The contested introduction of linguistics in the Dutch exam

A historical curriculum study on the relationship between school subjects and academic disciplines

Abstract

In 1991 the CVEN, a committee assigned to develop a new exam program for the school subject Dutch in upper secondary education, published a report in which it proposed to the Ministry of Education to experimentally include linguistics as a separate component in this exam. Mainly because the Ministry at the time had already decided to start an extensive educational reform dealing with upper secondary education as a whole, this report did not get an immediate follow up. Also the next committee that in 1995 was assigned by the Ministry to develop an exam program for Dutch and that also recommended to include linguistics was turned down by the Ministry. In 2004 the Ministry finally decided to commission the development of modules for teaching linguistics in upper secondary education and as of 2007 schools are free to include linguistics in the school-organized part of the Dutch exam. Against this background this paper deals with the more general question, who decides, at what moment, on what grounds and in what societal and educational context about the content of school subjects and exams. In investigating this question on the basis of historical sources, oral history interviews and discussions in teacher journals, the focus is on the contested introduction of linguistics in the Dutch exam in the CVEN period (1988-1991) and on the relationship between the school subject Dutch and the related academic discipline Dutch language and literature. In doing so the paper contributes to the still very limited historiography of Dutch as a school subject as well as to unraveling the relationship between school subjects and their related academic disciplines that in curriculum research often remains underexposed.