Community and School Acceptance of the Secondary School Core Curriculum in Virginia in the 1930s and 1940s

Abstract

 The purpose of this study is to examine the core curriculum reform of secondary education in Virginia during the 1930s and 1940s, and to identify the characteristics of the acceptance of this reform by communities and schools.

 There have been many studies in Japan and the United States of the core curriculum reform in Virginia, known in Japan as the "Virginia Plan." However, previous studies have focused on the theoretical characteristics and general policy outlines of the Virginia Plan, without examining its acceptance in local communities and schools. Therefore, this study selected two communities, Richmond and Charlottesville, as the main target areas for consideration, with a focus on the secondary education curriculum.

 This study analyzed and clarified the following three points.

 First, when the State Board of Education described its core curriculum, there were always two different policies. One was to create core curriculum areas that fully integrated the subjects, and the other was to relate the subjects while maintaining the subject framework. In addition, the operating manuals on implementation included both subject-separated and subject-integrated implementation.

 Second, to look at the curriculum situation at the community and school level, the study focused on the cities of Richmond and Charlottesville. While Richmond's curriculum-related documents did not reveal acceptance of the secondary-school core curriculum at the subject structure level, discussions hinting at the core curriculum philosophy were found in annual reports. In Charlottesville, on the other hand, a subject-connected unit on "health and safety" was developed, while retaining the framework of English, social studies, science, and mathematics subjects. Thus, the influence of the core curriculum was in reality exerted indirectly within the subject areas while maintaining the subject frameworks.

 Third, the characteristics observed in Richmond and Charlottesville were found to be shared upon reviewing information from other communities and educational journals. The core curriculum practices in secondary education were not oriented toward subject integration, but rather toward subject-related practices.

 Based on the above, it can be concluded that the State Board of Education's core curriculum reform was accepted as an attempt at a curriculum that was subject-based and subject-collaborative, when relying on the documents handled in this study. As such, the reform was implemented as a way to encourage subject collaboration, rather than as a complete integration of multiple subjects around social issues, as indicated by the Secondary Education Virginia Plan circa 1938-1941.