Discourse in Cross-curricular Contexts: Limits to empowerment

Curriculum for England and Wales defined in subject terms, the National Curriculum Council suggested that schools should also concern themselves with five cross-curricular themes related to the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life. This paper reports on a study of the implementation of these cross-curricular themes in secondary schools. It draws upon a postal survey of 1 in 4 of these schools and intensive fieldwork in a subsample of eight schools. Using concepts drawn from the sociology of Basil Bernstein, the paper explores some of the tensions between the cross-curricular themes and the subject-based culture of English secondary education. It points to particular difficulties in developing an empowering form of social education through a permeation approach to the teaching of the themes, but also explores the alternative disadvantages associated with provision via a separate programme of personal and social education. Although the 1988 Education Reform Act legislated for a National.