Internationalisation and Globalisation: Rethinking a curriculum of communication

The article describes the changed conditions of communication due to the two factors of globalisation and internationalisation. It looks at four factors in particular: issues of genre; literariness and national cultures; new modes and forms of communication; and the impacts on curricula of communication. It places these issues into the contexts of economic and social futures, and makes suggestions about the necessary relations between these and forms of the curricula of communication.     

The Struggle for Culture: a sociological case study of the development of a national music curriculum

The article presents a case study of the development of the National Curriculum for music in English schools. This illustrates a relatively rare phenomenon, whereby the content of academic debates within the sociology of education, music education and musicology attain national importance through widespread coverage in the media. It is argued that the very public nature of the debates concerning what should count as school music exemplify an ideological struggle concerning the nature of ‘Englishness’ and what should lie at the heart of English culture. The analysis suggests that the precise role which institutions or the State play in the maintenance and reproduction of societies is contradictory and elusive. It also illustrates the ways in which the unintended consequences of government intervention in the educational process may provide outcomes severely at odds with their ideological intentions.     

新中国六十年音乐课程标准发展的回顾与反思

从1950年教育部颁布的第一个《音乐教学大纲》起,到2001年基础教育课程改革产生的《音乐课程标准》止,建国后我国在不同时期先后颁布了13部中小学音乐教学大纲和课程标准。这些文件不仅在各时期音乐学科教学中具有重要指导意义,而且从一个侧面反映了我国中小学音乐教育的发展脉络。因此,本文拟对建国六十年来我国音乐课标的发展轨迹和走向进行回顾和反思,并从中探寻中国学校音乐教育的发展历程。     

The Scottish school history curriculum and issues of national identity

ABSTRACT

The Scottish curriculum operates through broad guidelines that allow a good deal of freedom to shape the curriculum. This article reports the findings of an investigation into the attitudes towards, and knowledge of Scottish history of 16‐year‐old pupils in Scottish schools. The pupils’ responses to questions about aspects of Scotland's past revealed a very large degree of ignorance about important people, events, circumstances and dates as well as a number of misconceptions about major historical aspects. The content of the school history curriculum has an important part to play in the development of a sense of national identity. The findings are discussed at a time when there is a resurgent sense of national identity, with the people in Scotland recently voting in a referendum for the setting up of a Scottish parliament. The minimal place history occupies in the curriculum may partly explain the lack of pupils’ knowledge. There is a lack of detailed evidence on this issue, both within Scotland and from other nations. A major debate about what matters in Scotland's past is needed, for Scotland has avoided establishing a prescribed history curriculum: a well‐informed teaching profession has to make critical decisions about what to include.     

The reformulation of national identity in the new Taiwanese citizenship curriculum through the lens of curriculum reformers

The national curriculum reformers, regarded as members of the social elites and intellectuals, projected their vision of identity onto the curriculum which they constructed and influenced the next generation’s national consciousness. In the tangled relationship between politics and education, the selection of the reformers in a sense dictates the direction of the new curriculum. This article interviewed 18 reformers, members of the latest citizenship curriculum of 2010, to investigate their individual views on identities and the monolithically-promoted Chinese configuration in the old curriculum. Although the new citizenship curriculum, renamed Curriculum Guidelines for Civics and Society, puts nothing in writing in favour of either a Chinese or Taiwanese national identity, according to the discovery in this research, the Curriculum Committee implicitly embedded a transformed inclusive and hyphenated Taiwanese national identity in the new curriculum in the hope of accentuating Taiwan’s exclusive sovereignty. The inner thinking of the reformers is uncovered to reveal their reasoning that a broadly constructed national identity can concurrently accommodate diverse personal identities and suits the society better than the previously prescribed Chinese identity. This article also records the evolution of the curriculum from the previous China-centred narratives to Taiwan-centred narratives, something that happened in line with the changes in Taiwanese society.     

Assessing a national curriculum

The current proposals to introduce a National Curriculum in England and Wales are considered in relation to their possible implications for pupil assessment. A dominant theme in the policy announcements so far has been to relate the proposed National Curriculum to a system of ‘attainment targets’ and ‘benchmark tests’ for 7, 11, and 14 year olds.

The paper focuses specifically on the concept of benchmark tests and explores some of the difficulties that may be encountered in implementing such an assessment system. Particular attention is paid to the implied characteristics of criterion‐referencing and differentiated assessment, and the extent to which the system might be able to incorporate these features.

The possible impact of such an assessment system on teaching in schools is also considered, along with the role teachers might play in carrying out the benchmark testing.

Finally an alternative basis for assessing a National Curriculum is put forward in an attempt to overcome what are seen as major weaknesses in the current proposals.     

Social difference,cultural arbitrary and identity: An analysis of a new national curriculum document in a non-secular environment

This article focuses on the idea of the Curriculum as a 'selection from the cultures of society' and as a site of contestation for legitimacy and identity affirmation. The purpose is to shed some light on the nature of curricular reform being advocated in a specific context - Malta. Throughout the past four years, there has been a revamping of the National Minimum Curriculum (NMC) document in Malta, established in 1988. The 'old' National Minimum Curriculum was subject to criticism focusing on a variety of issues (echoing criticisms levelled at similar National Curricula elsewhere), including issues concerning difference and identity. The first part of the article deals briefly with the issues concerning difference raised in this criticism, focusing on the issues of class, race/ethnicity, gender and disability. The second part focuses on the long and gradual build up towards the development of the new National Curriculum document. The process centres around two documents, the preliminary Tomorrow's Schoolsdocument and the draft NMC document. The issues of equity and the affirmation of social difference, as well as the move towards de-streaming, are discussed. It is argued that this process of reform benefited from the criticism of the earlier NMC document. The process of reform involved an attempt at widespread participation by various stakeholders - parents, teachers, students, unions, women's organisations, disabled person's organisations etc. The final section focuses on the final new NMC document. In this section, the authors explore the compromises, which have been made in reaction to the draft document, indicating the interests at play. Whose cultural arbitrary is reflected in the final document? The article concludes with a discussion centring around lessons to be drawn from a process of curricular reform, involving issues related to identity and difference, carried out in a country characterised by a non-secular environment.     

Globalisation, identity, and nation: Australian and American undergraduates abroad

In this essay, I explore how two groups of undergraduates — Americans and Australians — participate in the reformulation of the “global imagination” through their experiences of studying abroad. Specifically, I question the assumption that the global imagination constitutes one shared, common experience that is the same across nations. In contrast, I demonstrate that though American and Australian students are certainly among the elite in global terms, their shared economic position does not necessarily correspond to a common global imagination. Instead, they have markedly different notions of both national and global identities. American students’ strong national identity often prevents them from exploring the possibilities of global affiliation. Australian students’ relatively weak national identity allows for a robust global sense of place, but is sometimes constrained by a limited tolerance for racial and ethnic diversity. In conclusion, I argue that the global imagination has not one, but numerous manifestations, which have the potential to both enable and constrain the enhancement of justice and democracy in a global context.     

The formation of the South Korean identity through national curriculum in the South Korean historical context: Conflicts and challenges

This study explores how the South Korean identity has been formed and transformed by examining the Korean national curriculum in its historical context. The study first examines how the Korean identity, previously formed by traditional ethnic values, has been transformed during the period of national modernization. It then describes the efforts to form a Korean identity through national curriculum reform amid globalization, a phenomenon that has rapidly progressed in Korea since the 1990s. It also discusses the conflicts within and challenges to Korean identity in the Korean curriculum reform process.     

Meet the phallic teacher: designing curriculum and identity in a neoliberal imaginary

This paper introduces the concept of the phallic teacher, a spectral figure negotiated in teachers’ everyday work and in school-based disciplinary communities of practice. Reporting the findings of a 3-year Australian doctoral study completed in 2014, the paper looks closely at how English teachers design both curriculum and identity in an environment where feminist and poststructuralist work of the late 20th century seems to have lost traction. These observations made here are based on empirical research in a Victorian school, combined with autoethnographic writing and other materials connecting teachers’ and researchers’ lives to the broader cultural postfeminist debate. The paper makes room for an absent subject, the teacher, marginalised in neoliberal discourses of curriculum and critiques the masculinist hegemony of outcomes and standards-based education. This provides us with new ways to challenge increasingly dominant current paradigms and to conceptualise a different future in which the standpoints of teachers are privileged in curriculum theory and curricular innovation.     

Identity and national identity

This article reviews the history of international mobility of students from China to other countries over the century and a half from 1870 to the present day. Different motivations, goals, courses, and knowledge are considered, together with how the purposes of individuals have matched national policy. Implications for the future development in a globalized context are briefly considered.     

走出对立思维实现思维创新——关于基础教育课程改革的文化反思

要顺利推进新课程,就必须走出对立思维,实现思维创新。而要实现思维创新,就必须立足于文化,以文化作为反思新课程的重要视野。新课程实施中存在的对立思维与中国传统文化特质有内在的关系,因此要从对立思维向复杂思维转换,实现思维方式的创新。     

Palestinian education: a national curriculum against all odds

This article deals with the political transition taking place in the Israeli Occupied Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in connection with the implementation of the first ever Palestinian national curriculum. The significance of this transition for the Palestinian national ambitions, with reference to relevant international law, is firstly analyzed. Then, a review of the landmarks in the construction of the curriculum, under the light of the main developments in the recent evolution of the Palestinian education, is made. The difficulties the Palestinian Ministry of Education has to overcome to implement its curriculum, because of the faltering political situation, are finally discussed. The main conclusion is that the curriculum is unable to contribute to the national construction because, the Palestinian nation's future is not in the Palestinians' hands.     

文化素养与民族音乐

正文化素养谈及文化免不了要论学历,谈到资历就要问;你都从事哪些专业性强的技术与艺术权威的指导(教练、导演等)、领导(工程师、总工程师、总指挥等),谈到学位,什么硕士、博士等等。就文化素养或艺术素养一词,没有悟性、聪慧的头脑,没有勤奋钻研哪里谈得上素质或素养。我认为有较高的艺术造质,就一定有较高的素养(文化、艺术)。我不否认先天具备优越的艺术素养。但艺     

Globalisation and localisation in music education in Hong Kong and Taiwan

The purpose of the study is to analyse and discuss the influences of globalisation and localisation on music education in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It argues that the reform of music education concerns changes to the contents of the curriculum that envisage the cultural and political developments that arise from processes of globalisation and localisation in these two Chinese societies. ‘Glocalisation’ throughout this essay refers to the interface of the global and the local. I conclude by discussing three issues relating to the processes of glocalisation that have shaped music education and cultural identity in these two changing societies: (1) the multiculturalism of music education; (2) the promotion of local music cultures in the curriculum; and (3) the inclusion of Confucian ethics in song lyrics. This study argues that education that promotes family values and social harmony can satisfy concerns that glocalisation involves the adoption of both Chinese and foreign songs in the school curriculum.     

Globalisation and the curriculum: Proposals for the integration of education and training in South Africa

In South Africa, the post-apartheid government has committed itself to an integrated approach to education and training. This article addresses South African policy debates, illustrating that global trends such as integration are shaped by significant local influences in the production of specific policy positions. The integration debate in South Africa reflects both equity and human resource development concerns, and is more fully developed in adult basic education and training than in formal post-compulsory education. The article analyses the proposals for integration as part of a complex policy agenda, arguing that the implementation of integration proposals will not be straightforward. This is due to the genesis of the integration debate in training rather than both education and training, its assumptions about economic development, and the contested nature of the policy process.     

浅谈音乐的民族性与世界性对中国音乐的启示

本文是以时间为背景,简单介绍了中国音乐的历史,找出音乐发展中存在的不足,以及和世界音乐之间的差距。     

浅谈高师音乐教学法课程改革

高师音乐教育一定要突出师范性,音乐教学法课程的开设是突出师范性的象征。因此音乐教学法课堂教学,应提供给学生一个运用专业技能、发展综合艺术能力、增强创新意识、挖掘个人潜能的实践操作空间和整合发展的机会。是帮助学生分析"教"与"学"及培养学生从"学生"到"教师"转变的一门关键性学科,使学生在走上岗位之前得到充分的培训。今天,我们从高师音乐教学法课程定位准确性、课程设置和合理性、任课教师专业性、教学模式创新性等问题进行探讨。