Tatyana V. Sukhanova

Views on the content of general education and the degree of independence of schools in forming curricula have repeatedly changed over a long period of development of the general education system in Russia. The research presents the results of the historical and pedagogical analysis of the methodological foundations for forming of the state curriculum in Russian schools. The author shows the factors influencing the change in the conceptual framework that determines the structure and content of the curriculum in Russian schools. The research is carried out using general scientific theoretical methods: analysis, interpretation, systematization, classification, and generalization. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is the theory of the content of education: cultural theory (M. N. Skatkin, V. V. Kraevsky, and I. Ya. Lerner), system-activity (V. S. Lednev, and A. A. Kuznetsov), binary- integrative (L. M. Perminova), and modern theory of didactics (I. M. Osmolovskaya). The author proves that the curricula have always reflected the value-ideological attitudes and public ideas about the purpose of education and embodied the state policy in relation to the content of school education. Simultaneously, even in periods of maximum unification of the content of school education, curricula retained the ability to reflect the uniqueness of an individual school and consider the socio-cultural conditions of its functioning. The author proves that contemporary didactic theories include sound scientific approaches to determining the composition of the curriculum, assessing its laboriousness, and the sequence of studying subjects and distribution by periods of study. Thanks to this, the processes of selecting the content of general education and the formation of school curricula are protected from the influence of corporate interests and private opinions. The scientific basis performs a systematizing function for the pedagogical interpretation of the social order. This ensures the necessary quality of school education without overloading students.