Research article | Open Access
Curricular Studies & Perspectives 2026, Vol. 2(1) 59-85
pp. 59 - 85
Publish Date: April 30, 2026 | Single/Total View: 0/0 | Single/Total Download: 0/0
Abstract
Curriculum is a central governance instrument in contemporary higher education systems. Expanding regimes of accountability, regulation and strategic coordination increasingly shape curriculum design. These regimes position pedagogy with market outcomes, inclusion mandates and institutional legitimacy. This paper introduces the concept of ideological curriculum saturation to explain how plural institutional logics reshape curriculum purpose and structure. Drawing on institutional logics theory and a qualitative comparative multi-case analysis of higher education in England and Ghana, the study examines how regulatory demands, market rationalities, developmental priorities and academic traditions converge in curriculum artefacts. The findings demonstrate that curriculum functions as governance infrastructure from which institutions translate and stabilise competing external expectations. Saturation emerges from five mechanisms: compliance encoding, purposive expansion, documentation layering, strategic mediation and identity scripting. These mechanisms generate dense curriculum architectures that carry multiple legitimacy claims simultaneously and strain pedagogical coherence. The study advances a theoretical model of ideological curriculum saturation and reframes curriculum as an institutional phenomenon shaped by governance density and plural legitimacy regimes.
Keywords: curriculum governance, educational policy, higher education, ideological curriculum saturation, institutional logics.
APA 7th edition
Kaytu, F.A. (2026). The saturated curriculum: Institutional logics and the governance of higher education. Curricular Studies & Perspectives, 2(1), 59-85.
Harvard
Kaytu, F. (2026). The saturated curriculum: Institutional logics and the governance of higher education. Curricular Studies & Perspectives, 2(1), pp. 59-85.
Chicago 16th edition
Kaytu, Frank Atta (2026). "The saturated curriculum: Institutional logics and the governance of higher education". Curricular Studies & Perspectives 2 (1):59-85.
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