4.1.1 Academic discipline design

This approach to organizing curriculum is essentially a post-second World War phenomenon, gaining greatest support in the 1960s. The academic disciplines design emphasizes the role played by those distinct entities called academic disciplines. These can be clearly delineated in terms of knowledge, skills and values.

Thus, in a school setting, the content of this design would focus on what an academic does, that is, how a biologist, historian, mathematician actually works at that discipline. That is, how the disciplinarian thinks, what research is done, how that research is carried out, how data are analyzed, how research is reported, and so forth. The result, it is hoped, is that the schools would produce mini versions of academic disciplinarians.