The dissolving of UK parliament ready for a general election in 2024 and the subsequent new parliamentary term provides an opportunity for those vested in education to reflect upon the past and speculate about future policy directions. It is an opportunity to reflect upon a values-informed base for education and educational policy. In this blog post, we use the pre and post period of the 2024 general election to think about the marginalisation of creativity in education and of ‘creative curricula’ in particular.

As teacher educators, we have found the work of the late Manuel Alvarado a useful legacy to explore, especially given the diverse and (g)local context we work within in east London, UK, and its continued relevance for educational change at this moment in time. We are especially interested in the critique his early work potentially offers of the conceptions of knowledge in the curriculum that dominate the current educational landscape, and what he saw as the value of creative education to act as a counterpoint within curricula, especially within creative subjects such as, for example, his own field of media education. We will use this legacy to extrapolate generalised ideas applied to all curricula and knowledge.

Alvarado was born in Guatemala City on 15 March 1948 and subsequently brought up by his mother in east London, part of a migratory and diaspora journey that informed his writing on creative and media education. As editor of Screen Education, head of education for the British Film Institute and an ‘activist intellectual’ (Miller, 2010), Alvarado problematised education, seeking practical and politicised outcomes of education to help students understand their world better: ‘The problem of theory is not one of how to relate it to practice … rather it is the problem of how and why to construct a theory of education?’ (Alvarado, 1993, p. 182).

Writing in the early 1980s during a time of economic decline, socio-political unrest, education cuts and a ‘back to basics’ movement in Britain, Alvarado’s work is contextualised by the shift from a decentralised approach to education – previously managed by ‘curriculum reformers, theorists, and academics’ (Alvarado & Ferguson, 1983, p. 21) – to a more government-controlled ‘core curriculum’. In 2024, after over a decade of highly centralised curriculum policy with narrow, hierarchical conceptions of ‘valuable’ knowledge, revisiting Alvarado’s work on curriculum is both interesting and pertinent.

Despite being written over 40 years ago, Alvarado’s early work offers a critique of what is now referred to, through the work of the ‘new sociologists’, as ‘powerful knowledge’, a term introduced by Michael Young in 2008 and popularised by the current government education policy. This view of education positions certain types of knowledge as more ‘powerful’ than others, and Alvarado’s work suggests that this conception of knowledge, which proliferates existing education policy, is inadequate to handle the complexities of ‘real life’ and entrenches static knowledge hierarchies that perpetuate rather than break down social class barriers.

For example, the English curriculum’s focus on canonical literature, with limited engagement with diverse voices, may restrict students’ ability to critically examine issues related to identity, power dynamics and representation in both literature and contemporary contexts. Similarly, in creative subjects like media studies and drama, students study set texts chosen for their perceived ‘worthiness’, but this limits the study of diverse texts. The value of creative education and subjects like Alvarado’s media education is that they encourage critical thinking, but only if we, as educators, change our relationship to the curriculum.

Alvarado advocated a radical reconceptualisation of the curriculum, suggesting teaching should focus on discourse rather than knowledge, as knowledge is meaningful only within a discourse. For instance, history students studying the Industrial Revolution should engage in critical debates about power, class and ethics rather than just learning facts. His approach promotes collaborative, discussion-based learning that helps students critically understand the world by interrogating ‘discursive and symbolic systems and practices’ as representations.

Alvarado’s inclusive, critical approach argues for flattening knowledge hierarchies and supports a greater role for creative subjects in schools. He critiques the notion of ‘powerful knowledge’ within subjects, a critique that can extend to ‘powerful subjects’ within the curriculum. The last decade has seen the marginalisation of creative subjects in favour of STEM, but recently there have been signs of a narrative shift. Ofsted’s Art and design research review (2023) recommended art education as vital for helping pupils appreciate, interpret and create art. Through Alvarado’s lens we extend this: high-quality creative education can help pupils appreciate, interpret and create the world. This is Alvarado’s legacy at a time of potential educational change. The new parliamentary term post the 2024 UK general election offers an opportunity to reshape education policy. We urge policymakers to view creativity in education and creative subjects as essential for repositioning marginalised knowledge and redefining the purpose of education theory.

If you wish to read more about the life and work of Manuel Alvarado we recommend as a starting point his obituary in the Guardian and the 2010 special issue of  Television and News Media (volume 11, issue 6) exploring the legacy of his life and work.

Notice of amendment

Since this blog post was first published minor textual changes have been made throughout for clarity.

References

Alvarado, M. (1993). Class, culture and the education system. In M. Alvarado, E. Buscombe, & R. Collins (Eds.), The Screen Education Reader (pp. 181–190). Palgrave Macmillan.  

Alvarado, M., & Ferguson, B. (1983). The curriculum, media studies and discursivity. Screen, 24(3), 20–34. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/24.3.20