Oakes, Gamoran & Page, 1992

Oakes, J., Gamoran, A., & Page, R. N. (1992). Curriculum differentiation: Opportunities, outcomes, and meanings. In P. W. Jackson (Ed.), Handbook of research on curriculum, pp. 570-608. New York: Macmillan.

Provisions for common, traditional, and required coursework compete with provisions for differentiated, innovative and elective coursework. Curriculum differentiation makes different knowledge available to different groups of students. (Different goals = different knowledge?) Secondary is differentiated allow considerable student choice with elective courses about evenly balanced in number with high school graduation requirements. Older adolescents have more choice and more vaired subject matter than do junior high students. Half of coursework becomes elective, in explicit recognition of differences in inidividual students' abilities, interests, and aspirations. Curriculum is a resource distributed by administrators and teachers to students within schools. It is not a random distribution.

Teachers often prefer instructing high-ability students (Ball, 1981; Hargreaves, 1967; Lacey, 1970; Metz, 1978). Occasionally teachers prefer not to teach high tracks, finding it threatening to work with students who challenge their authority (Metz, 1978) or who are of higher social status (Lortie, 1975). Class assignment is sometimes used as a reward for more successful teachers (Becker, 1953; Hargreaves, 1967; McPartland & Crain, 1987). In Oakes (1990b), secondary science and math teachers' backgrounds and qualifications vary with class level assignment. These differences remain when student population characteristics were controlled for.