Diversification in secondary education curricula from a comparative perspective

Résumé

Secondary education continues to expand rapidly worldwide. Equally important is its diversification. The present paper contends that the diversification of secondary education, while acknowledged, is not well studied. Despite the widespread expansion of secondary education in different world regions, the information available to researchers—and policy makers—for informed comparisons of secondary education systems has been, and remains, rather superficial and limited. The present paper compares the programmatic foci and contents of secondary education systems. It seeks to move beyond existing characterizations of secondary education, by reporting initial results from an IBE-sponsored, cross-national study of secondary level programs, tracks and curricula. This study, while mainly limited to academic-oriented tracks, provides an empirical basis for comparing the diversification of secondary education systems.