‘(A) life to lead and a soul to be saved’: a critical analysis of the 1971 primary curriculum policy – legacies and lessons?

Curaclam na Bunscoile (Primary School Curriculum), published by the Department of Education in 1971, represents an engagement at national education policy level with the concept of a ‘Child-Centred Curriculum’. It generated change in how teaching and learning were conceptualised in Irish primary schooling and would also shape future iterations of the national curriculum. The objective of this article is to critically interrogate and evaluate the curriculum policy in question. It looks beyond enduring narratives by analysing the policy in context, to excavate its dominant shaping influences. The analysis that follows employs a set of ‘tools of analysis’ from the Poststructural (Bacchi and Goodwin Citation2016) and Critical Discourse Analysis (Van Leeuwen Citation2008) traditions to interrogate the ‘71 Curriculum, and in so doing to challenge some of the assumptions that buttress this influential instance of education policy. Here, critical analysis is brought to bear on a conservative curriculum policy revealing its capacity to ‘produce’ moral individuals at the expense of a questioning citizenry. In so doing the legacy of the ‘71 Curriculum is considered afresh, and a warrant is generated for those concerned with curriculum policy and its analysis to consider how we ‘problematise’ issues in contemporary policies.