Child‐centred, Gender‐centred: a criticism of progressive curriculum theory from Rousseau to Plowden

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Abstract
The child‐centred theme of natural development in Rousseau's Emile has exercised a powerful and benign influence on education. Rousseau's proposed curriculum for girls, however, seems extraordinarily illiberal, requiring as it does a rigorous preparation for playing the traditional female role in a male‐dominated society. It is argued here that such a conservative policy on the education of girls is inevitable in an educational theory which makes a virtue of its empirical foundations. Observational studies of the female's nature and of her needs and interests portray her as society permits or requires her to be rather than as she could or should be. This is a dangerous weakness in influential twentieth‐century versions of child‐centred theory which have embraced a scientific approach in the hope of enhancing their credibility. The full educational development of girls, however, requires a distinctive vision of how things ought to be, a willingness to defend such value judgments, and a determination to intervene positively in the classroom.

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