Flights from the field and the plight of teacher education: a personal perspective

The sociology of the curriculum has been placed at the centre of a narrative of how social and cultural reproduction is effected through the symbolic power of the school. An influential body of critique maintains that the forms of the curriculum are characterized by an ‘arbitrary’ that effectively confines access to knowledge to those students who possess the code required for its acquisition. The insights of this critique, particularly as represented by Bourdieu and Bernstein, are invaluable. A realist ontology demands, however, that the necessary elements of education, including respect for reality, knowledge, and truth, should be an integral part of the school curriculum. It is concluded that the possibility of reconciling the arbitrary with the necessary should be grasped.