2023/3s, стр. 72 - 86

KNOWLEDGE IN THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT: SOCIAL DIMENSIONS AND SPECIFICS

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Abstract. The article explores knowledge and curriculum creation as one of the key elements of the educational process. The types of knowledge, their hierarchical structuring and the social connotations behind this are presented. The main research questions of the article relate to how learning knowledge becomes a mediator of power relations and why and how knowledge itself changes over time. Basic principles that underlie the development of the curriculum are shown in the article, as well as various historical examples of the inclusion of new knowledge are discussed. Curriculum analysis and related patterns and practices draw attention to seemingly neutral knowledge, delineating important interactions with social relations and order, with institutional processes and, above all, with power and social control. The curriculum is actually a centrally directed social phenomenon organizing the process of personal development in education. Curriculum and knowledge, through which on the one hand a certain rules and values are imposed and legitimized as ocial, and on the other hand knowledge is stratified, means that certain specialties, schools or training are valued as more attractive and significant than others. The conclusion that knowledge is characterized by social and political determination within the limits of the specifically ongoing training, shows the need to connect the curriculum and training with an analysis of group consciousness and socialization.

Keywords:curriculum; knowledge; education; learning context; state educational requirements

Introduction

Education is most often estimated as an important institutional factor for the socialization of individuals, guaranteeing their successful inclusion and participation in public life. In such views, the role of education is seen as one of the significant and effective drivers of prosperity and personal development, and the core of education is associated with the learning and knowledge taught in educational structures. Modern analyzes of knowledge emphasize the changes in the structure and essence of curricula, the role of the state in this process, as well as the development of relevant mechanisms of social control. The fact that knowledge is a power is well recognized and therefore education is the focus of ambitions for defining and constituting prestigious knowledge, specialties and institutions. Two main research approaches can be distinguished in studying learning knowledge (Apple 1983). In the first approach, the various ways in which school knowledge becomes a bearer of power and ideology are presented, and this finds expression in the form and content of the subjects taught. The aim of this approach is to emphasize the social influences on the construction of school knowledge and how the taught contents contribute to the creating the relevant habits and skills. In addition, the principles for structuring the subjects and the ways in which knowledge is produced, mediated and transformed are analysed.

The second research approach focuses on the historical and cultural practices of low-status groups and the formation of specific relations of pressure or resistance in schools. In this perspective, it is discussed how the school as a cultural and social environment organizes, legitimizes, supports and rejects some forms of study experience by making references to the everyday life, language and values of lowstatus groups, to the various social and cultural forms influencing students.

In the present article, we concentrate predominantly on the first approach, related to the research of school knowledge, in order to trace some of the principles shaping the curriculum by showing different aspects of its ontology. The principles of constructing the curriculum, the types of knowledge that are integrated into it and the ways of their arrangement, modification and restructuring are the subject of the present analysis. The main research questions of the paper relate to how learning knowledge becomes a mediator of power relations and why and how knowledge itself changes over time.

Usually, school knowledge is perceived as something given and obvious, but in reality the curriculum emerges as an unsuspected agent of influence because it reflects certain values and mediates their cultural reproduction (Bourdieu 1993).

The essence of school knowledge

Knowledge in every historical epoch depends on one or another “social technology” and as far as power is concerned it can never be pure or indifferent knowledge (Foucault 1976). Therefore, the different types of connections between power and knowledge “pouvoir-savoirˮ are evidence that behind it are passions, desires, motives, violence, which often remain hidden. In the analysis of school knowledge, its relevance to the present is first sought; and this is a key prerequisite for the effectiveness of teaching from a social point of view. This means to trace whether the curriculum is actually capable of imposing certain ways of thinking and perceiving the world, of legitimizing the diversity of goals and means of understanding society; to seek correspondence between the knowledge taught and societal needs. The curriculum is an organized unity of contents that govern the process of personal formation; and this is a certain way of justifying the need to maintain harmony between state structures and the educational system, i.e. an act of legitimate ideologization.

Taken together, it represents the process of learning as the acquisition of what is assumed to be known and done. In this sense, the curriculum can be seen as an example of a purposefully created social phenomenon that is centrally directed and is a form of social control. Therefore, the curriculum acquires the status of a paradigm for a certain period of time and spreads over all moments of educational life and beyond.

The problem of the normative nature of the curriculum is partially revealed in the etymology of the concept. “Curriculum” is derived from the Latin word “curro” which means “to run along a certain route”, and the implications are that the curriculum is defined as a route to be followed (Goodson 1988), setting a certain sequence of learning and continuity in training. The curriculum determines for each subject the content and volume of knowledge to be mastered; it defines the time needed to teach a given unit of material, the structuring of the learning contents and the extent to which they will be perceived. The studied contents obey their internal classification, include data and procedures, present facts and information in a certain range. The subjects are systems of knowledge, oriented towards getting to know the universe, society and people. They are independent of individual perception and of the ways in which their studying takes place. In this sense, the basic rules are publicly established and have meaning, even if in practice there are contradictions or differences with the definitions made (Goodson1988, p. 13).

It should be noted that the learning contents included in the curriculum always exist as separate units, which facilitates teaching, learning, and control. Each unit is relatively complete – meaningfully and logically and obeys the principle of fluency of exposition and perception. The creation of the curriculum in the form of separate, systematic distinct disciplines is known in the educational tradition as “dierentiation” of the curriculum (Bernstein 1971, p. 50). It refers to the separation of knowledge previously united in one subject1. At the end of the “differentiation” process, we are faced to a subject to which the “separation” procedure can no longer be applied; these is so-called “closed” discipline.

Curriculum specialization also implies the emergence of new knowledge and stems from the tendency to tie the learning process to the individual's future realization in a particular or related subject or problem area. In differentiation, this orientation is rather latent. Therefore, in some cases the two procedures may coincide, but this coincidence is not constant. Specialized knowledge can be, for example, “physics”, “chemistry”, “mathematics”, “biology”, “history”, etc, which are knowledge of a “pure” type. Usually the “pure” type is manifested in university education, while the “impure” refers to general education from the early grades.

The specialization of knowledge reveals the extent to which the relevant educational content becomes a factor for deeper and more detailed learning of the relevant subject, as well as the acquisition of specific skills and qualification corresponding to their application in practice. Specialization becomes an indicator of the degree of adequacy and dedication of the trainee in the specific academic knowledge. Involvement in a specific discipline is expressed in the creation of qualities, skills and abilities, as well as in the labeling the individual as “proficient”, “expert” in the particular subject area. The specialization of educational knowledge has both serious cultural and purely scientific foundations, which obey their own immanent regularities, embodied in the relatively independent development of scientific research and activities.

The logic of modern education presupposes entering a certain subject area and acquiring the knowledge, skills and qualifications related to it. This means deepening knowledge at each subsequent level, and learning represents “movement from the periphery to the center of the subject” (Bernstein 1971, pp. 51 – 52).

The acquisition of specialized knowledge engages the individual in some subject area, which is defined as a specific discipline. The varying degree of inclusiveness to learning content has led to the legitimization of certain social labels that are attributed to individuals; such are, for example, “specialist”, “professional”, “expert”, etc. They are evidence of public evaluation of the knowledge and skills manifested after the process of formal education. Each label becomes a measure of the significance of acquired education and skills and their place in the hierarchy of societal values. And this place is determined by the competitiveness of educational qualifications and those acquired outside the formal education system. The label “professional” or “specialist”, for example, demonstrates the high qualifications reached in the training process. At the same time, it becomes an indicator of public recognition and symbolic capital of acquired qualities and knowledge.

Social labeling shows that insofar as certain terms exist in the public consciousness for expressing specific assessments and recognizing the built qualities and qualifications of individuals, they are always historically determined and depend on economic, political and cultural characteristics. The emergence of the label “specialist” is an indicator of the association of learning with professional structures, but it was absent in former societies. The need and transition to specialized knowledge is associated with societiy in which professional, pragmatically oriented knowledge acquires a specific meaning. This is a knowledge that distances itself from the autotelic, satisfying personal needs for self-development classical knowledge.

Since modernity, gaining mass use, the label “professional” has entered, denoting the presence of a certificate for legitimizing the mastered knowledge and qualities (for performing a profession), the fruit of long-term training. A “professional” is a person who, thanks to the certificate possessed, can go to the labor market and to sell its workforce, the importance of which increases as its educational qualification increases. Therefore, the receiving a diploma at the end of formal education, opening a path for the individual, is not occasional. In this way, the acquired label “professional” or “specialist” anchor the symbolic capital legally established through the effect of the “ocial nomination belonging to the state” (Bourdieu 1993, p. 140).

And this means that the key to educational systems lies in the analysis of power relations. The influence of the latter can be found in the hierarchical structuring of learning contents, which shows that some school subjects are perceived and acquire the status of more significant compared to others in social context. This is the case of natural scientific knowledge during the age of Modernity or of classical knowledge during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance almost until the end of the 19th century. Thus, the fact that school knowledge is structured according to certain social interests and values is one of the things related to the stratification of knowledge (Young 1971). The stratification of the curriculum means that it is not just a tool for transferring knowledge, it gives legitimacy to a certain style and way of thinking, patterns, linguistic practices and forms, attitude to the world.

The distinction between high-status and low-status knowledge is conducted as a distinction between academic and practical knowledge. The classes aimed at practical subjects – manual or culinary skills are perceived as marginal and superficial. The high-status knowledge corresponds to fields that provide a transition to professional careers associated with higher education and prestigious occupations for growing up the social ladder. By distinguishing academic content such as history, mathematics, languages – modern and classical, and science, that knowledge is opposed, for example, to home economics or the acquisition of certain manual skills that are not included in high-status knowledge (Eggleston 1977, p. 39).

Different dichotomies can be found in the curriculum, in which the study contents are located, for example, “academic – professional”, “theoretical – practical”, “humanitarian – technical”, “general – special” knowledge. The presence of such dichotomies actually indicates an opposition to the indicated types and an expression of preference for the first or second member of the opposition. The stratification of knowledge also means that the institutions involved in training can be defined according to the specialties they teach and have different social prestige and symbolic capital.

Concepts for the curriculum

Academic knowledge is manifested in different social and cultural contexts of historical times and worlds, and in this sense it is socially produced. Furthermore, curricular knowledge has a life of its own related to the particular environment in which it is taught and learned.

On the one hand, there is the institutional context in which the subject units of knowledge are structured, and on the other hand, there are the specific conditions and environment in which knowledge is taught in the classroom. It is the distinction between the curriculum as a final product on each subject and its application in the specific educational situation. In both cases the curriculum structure, which is a set of topics and the number of hours required for their teaching on the one hand, and the lessons themselves as actual training on the other hand, are different realities. In this sense, Jackson (Jackson 1968, pp. 151 – 152) characterizes the two aspects as “pre-active” and “interactive” definitions of the curriculum. Maxine Greene (Greene 1971) presents this ambivalent meaning of the curriculum, as a “structure” of academic knowledge to be taught and as an “opportunity” for the learner to learn it, denoting the personal acquisition of knowledge in the form of understanding and studying what is taught.

Young (Young 1977) also introduced similar distinctions to develop his concept of curriculum – “as fact”, i.e., “seen as a set of principles and expectations for teaching”. On the other hand, the author also introduced the everyday layer of the curriculum “as practice”, which "reduces the principles to the subjective interventions and actions of teachers and students” (Young & Witty 1977, p. 237). In a certain sense, the concept of the curriculum “as a fact” corresponds to the term “pre-active” curriculum, or that which is made and exists – as defined curriculum contents, rules of organization and sequence. Curriculum as practice rather represents the situation here and now, the reality of teaching, of the classroom, which is different in every class context.

Ivor Goodson offers another pair of terms – “written curriculum”, presented as a visible reality, legitimate and changing under the influence of different meta conditions. In this context, the “written” curriculum ensures the dominance of formal, established points in teaching and gives the understanding of goals and values that form the expected parameters of learning outcomes. Central to Goodson's view is the distinction between 'written' curriculum and curriculum 'as classroom reality'. The relationship between norm and practice or between “written” and “active” curriculum depends on the nature of the construction and deconstruction of the particular units of knowledge. Because, although the 'written' curriculum includes identical training parameters, it does not create the same achievements and consequences2. The elements of practice, such as the type of school and children's qualities, teachers' qualifications, attitude to the learning process, etc. change the nature of the relationship between preactive construction and interactive realization. Thus, “the curriculum turns out to be located in a fragmented social reality and, so to speak, in a folded perspective” (Fotev 2004, p. 750).

We should note that historically, the curriculum can be seen as a result of a long complicated process when we judge it from the distance of time, when we abstract from the flow of ongoing events. On the contrary, in a particular period of time, one gets the impression that the curriculum is more of a frozen, reified entity.

The next part of the article focuses on the changes in the internal nature of education, particular expression of which is the written curriculum, reflecting specifics of economic life, intellectual revival and initiative. The aim is to prove the thesis that educational knowledge is neither arbitrary nor frozen or objectively given, it is a constructed reality that changes under the influence of historically developed circumstances and social phenomena.

Social conotations of knowledge

Reflections on the construction of the curriculum are dominated by the need to justify its changing nature, as well as the fact that the curriculum as a unity of contents fulfills the function of transmitting certain knowledge, values and models. Thus, the curriculum has a specific instrumental function. An example of a similar type of symbiosis and interweaving between the interests of the class and the taught content is represented by the created “high public school” in America and similar schools in the 19th century. They helped people enter business and commerce, so the main subjects taught were, for example, English, French, geometry, chemistry, physics, some vocational courses and this defined the high school curriculum as academic and with practical orientation. (Labaree 1986, p. 43). Education itself follows the interests and values of the bourgeoisie as a class, namely: practicality, enterprise, initiative, individual expression, rationality and dedication to work and career (Weber 1930).

At the end of the nineteenth century, a new curriculum was introduced in American high public schools, and this was a response to the changes in the market environment. As a result of the development of the relations of competition, under the influence of rapid desolation and closure of workplaces, the representatives of the bourgeois class feel a threat to the positions of their children. The profession is a reliable intermediary providing appropriate engagement and a career capable of preserving the social status and well-being of the class. Mastering prestigious professions, however, requires a corresponding academic certificate, which can be obtained at the university. Therefore, a new requirement is placed on the high school: it must prepare students for entering the university. The clientele is now interested in a more ambitious curriculum, oriented not just to basic education, but to reaching high statuses (Labaree 1986, p. 59). The new college-preparatory curriculum includes academic disciplines: classical languages and science are dominant, and all vocational courses are eliminated.

In this way, the curriculum of the American high public school from the 19th century is an example of the transformations in education – if at the beginning (of the creation of the school) it had an academic, but also a practical character, in the last decades of the century it was aimed at preparing for university and emphasizes purely academic classes, with a view to mastering a prestigious profession, which is obtained at the university. Education is mediated by the market for learning products. The sanction of the market manifests itself in the interest in a certain type of training and qualification, and if earlier with the completion of the school the individuals enter the family-established businesses, in the new configuration, the educational framework changes because the school becomes a stage, an intermediate cycle, a prerequisite for the future training. Education becomes the key and symbol of prosperity, and thanks to it the energy and ambitions of the bourgeoisie are given an opportunity for social and individual expression.

In this sense, the relationship between class and knowledge is presented as interdependent: the class exerts influence to change the character of the knowledge taught according to its interests and needs, and the curriculum gradually imposes the values of the class. Changes in the curriculum are caused by the overall cultural and political context of the society in which the relevant educational institution develops, they reflect the changes in the social structure and give an assessment of knowledge. From this point of view, as far as the schools, respectively the knowledge taught, serve a similar progressive mission, they also become carriers of modernization accents.

On this basis, a specificity of the curriculum can be formulated (Apple 1983):

– when the curriculum serves the interests of the new class fighting for its establishment in society, it has a markedly progressive and innovative essence;

– when it serves the interests of a class that has already established itself as politically and economically dominant, the curriculum can play a restraining, development-blocking role.

In both cases, the curriculum has an instrumental function related to the transmission and approaval the values, interests and principles of the social class it serves. In this direction, we will point to one more example: the emergence in the 19th century curricula of the English grammar schools the natural-scientific knowledge as equal in value to classical subjects like:- grammar, history, literature, Latin and ancient Greek. In England, aristocratic traditions and associated classical knowledge persisted for the longest time compared to other European educational systems; the idea of technical or scientific education in elite schools is missing there. Therefore, the inclusion of natural knowledge in their curricula represents a painful and long period, objectified in the debates of the numerous parliamentary committees appointed to study one or another topic of education. Moreover, the English educational tradition itself evaluated the introduction of science into the curriculum as a “major” and serious “change” (Musgrave 1970, p. 17).

From the middle of the 19th century, influential political and university communities were formed, which were actively involved in the debate about the knowledge taught in the elite English schools (Eggleston 1977, p. 46). After 1890, science was emerged in grammar schools. This provokes the serious disapproval of teachers and principals who dismiss scientific knowledge as unworthy of teaching in elite schools (Eggleston 1977, p. 29).

The inclusion of new academic disciplines in the curriculum (although sometimes painful and with protests) is evidence that there is a need for the formation of qualities and skills that are important for the implementation of social transformations. The introduction and legitimization the new learning contents or forms of learning (Hamilton 1980, p. 282), as well as the creation of a new type of school, is in most cases a long process associated with overcoming obstacles and a continuous struggle with traditions in education, encountering resistance and disagreement from hierarchically different subjects. All this means that the shool subjects are open to and bear the influence of class groups, becoming a medium for social change and for changes in education.

The role of the state

An important characteristic of society is the metamorphosis that the social order undergoes: on the one hand, the objects of control are individualized utmost, given that the action of social control must be strictly detailed and addressed to the relevant subject, and on the other hand , the mechanisms of power themselves become increasingly anonymous. That is why, in modern societies, every single participant in social events must be aware of exactly what is expected of him/her, to what extent he/she will be sanctioned. In this sense, the curriculum is related to an important and disciplining function, because it “becomes a medium and the catalyst of the results of powerˮ (Faucault 1975, p. 34). The whole process of changing and redefining the curricula, the forms of teaching, the assessment procedures, the activities taking place behind the school walls is carried out with the active participation of the state; which puts a new perspective on social inequalities in education, namely the context of “state production” and domination.

It is an indisputable fact that the state today is not just one of the forms or places – or even the most important one –for the exercise of power, but determines all power relations (Foucault 1992, p. 79). But not because everything stems from her, but rather because there is a permanent entry of the state into power relations. Based on the narrow meaning of the word “management”, we can say that power relations have gradually become managerial, i.e. built, streamlined and centralized in the form or under the auspices of state institutions. Thus, the state has acquired a decisive role in all school-specific actions – the creation of the curriculum, the conduct and organization of exams, the control of teaching, the training of teachers. At all levels in the hierarchy of social actors, but also in the implementation of specific activities, the state intervenes actively and acquires a position of power.

The existence of a special institution (Ministry of Education) engaged in control and maintaining correspondence between the political order and values and their presence in the school space ensures conflict-free entry and acceptance of changes. Centralization of education in practice is associated with increased regulation in almost all areas of learning. First of all, the intervention of the state is manifested in the creation of schools that are subsidized by it – the compulsory mass school for children from 5 to 13 years old (in England and Western Europe). In addition, maintenance from the state budget is a convenient mechanism for justifying the care of poor children. Its slow pressing through financial aid and later control over specific activities in the education system, for example, appointing teachers, approving curricula and educational standards, making changes in teaching, legitimizing textbooks, organizing the pattern of examinations, giving help in showing good achievements, issuing diplomas, gradually acquire great importance for administrative, economic, cultural structures.

An essential part of the centralization process is the curriculum. One of the reasons for defining the contents of the curriculum is the fear that teachers would not cope with the diversity of knowledge, would not give a comprehensive orientation in the subject areas. It is assumed that the actors involved in the preparation of the curriculum comply with the principles of gradual learning and possess the necessary expertise (Sociology 1992, p. 91). At the same time, these are people with state power who sanction what is permissible or inadmissible to be studied in school. These are individuals with the competences of specialists and experts, and precisely as such they are to the greatest extent able to ensure the legitimacy of the educational contents and guarantee control over the study activities, following certain political interests. In this way, each unit of knowledge taught is assessed, considered and controlled.

Social control over the curriculum is also manifested in the introduction of certain rules and requirements, called state educational standards, which affect the educational process itself. The state educational standard for general education is a set of requirements for:

– the learning content, its characteristics and goals;

– the teaching methods;

– the results of training in the subject at the end of each stage of the relevant degree of education.

The state educational standard (in Bulgarian conditions) is regulated by a relevant document (Regulation No. 5) for general education, approved by the Minister of Education and Science. This is a system of basic parameters, reflecting the goals of the education system. In recent decades, the topic of state educational standards has gained great importance (including in decentralized education systems), with a view to strengthening the idea of differentiation and individualization of learning. In this sense, the educational standard refers to the socially important learning content that is mandatory for the different grades and schools.

The active intervention of the state is also in the basis of the distinction: formal – nonformal learning. Formal training takes place in the educational institution and ends with obtaining a diploma, which is a prerequisite for continuing education at a higher level in the institutional educational structure. Formal education has the following characteristics: a) follows a state-approved curriculum; b) conducts the exams in accordance with standards and requirements approved by the Minister of Education; c) teachers teach according to rules and methods controlled and observed by inspectors (experts) in the relevant subjects; d) the entering school and graduation are in accordance with state-approved rules; e) the directors of formal education systems are appointed by the Minister of Education. Thus, formal education actually means centralized training with scheduled transparency and control of ongoing activities from “top-down”. Nonformal education takes place in an organizational environment different from the state-legitimized ocial system and ends with a certificate, which does not, however, give rights to continue in the formal educational structure3. In fact, in the distinction: formal-nonformal education, the main differentiation is along the lines of the “educational structure” and the presence or not of state sanction of this education.

Discussion

To what extent the framework of the state educational standards is useful and necessary for the training? To what extent this model is flexible and allows the introduction of new contents? How rigid it is? All these questions indicate the degree of centralization and state involvement in educational activities. It is an important methodological problem connected to “howˮ education is managed and what requirements it meets. Thus the concepts of education – such as teaching, structure, assessment; both as implementation and practice, are part of a wider social context that is changing and consequence of power relations. Education itself is the arena of these relations because different groups with their political, economic and cultural capital dominate in the definition of specific educational realities. In this direction, the changes made in the curriculum and the rewriting of the textbooks in various disciplines taught in Bulgarian schools after the political changes of the 1990s can be considered (Elenkov 2004, pp. 13 – 30; Avramov 2004, pp. 30 – 41).

World modern trends in the construction of curricula are related to the strengthening of the STEM approach in education. As a curriculum, STEM is based on the idea of focused learning in the four domains of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, incorporating them into a coherent learning paradigm based on their place in practice. STEM education is seen as the root of technological and economic development in the world. Countries deal with setting up the most advanced and effective STEM education and attract young generations to this field. In Bulgaria, STEM has become a byword for innovation and practice-oriented learning. Within the framework of the “Education Program”, the government opened a procedure “Establishment of National and Regional STEM Centersˮ under the \STEM Centers and Innovations in Education” project https://www.stemcoalition.eu/programmes/building-school-stem-environmentstem-programme-government-bulgaria. In addition, a National Program “Building a School STEM Environment” has also been developed, which aims to increase students' interest and their achievements in the field of science and technology by supporting the creation of school centers with a focus on STEM.

Conclusion

At least two important questions can be raised in analyzes of curriculum: “what” is being taught and “why” a certain kind of knowledge is included in the curriculum? In the present article, the emphasis was placed on the second question “why” a given educational content is studied.

The question “Why” implies considering the rationale and the perspective; that is, what defines and argues for the learning of the relevant learning content and what horizons the course of study has. “Why” means showing the reasons for including a certain type of knowledge in the curriculum. What were the reasons for this? Are there socio-historical prerequisites for its incorporation? The answers to “why” justify and argue the right of existence of educational knowledge and motivate its inclusion in the learning process. On the other hand, the perspective is most often associated with the preparation that education gives, with the assimilation of different samples and models, with the perception of the rules for the performance of different social roles. The bottom line is that the subjects and educational courses included in the curriculum are not random, they depend on the needs and demands of social life. Education transfers to its subsystems the mechanisms of activity, and embodies in its subjects various characteristics of social development. The curriculum also has its own internal, relatively autonomous principles of development which refer to the peculiarities in the formation of the academic disciplines. Peculiarities arising from the development of science and the social studies, as well as of philosophy and the arts.

Curriculum analysis and related patterns and practices draw attention to seemingly neutral knowledge, delineating important interactions with social relations and order, with institutional processes and, above all, with power and social control. The curriculum is actually a centrally directed social phenomenon organizing the process of personal formation in education. Curriculum and knowledge, through which on the one hand a certain language and values are imposed and legitimized as ocial, and on the other hand knowledge is “stratifiedˮ, means that certain specialties, schools or training are valued as more attractive and significant than others. The conclusion that knowledge is characterized by relativity, social and ideological determinism within the limits of the specifically ongoing training, shows the need to connect the curriculum and training with an analysis of group consciousness and socialization. Knowledge comes to be understood not as a frozen object or a reified essence, but as a process of symbolic activity. It is perceived as a collective product, it becomes a resource for transforming the present. Control over knowledge becomes part of “symbolic violence” (Bourdieu 1993), i.e., the criteria on the basis of which different types of knowledge are given different value are historically variable.

Central to this context is the analysis of the curriculum as a form of politics, and the relationship between knowledge and power is seen as part of a wider effort to define educational institutions as places where identity is created through the interaction between teachers, students and study contents. The training orients towards a personal being and life, manifested in a certain professional, political, cultural engagement and position. Education also develops the attitude to new knowledge, forming the desire for lifelong learning, and improvement. In this way, society's need to create individuals who maintain an incessant interest and desire for knowledge and openness to new things is met.

NOTES

1. For example, natural science (which is studied in primary school) includes a number of disciplines separated in the next levels of education such as: chemistry, physics, biology. Thus, as a result of the development of knowledge, there is a deepening differentiation and creation the science disciplines, which respectively become education subjects.

2. For this reason, the achievements of exams and matriculations is different in the specific educational level for different schools and settlements.

3. Nonformal education very often takes place in NGOs, community centers, in the form of courses implemented by various private entities.

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Naredba za izmenenie i dopalnenie na Naredba N 5 ot 2015 za obshtoobrazovatelnata podgotovka. 2020. [Regulation no. 5 of november 30, 2015 on general education preparation and amendments and additions to it, issued by the Minister of Education and Science] https://dv.parliament.bg/DVWeb/showMaterialDV.jsp;jsessionid=CAF4 05A7E6948EB236D2774AFF3D805E?idMat=151398 “Establishment of National and Regional STEM Centers” under the “STEM Centers and Innovations in Education” project https://www. stemcoalition.eu/programmes/building-school-stem-environment-stemprogramme-government-bulgaria.