This paper assumes that the analysis of the curriculum policy is weakened by a state-centered model that cannot correctly address the relationship between structure and agency. Based on E. Laclau's and C. Mouffe's discursive theory, it analyzes the curriculum policy to show they are hegemonic articulations to fill up the empty signifier "quality of education". It examines the Brazilian National Curriculum, especially the Science and the Transversal Themes components, focusing on how universalistic articulations try to undermine the demands of difference. Considering that such articulations may be spotlighted in the way these curriculum texts were enunciated, it highlights two major strategies used in the National Curriculum: its division into two components, the less institutionalized one containing the demands of difference; and the struggles to control this latter component from within.
Curriculum; Curriculum policy; Difference; Brazilian national curriculum; Science curriculum