Moving on (part 1): the physics of power and curriculum history

This is the first of two papers that map (dis) continuities in notions of p ower from Aristotle to Newton to Foucault. They trace the ways in which bio -physical conceptions of power became paraphrased in social science and dep loyed in educational discourse on the child and curriculum from post-Newton ian times to the present. The analyses suggest that, amid ruptures in the d efinition, role, location and meaning given 'power' historically in various 'physical' and 'social' cosmologies, the naming of 'power' has been depend ent on 'physics', on the theorization of motion across 'Western' sciences. This first paper examines some (dis) continuities in regard to histories of motion and power from Aristotelian 'natural science' to Newtonian mechanic s.