State-based curriculum-making: the Illinois Learning Standards

This case study of the development of the Illinois Learning Standards of 1997 parallels a study of the development of the Norwegian compulsory school curriculum of 1997, Læreplanverket 1997. The pair of case studies is designed to explore the administration of state-based curriculum-making and, in particular, the use of the administrative tools of compartmentalization, segmentation and licencing. Often the use of these tools serves to make the curriculum as a guiding instrument largely symbolic and/or ideological.