Comparing Curricula—Academic and Experiential

Abstract

Without a doubt, students engage a vast array of knowledge in out-of-school sites, and we have analyzed their learning processes in terms of the curriculum of experience. This chapter will move on to address the question posed earlier: To what extent and in what ways does the curriculum of experience coincide with, supplement or, conversely, conflict with or undermine the curriculum in higher education? Of course, there is no unitary curriculum of higher education, even within single institutions—the learning content of an organic chemistry class is obviously different from that of a seminar on political protest in the 1960s—but using the framework developed in chapter 3, we can identify and analyze the points of contact between the natural curriculum of internships and civic engagement and the intentional curriculum of the academy.