This article examines the issues of relativism and universalism in the curriculum. According to the author, the relativist approach holds that the validity of what is taught should be questioned. For the universalist approach, there is a common body of knowledge that everyone should learn and that are valuable regardless of particular circumstances and interests. The author discusses the pedagogical implications of the two perspectives and argues that schools and teachers should offer their students the possibility of regarding the multiplicity of voices in the world as analogous to polyphony.
Curriculum; culture; multiculturalism; relativism; universalism