Curriculum and values

As pointed out by Graham Orpwood in this encyclopedia, “The curriculum…expresses the purposes, goals and aims for education” (see curriculum; emphasis in original). Inherent in this statement is some notion of what is judged by experts to be important in education. In developing any curriculum, the belief system underpinning the political, cultural, and economic contexts of the system will be represented. However, such representations are very often implicit and often not even recognized by those developing the curriculum.

Curriculum also consists of subject matter content (Orpwood). This content, science in this case, is also linked to values in three ways (Allchin 1998): values that guide scientific research itself, values that enter science through its practitioners, and values that emerge from science (both product and practice).