Abstract:
The curriculum and school-leaving examinations help to socialise and select pupils, and to reproduce the social order. In a multi-cultural society such as Britain, ethnocentric or mono- cultural syllabi and school-leaving examinations will tend to disadvantage the ethnic minorities. A project was therefore devised to review History, Mathmatics and English syllabi and examinations leading to the Certificate of Secondary Education in England. The present paper focuses on the case of History. Despite some recent advances, the syllabi and examinations tended to be multiculturally insensitive, to be ethnocentric, and to suggest negative or narrow stereotypes of ethnic minorities.