Problem of selecting and structuring scientific knowledge for school in M. N. Skatkin’s didactics and challenges of interdisciplinarity in modern curriculum

Abstract

The article analyzes M. N. Skatkin’s didactic concept in the context of selecting and structuring the content of school education and correlating it with contemporary requirements for interdisciplinary integration in the curriculum. The purpose of the study is to identify the heuristic potential and limitations of the cultural theory of educational content (Skatkin, Lerner, Kraevsky) in designing interdisciplinary programs, as well as to determine conceptual tensions between the subject-centered structure of the Russian school and demands for holistic mastery of complex sociocultural phenomena. Methodologically, the study relies on historical and pedagogical analysis of primary sources, comparative analysis of Russian and foreign approaches to curriculum construction, and content analysis of regulatory and program documents. It is established that the four-component model of content developed in M. N. Skatkin’s scientific school retains potential for supra-subject design, but the mechanism for translating it into the disciplinary grid of the curriculum systematically blocks integrative solutions. It is shown that abroad this problem is addressed through curriculum recontextualization at the level of big ideas and cross-cutting competencies, whereas the Russian system is dominated by formal subject differentiation. The article substantiates the productive direction of developing a pre-subject level of content, not divided by disciplines, the need for which M. N. Skatkin pointed out in his later works. The results contribute to the theory of educational content and can be used in modernizing school curricula.