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The Chore Curriculum, David F. Lancy

David Lancy

The term “curriculum” in chore curriculum conveys the idea that there is a discernible regularity to the process whereby children attach themselves to, learn, master and carry out their chores. While the academic or core curriculum found in schools is formal and imposed on students in a top-down process, the chore curriculum is informal and emerges in the interaction of children’s need to fit in and emulate those older, their developing cognitive and sensorimotor capacity, the division of labour within the family and the nature of the tasks (chores) themselves. In the remainder of this chapter, my goal is to …