Exploring the Relationship Between Knowledge and Power in the Spanish National Curriculum for Visual Arts

The main goal of this research is to raise some issues about what is considered school knowledge in the Spanish national curriculum, as well as to make explicit the curriculum discourses of the relationship between knowledge and power. This means that the observation, distribution and production of knowledge at schools implies and generates specific forms of power, understanding at the same time, power as a producer of social identity [Popkewitz, 1994]. The paper focuses on a case study at one school and explores the relationship between knowledge and power in the art education curriculum. This approach is founded on Foucault [1969], and the works of Ball [1993] and Popkewitz [1994], towards a sociology of curriculum studies or what is known as the New Sociology of Education.     

课程政策的文化抵制研究

课程政策有无文化抵制是课程政策是否有价值的前提.如果一项课程政策没有任何文化抵制发生,这项课程政策就失去了其存在的现实意义;如果课程政策存在文化抵制,全面研究课程政策的文化抵制,辩证看待及有效克服课程政策的文化抵制并努力完成对课程实践的文化重建便成为课程变革中的重要任务.课程政策的文化抵制研究在课程研究领域日益凸显其重要性.全面把握其现实状况,完成其理论建构,深刻反思其方法论,是当前课程政策文化抵制研究的紧迫课题.     

课程政策：一个亟待关注的课程研究领域

长期以来，课程研究领域存在着一个重大缺失－忽视课程政策研究，这一缺失不仅影响了课程理论的发展，而且也影响了课程改革实践的质量。事实上，任何一次课程改革都是相应政策的产物，一定时期的课程政策是一定时期的课程问题的集中反映。从课程实践的现实选择出发，应当关注课程改革与课程政策的关系。而从课程发展的内在要求看，发挥课程政策的中介价值则是课程理论向实路转化的一个不可或缺的中介环节。鉴于此，应当关注课程政策研究，努力使其成为开展课程研究的新的切入点。     

Policy ‘partnerships’? Power dynamics in curriculum reform

In curriculum policy, discourses of ‘policy partnerships’ and ‘communities of practice’ have become increasingly prevalent and were reflected in Western Australian curriculum policy processes from the mid‐1990s to the late 2000s – a period of significant, highly contested change. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study into the impact of curriculum reform on the changing dynamics within and between the government and non‐government education sectors, drawing on critical theory and post‐structuralist approaches to policy analysis within a broader framework of policy network theory. This approach is used to highlight power issues at all levels of the policy trajectory. This research found that despite policy discourses of collaborative and consultative processes to create a ‘shared’ curriculum, the government and non‐government education sectors remain largely distinct due to significant power differentials, as well as structural and cultural differences. The analysis reveals three closely connected emergent themes – limited collaboration, regulated consultation and enhanced state control of curriculum policy agendas. It is argued here that although discourses of ‘policy partnerships’ and ‘community of practice’ are increasingly evidenced in contemporary curriculum policy, they do not take sufficient account of embedded hierarchical power relationships. Further, such discourses can be used as legitimisation strategies to promulgate policy changes which enhance the steerage capacity of the state. Deeply entrenched power differentials operate simultaneously to distort policy partnerships and communities of practice, by both including and excluding particular sets of policy actors.     

地方课程政策供给与学校课程改革——基于京、沪、浙三地近年来义务教育课程政策分析的思考

我国新世纪以来的基础教育课程政策赋予了学校一定的课程开发权,但整体来看效果不尽如人意。而近年来京、沪、浙等地在课程政策方面进行了一些探索,推动了学校层面的课程改革,涌现出了一批有影响的课程改革先进学校。他们调整地方课程计划、协调课程运行、改革评价方式、扩大学校的课程权限,协同建设学校课程资源等,为学校课程改革提供了空间支持、权力支持、资源支持、能力支持和方向引领。这表明地方课程管理的政策供给是制约学校课程改革的重要因素。地方课程政策推动学校课程改革,要赋予学校课程建设的权力和空间,对学校课程权限的规定要具体、明确,要规范地方的课程管理行为。应制定和颁布国家课程管理指南、地方课程管理指南和学校课程管理指南。     

课程政策执行力：内涵、构成及评价

关注课程政策的＂执行＂,提高课程政策的执行力,是课程政策研究的一个重要问题。课程政策执行力,是指课程政策执行主体执行中央或上级课程政策、实现预期目标的能力。课程政策的组织执行力主要包括：战略规划力、人员配置力和运营力。课程政策的个人执行力主要包括：＂知＂的能力、情意能力和＂行＂的能力。课程政策执行力的评价有两种方式：整体性评价和项目评价。     

县域课程政策保障：一种分析的框架

三级课程管理体制的实施和"以县为主"义务教育管理体制的推行,从制度上决定了县域课程政策存在的合理性和必要性。就目前来说,县域课程政策却是我国课程政策研究的薄弱领域。因此,这就需要从县域课程政策的提出、内涵、内容和有效执行等方面做一个全面系统的分析与建构。     

Transforming university curriculum policies in a global knowledge era: mapping a “global case study” research agenda

Radical curriculum policy transformations are emerging as a key strategy of universities across different countries as they move to strengthen their competitive position in a global knowledge era. This paper puts forward a “global case study” research agenda in the under-researched area of university curriculum policy. The particular curriculum policies to be investigated point to potentially new forms of liberal education, and they resonate in varying degrees with contemporary patterns in Europe as well as longer standing patterns in the United States. This research agenda stands to make a unique contribution with its “whole curriculum” approach to: the examination of the relationship between curriculum content, pedagogy and assessment; the tracking of curriculum policy borrowing across different jurisdictions extending between global and local levels; and the investigation of historical antecedents of contemporary curriculum policy patterns. In particular, the proposed agenda features a rare combination of spatial and temporal dimensions of university curriculum policy flows. This research agenda will provide a strong empirical evidence base for extending theory building about university curriculum policy development, as well as policy “learning” for policy makers, practitioners and scholars – globally.     

When transnational curriculum policy reaches classrooms – teaching as directed exploration

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to explore how education policy that is both enabled and constrained by transnational policy flows and national policy built up by social, cultural and historical traditions are enacted through curriculum at the classroom level. The focus is on how policy rationality embedded in the structure and content of curriculum is transformed into certain rationalities in classroom teaching. By understanding lessons as ‘curriculum events’, the study reveals a dominant classroom discourse of recitation and similar triadic communication patterns, which is in accordance with other classroom studies. However, in the article it is argued that the version of teaching that emerges in this study, interpreted in a broader context of an international standards movement, can be understood in terms of directed exploration based on the teacher’s role as an explorer of what the students know, think and understand in relation to the acquisition of knowledge prescribed in the curriculum’s knowledge requirements. Even though the form of recitation is well known, the reason for choosing this teaching repertoire is somewhat new and can be related to the teacher authoring a basic oral text in accordance with assessment standards.     

Cultural capital,curriculum policy and teaching Latin

Latin is currently being trialled as a subject in 40 state secondary schools in England. This paper focuses on one of the justifications of this trial: that teaching Latin in state secondary schools provides students with cultural capital which in turn counters social injustice. By taking the example of Latin as a starting point, I reach two conclusions about cultural capital. The first is that providing students with cultural capital can be good for some individuals, and so justified on a case-by-case basis depending on context. However, this justification does not hold for curriculum policy making. My second conclusion is that in the long term, pursuing cultural capital as part of curriculum policy exacerbates the social injustices it purports to address. Wherever an activity is introduced for the sake of cultural capital rather than its educational value, educationally valuable activities risk being pushed off the curriculum, potentially degrading the educational value of the curriculum. In the case of teaching Latin, it may provide benefits to particular students, but as part of curriculum policy it risks exacerbating social injustices and undermining the educational value of school curricula. Going beyond the place of Latin on the curriculum, I argue that all appeals to cultural capital provide a poor basis for curriculum policy making.     

利益相关者视角下的基础教育课程政策研究

课程政策表征为政府等政治实体出台的与课程领域相关的政策性文件,其实质是课程权力和利益的分配。它内在地赋予课程政策以价值关涉而非价值中立。鉴于此,要实现我国基础教育课程政策由实然性科学祛魅走向应然性价值返魅,就需要摒弃既往课程政策传统意识形态法理化、价值取向工具化、程序机制僵硬化的机械态势,构建具有全景敞视的思维意识、权力错位的自我衍射、马赛克流动的教育资源的生命之春。     

Curriculum in early childhood education: critical questions about content,coherence, and control

A continuing struggle over curriculum in early childhood education is evident in contemporary research and debate at national and international levels. This reflects the dominant influence of developmental psychology in international discourses, and in policy frameworks that determine approaches to curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. Focusing on early childhood education, we argue that this struggle generates critical questions about three significant themes within curriculum theory: content, coherence, and control. We outline two positions from which these themes can be understood: Developmental and Educational Psychology and contemporary policy frameworks. We argue that within and between these positions, curriculum content, coherence, and control are viewed in different and sometimes oppositional ways. Following this analysis, we propose that a focus on ‘working theories’ as a third position offers possibilities for addressing some of these continuing struggles, by exploring different implications for how content, coherence, and control might be understood. We conclude that asking critical questions of curriculum in early childhood education is a necessary endeavour to develop alternative theoretical frameworks for understanding the ways in which curriculum can be considered alongside pedagogy, assessment, play, and learning.     

地方课程政策的本质及意义

课程政策规定着课程的性质，关系到课程的决策，制约着课程的设计和实施，对整个课程改革有着重大影响。地方课程政策是国家教育行政部门对地方课程权力的规定，规定谁可以拥有课程权力，拥有多少课程权力。它关注的核心问题是地方在课程决策过程中的权力分配问题。在新一轮基础教育课程改革中，实行地方课程政策具有重要的意义。     

Centrifugal schooling: third sector policy networks and the reassembling of curriculum policy in England

This article examines changes in curriculum policy in secondary education in England. It is concerned with recent curriculum policy and reform, and the proliferation of non-government actors in curriculum policy creation. It examines the emergence of a loose alliance of third sector organisations and their involvement in a series of alternative ‘curriculum experiments’. The third sector curriculum policy network revolves around a policy vision of decentralisation constituted by public–private partnership, media-friendliness, social enterprise and an ‘open source’ or network-based organisational logic. It assembles a policy ideal of ‘centrifugal schooling’ which links together ideas about ‘networked governance’ with ‘flexible’ learning and ‘entrepreneurial’ curricula. The article traces and discusses some of the inter-organisational relations, materials and discourses of the third sector network of alternative curriculum policy developments, and provides a case study of a prototypical third sector curriculum programme. It examines the organisational relations and practices by which the project was produced and the conditions leading to its failure.     

Curriculum as policy: some implications of contemporary policy studies for the analysis of curriculum policy,with particular reference to post-primary curriculum policy in the Republic of Ireland

An overview of contemporary curriculum discourse shows a worrying drift to the technical; in current curriculum debates, technique is winning out over substance, procedures over principles. This article shows how this theoretical vacuum is ascribed by many in the field to the dominance of the Tyler rationale in curriculum planning. However, the symptoms of means-end rationality are not confined to curriculum - they are found across the breadth of educational studies and have reached epidemic proportions, suggests the article, in the discourse of educational reform. A number of serious implications for the lack of analysis of curriculum policy are identified and particular reference is made to the Republic of Ireland where, it is suggested, the size of the education system should facilitate greater debate. Instead, the discussions focus on the management rather than the meaning of change. In searching for sources for new curriculum theory,the author suggests that the field of policy studies offers considerable potential, in particular the work of Stephen Ball on mapping the policy cycle. The possibilities for a theory of curriculum as policies are explored. A model of a curriculum policy cycle is proposed and subjected to some analysis.     

Sustainability policy and sustainability in higher education curricula: the educational developer perspective

Various studies have investigated the views of higher education staff and students about sustainability, yet educational developer perspectives are under-represented in the research. This project gathered educational developer perspectives about sustainability in the curriculum. It sought to capture their views about a national sustainability policy; about the relationship between educational development and sustainability curriculum change; and whether sustainability should form part of their own roles. It was informed by the ‘theory of the second-best’ and involved nine interviews. Educational developers raised concerns about the policy, whilst opinions about their own involvement varied. It is argued that policy should provide clearer statements about curriculum, and educational developers should be involved in its development.     

Teachers in early childhood policy

This paper examines teacher accountability and authority in early childhood policy. It reports on data from a study that investigated the influences affecting early childhood teacher decision-making at the preschool level in Victoria, Australia. Using a question raised by Ball ‘Where are the teachers in all this [policy]?’ provided a starting point for the critical discourse analysis into how forms of control, teacher authority, obligation and constraint within policies potentially influenced teachers’ curriculum decisions. The study found that despite no government-mandated curriculum framework at the time, teachers were held accountable for their curricular practice. Yet as professionals, early childhood teachers were denied public acknowledgement of their expertise as they were almost invisible in policy. In the four policies analysed, proprietors of early childhood settings and preschool agencies held authority over curriculum. Subsequently, teachers’ authority as professionals with curricular knowledge was diminished.     

论基础教育课程政策的价值特征和时代诉求

在教育政策研究中,价值研究是一个重要的领域。作为人们对基础教育活动进行价值选择的课程政策,需要对其进行价值分析。基础教育课程政策的价值特征在不同的形态上表现为价值的选择性、合法性、公正性、民主性和有效性。而当前的基础教育课程政策,在价值诉求上更应突出学生的主动健康发展、民主化的权力观和高绩效的执行观。     

Disrupting colonial discourses in the geography curriculum during the introduction of British Values policy in schools

The main purpose of this article is to expose and disrupt discourses dominating global development in an English school geography textbook chapter. The study was prompted by a teacher’s encounter with cultural difference in a geography lesson in South Korea. I investigate the issues raised through the lens of a new curriculum policy in English schools called ‘Promoting Fundamental British Values’ which forms part of England’s education-securitisation agenda, a topic of international attention. Following contextualization across research fields and in recent curriculum and assessment policy reform, I bring together theoretical perspectives from curriculum studies and Continental philosophy that do not usually speak to each other, to construct a new analytical approach. I identify three key themes, each informed by colonial logic: ‘development’, ‘numerical indicators’ and ‘learning to divide the world’. The inquiry appears to expose a tension between the knowledge of the textbook chapter and the purported aims of the British Values curriculum policy, but further investigation reveals the two to be connected through common colonial values. The findings are relevant to teachers, publishers, textbook authors, policy-makers and curriculum researchers. I recommend a refreshed curriculum agenda with the politics of knowledge and ethical global relations at its centre.