Subjects, not subjects: Curriculum pathways, pedagogies, and practices in the United Kingdom (original) (raw)
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RETHINKING SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Contemporary discourse about curriculum includes recognition that curricula can be analyzed at many levels and from many positions. 'By curriculum I mean what students have an opportunity to learn in school, through both the hidden and overt curriculum and what they do not have an opportunity to learn because certain matters were not included in the curriculum'. Nevertheless, the value of the term 'hidden curriculum' is that it draws attention to interpretations that have received little recognition in explicit curriculum discourse and which may serve as alternatives to the 'preferred meanings'. Differences in outcome are expected but are viewed as the inevitable result of variations in ability and motivation. The belief is that the system is fair as long as equal opportunity is guaranteed. However, critics have suggested that beneath the 'façade of meritocracy' lies a system which reproduces and legitimates existing economic inequalities (Bowles and Gintis, 1976, p. 103). Others, while sharing a concern about the political dimensions of education, have cautioned against a deterministic view of education which ignores the contradictions and contestation which occur within the school (Apple, 1982). A more complete understanding of how ideologies work in schools requires examination of day-today school life (Apple and Weis, 1983). The central themes of this paper will not be dictated by the alleged boundaries between 'foundational' disciplines in education, nor by an unexamined division of the tasks of education and educational research between 'practitioners' and 'theorists', or between 'practitioners' and 'policy-makers'. On the contrary, one of the tasks is to demonstrate, through careful research and scholarship across a range of fields of practical, political and theoretical endeavor, just how outmoded, unproductive, and ultimately destructive these divisions are both for education and for educational research. These are enduring themes in this paper touching upon some of the central questions confronting our contemporary culture and, some would say, upon the central pathologies of contemporary society.
Curriculum making as social practice: complex webs of enactment
The Curriculum Journal, 2018
This special issue brings together papers that individually and collectively illustrate the complexities which emerge when curriculum is 'made'; complexities which themselves stem from the social embeddedness of both curriculum as a concept and the social actors involved in such makings. The papers all have their genesis in presentations given at the 3 rd European Conference on Curriculum Studies, held over two days at the University of Stirling in June 2017. The papers, and the conference, are representative of a much needed renaissance in curriculum studies, at least in Europe, with the recent formation of the European Association for Curriculum Studies, and where the European Educational Research Association Network 3 Curriculum Innovation has greatly enhanced its profile and membership in recent years. This renaissance follows an extended period since the 1980s, often termed a crisis in curriculum (e.g. Wheelahan, 2010), and marked by a decline in curriculum scholarship and the emergence of so-called teacher-proof national curricula around the world (e.g. Taylor, 2013).
The National Curriculum and the Cultural Politics of Secondary Schools in England and Wales
1998
The National Curriculum, introduced under the Education Reform Act of 1988, has influenced the cultural politics of secondary schools in England and Wales. The National Curriculum began a new phase in the role of teachers developing school curriculum that is characterized by centralized control and external accountability. To many it suggests a crisis in teacher's professionalism. This paper considers the degree of departure in policy and practice represented by the National Curriculum and suggests commonalities that underlie the surface appearance of change. The paper also describes the curriculum policies prior to the National Curriculum from the 1950s to the 1970s and how curriculum has been affected by change. Accounts by secondary school teachers reveal the extent of their autonomy within the classroom as presented in the Dearing Review of 1994. Teachers do generally find a degree of latitude that appears to reflect a note of optimism and self-reliance in spite of wider bureaucratic constraints. One view of the National Curriculum describes, in positive terms, the decrease in potential abuses in pre-National Curriculum years known as the "secret garden." The paper also mentions the changes in public support for teacher autonomy of curriculum in the classroom. (Contains 42 references.) (RIB)
Curriculum and Society: Rethinking the Link
International Review of Education, 1999
This article argues that the link between educational curricula and society as a whole has become critically uncertain. This crisis is linked to a number of factors related to the post-modern world view, including: the disappearance of grand utopian social visions of the kind that used to underpin educational policy; the lack of adequate theoretical tools; and the way in which academics are exposed to a multitude of different cultural norms. The author argues that this situation calls for a fundamental re-thinking of the link between curriculum and society, based on a more flexible and pluralistic approach.
Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies19(2), 2022
Brian Simon (1981) argued that the English education system had failed to develop pedagogy because of social class division. This has been enhanced by the failure to address parity of esteem issues between the academic and the vocational curriculum, which makes the absence of a real pedagogy in Further Education (FE) and alternative provision (AP) even more profound than it is perhaps within mainstream compulsory sector. While there have been substantial changes since 1981, Simon's basic contention and the question of why no pedagogy in England remains to be the case. This article is based on the personal analytical approach of a practitioner regarding pedagogy associated with skills development, and how it may be possible to learn from that history and move forwards with an improved future curriculum. It is largely based on action research and reflective practice. I explore employability and vocational learning along with the skills agenda and place them within a practical application of the theoretical framework discussed in an attempt to create a radical teaching and learning driven by personalisation and learner autonomy and delivered (where the curriculum allows) through project and problem-solving based approaches. These promote a more radical, meaningful and dynamic approach to teaching and learning and offer the Curriculum and Social Class: adventures in pedagogy, engagement and intervention in England and Wales 316 | P a g e hope of a more personalised approach to pedagogy and curriculum design in the future.
Curriculum Knowledge, Justice, Relations: The Schools White Paper (2010) in England
Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2014
In this article I begin by discussing the persistent problem of relations between educational inequality and the attainment gap in schools. Because benefits accruing from an education are substantial, the leads to large disparities in the quality of life many young people can expect to experience in the future. Curriculum knowledge has been a focus for debate in England in relation to educational equality for over 40 years. Given the contestation surrounding views about curriculum knowledge and equality I consider the thinking of two philosophers, Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas and their work on justice, to trouble the curriculum framework and discourse of knowledge promoted through the policy text of The Schools White Paper (2010) and later associated policy reforms to the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) curriculum in England. The Schools White Paper aims to make the curriculum more challenging to students by introducing tight controls in terms of the assessment framework and curriculum knowledge. I argue that, when considered through Derrida s perspective on language and meaning and Levinas s view on the ethical responsibility for the other, the reforms present obstacles to the search for a just curriculum. I look to the work of Sharon Todd and Paul Standish for a re-imagination of curriculum as or through relations in the light of Derrida s and Levinas s philosophies. A major problem besetting education today is what is referred to as the attainment gap, that is, the inequalities in schools in terms of educational outcome between learners with different backgrounds and capabilities i. The attainment gap is important because benefits
A comparative research project is being implemented to describe how curriculum guidelines are developed and applied in Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, and to compare the underlying structures and strategies that influence and determine curriculum work and curriculum-making at different levels of decision making and enactment. This paper describes the project as it is unfolding in Norway. The expectation is that political, programmatic, and practical levels of decision making will be examined. The extensive education reform effort in Norway at this time is characterized as a systemic reform, and as a curriculum-driven systemic reform that implies coherence among school types nationally. This implies a nationally mandated curriculum developed in a political context. At the programmatic level, the reform involves the construction of a core curriculum, principles and guidelines for compulsory schooling, and syllabuses for the subjects taught in elementary and lower se...
2013
The widespread government involvement in curriculum reform has made curriculum policy a popular research topic. The traditional understanding of curriculum policy refers to policy in text that displays the formal intent or authorative statement of government in “contextuality” (Lasswell, 1951). However, curriculum policy is never a static or linear snapshot of the context; it is practically a distributed social constructive process of sense-making and re-making with the changing context. Curriculum policy is continuously reconstructed and evolved as it transfers among contextualized localities (Ball, 2006), differentiated groups and individuals in action. The focus of the article is to reveal the tension and complexity of curriculum policy in action with the sense of time and space. The analysis takes the 10+ years’ curriculum policy change in Chinese context as an exemplar. The first clue of the analysis is to examine the travels of curriculum policy in China from central governmen...
Pedagogy, Culture & Society Analysing the curriculum development process: three models
This article attempts to analyse the curriculum development process by using three models, i.e. the modern model, the postmodern model and the model suggested by the actor-network theory. It is argued that no matter what context we are in, curriculum is the manifestation of the power distribution in society. It is critical to note that power is not a fixed entity, but a strong network formed by heterogeneous components. Therefore, the study of change in this network formation can greatly enhance the analysis of curriculum.