The right to enhancement: students talking about music knowledge in the secondary curriculum

In this paper the idea of social entitlement to conceptual knowledge is considered in relation to students’ views of music at secondary school in New Zealand. The data was collected as a means of triangulating the key focus of a study concerning the beliefs and actions of teachers in relation to curriculum. In interpreting the student data I utilise thematic categories developed in the study but also Bernstein's concepts of pedagogic rights and identities to consider whether students’ experience of the curriculum empowered them to look beyond what they already know to consider alternatives. Most students were able to recognise themselves and their aspirations within their school music departments while also recognising the potential importance of the theoretical knowledge of the discipline. The interplay between enabling pedagogy and curriculum content appears to be pivotal in developing these rights for students.     

Crossing boundaries: Exploring the theory,practice and possibility of a ‘Future 3’ curriculum

In this article, we examine a case of innovation in curriculum and pedagogy at a new school in the UK. We begin by outlining the 3 Futures model, which we use as a methodological heuristic in the case study of the school that appears to be both knowledge-led and learner-engaged; characteristics of the Future 3 scenario. In considering the school's curriculum, we also draw on a number of concepts from the work of Basil Bernstein: classification, framing and the idea of open schools, and a curriculum integration model developed by us to consider the degree of epistemic emphasis in the school's predominantly interdisciplinary curriculum. Together, these concepts provide the means to examine the organising principles of practice operating in the school, as links are drawn between the 3 Futures model, Bernstein's concepts and the data. We theorise this as a form of ‘opening up’, suggesting that even within the context of an interdisciplinary curriculum, access to powerful knowledge may be maintained in a whole-school approach where the demands of both knowledge and knowers are brought into balance. The school's approach and the theorisation we offer may provide insights for other schools embarking on a futures model for education and for twenty-first-century educational discourses more generally.     

课程改革下音乐师资培养改革探析——以安顺学院为例

基础音乐教育课程改革背景下,作为培养音乐师资的高等师范学校应该和课改理念、内容步伐一致才能培养出适合基础教育所需要的师资力量。文章分析当前音乐师资培养的问题并提了对策。     

Social justice and curriculum renewal for Samoan students: an Australian case study

This paper examines the construction of ‘socially just’ curriculum renewal initiatives for Samoan students in a low socio-economic secondary school. Basil Bernstein's concept of recontextualization is used to investigate the implementation of Queensland's Social Justice Strategy at the school level. Interview data provided by the school's first two ‘social justice coordinators’ is analysed, focussing on the categorizations of students and discourses operative within the reform initiatives. Shifts in what counted as socially just curriculum for Samoan students are documented. The focus is on the varying strength of the boundaries of cultural categories (i.e. ‘Samoan’) and on tensions over the emphasis on the cultural knowledge of community representatives and the professional knowledge of school educators. The findings make explicit implications for the distribution of discursive resources to the Samoan students and, hence, life chances in a world in which English is a tool needed by young Australians irrespective of their cultural background.     

Music on the move: methodological applications of Bernstein’s concepts in a secondary school music context

In 2002 Parlo Singh outlined Bernstein’s theory of the pedagogic device, elaborating the potential in Bernstein’s complex theoretical framework for empirical research. In particular, Singh suggests that Bernstein’s concepts provide the means of making explicit the macro and micro structuring of knowledge into pedagogic communication. More recently, Power has noted that use of Bernstein’s ideas remains relatively unrepresented in the literature. This paper makes a case for the use of Bernstein’s ideas as a particularly rich resource for educational researchers. It provides illustrations of a number of concepts as part of a methodological procedure in a research project examining the approaches to curriculum and pedagogy of six secondary school music teachers within the dialectic of western art music and popular music. Through utilisation of Bernstein’s concepts of knowledge discourses, recontextualisation, and regionalisation, the study is able to identify, describe, and shed light on a key problem for music education and education generally: developing the pedagogical means for the utilisation of informal knowledge as a pedagogic resource within the secondary school curriculum. In turn, the music context suggests a number of extensions to Bernstein’s concepts.     

Contesting knowledge,constructing legitimacy: knowledge making in mother-tongue education schools in Nepal

Scholars in education have drawn our attention to the ways in which social power and control manifests in the process of knowledge production in education institutions especially through school curriculum. In this paper, I analyse school textbooks along with classroom instruction events and everyday practices in a mother-tongue school in Nepal. Drawing on the concept of ‘legitimate knowledge’, this paper discusses mother-tongue education as a struggle over symbolic resources, whereby familiarity with ‘daily life in the locality’ is discursively drawn upon to articulate mother tongue as an effective pedagogy and legitimate knowledge. The paper argues that the introduction of mother tongue in the school curriculum is, therefore, more than an addition of new language. It is a process of negotiating what it means to ‘know’ things in school. In doing so, this paper illustrates a dynamic process of re-signification of local languages, knowledge and identities that is underway.     

Coming to Grips with Continuous Assessment

In the aftermath of the apartheid years the South African education system is being reformed and the curriculum transformed. One reason for doing so is that the old curriculum, apart from being the product of a universally discredited past, is also inappropriate for a developing economy in the 21st century. The new curriculum espouses outcomes based education. This shifts curricular emphasis from prescribed content knowledge to a learner centred, teacher facilitated, activity based style of education. Teachers must become adept at perceiving clues to a learner's thinking by observing science activities closely. The method of 'dynamic assessment' is discussed. It involves teachers eliciting clues or observing and interpreting learners' actions as a reflection of their concept development. By acting immediately when the learner is judged to be at a 'point of divergence' the teacher can pre-empt a conceptually costly meander. Teaching in this way requires confidence as well as good subject knowledge. The Primary Science Programme (PSP), where both authors are employed, is an in-service organisation. The PSP's work suggests that clear performance indicators which articulate distinctly what teachers must focus on is a powerful teaching and in-service mechanism. The new South African curriculum is discussed and shown to be demanding for teachers.     

Pedagogical Thinking in a Student's Mind: A conceptual clarification on the basis of self‐determination and volition theories

This article suggests that educational psychology should pay more attention to the role of the curriculum when the optimal motivation to learn in school is considered. The curriculum frames the teaching‐studying‐learning process in school. This fact has several implications on the motivation to learn in school. After the child starts school, his or her motivation to learn seems to change from an intrinsic motivation to an extrinsic motivation. To develop pedagogical thinking in a student's mind means that the student must become acquainted with the aims and goals of the curriculum, assimilate them into his or her integrated sense of self and, thus, fully accept them as their own. If this succeeds, it will have positive effects on the student's motivation at school and especially on the motivation to study and learn. The concept of pedagogical thinking in a student's mind is analogous to the concept of teacher's pedagogical thinking. Based on previous studies, this article provides an example of how joint‐planning can offer a learning environment that promotes students' pedagogical thinking and the internalisation of the aims and goals of the curriculum in school. This article calls for new theoretical syntheses and research programmes that better take into account the normative nature of learning and teaching in school.     

Basil Bernstein's Theory of the Pedagogic Device and Formal Music Schooling: Putting the Theory Into Practice

This article describes Basil Bernstein's theory of the pedagogic device as applied to school music instruction. Showing that educational practices are not personal choices alone, but the result of socio-political mandates, the article traces how education functions as a vehicle for social reproduction. Bernstein called this process the recontextualization of knowledge: From its point of inception, originally conceived knowledge undergoes changes through selection and filtration processes, eventually becoming curriculum—a relay for certain social and cultural values. Gaps in the recontextualization process allow teachers to place their own individual stamp upon the learning and teaching that occur in their classroom. Teacher–pupil interactions, guided by school-internal processes, lead to school knowledge that is further reproduced by the pupils in particular ways. A teacher's awareness of socially conditioned and habitual patterns of preference and behavior (habitus) may be key to making socially inclusive and emancipatory instructional choices.     

In Plato's Shadow: Curriculum Differentiation and the Comprehensive American High School

This article examines the emergence and persistence of curriculum differentiation in the comprehensive high school. We argue that curriculum differentiation has roots in Plato's Republic, where it is proposed that education (and later work, especially the work of ruling) should be distributed on the basis of ability. The concept of ideology is used here to help explain why the practice of curriculum differentiation has remained a defining—and largely unchallenged—characteristic of the comprehensive high school. The persistence of curriculum differentiation matters because it is a means by which different groups of students are given access to different kinds of knowledge. Not all knowledge is equally valued, and access to certain kinds of this educational good has implications for young persons’ well-being that extend well beyond their formal schooling.     

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.     

Heritage education in the Primary School Standard Curriculum of Malaysia

Due to the importance of education for sustainable heritage preservation, it is imperative to pay attention to how heritage is taught in the education system. As a multicultural country with a rich cultural heritage, Malaysia is home to four world heritage sites. This paper investigates Malaysia's new primary school curriculum to determine to what extent the core curriculum cultivates an awareness of and sense of respect for heritage. The results reveal a focus on Malaysian intangible cultural heritage in some core subjects, such as history, Bahasa Malaysia, art, and music education.     

Social developments and school music education: the struggles in Hong Kong

This paper explores two current issues in the educational policies and practices of Hong Kong that have been shaped by the emergence of the nation-state and the return of Hong Kong's sovereignty from the UK to the People's Republic of China on 1 July 1997. Since this time there have been two great challenges facing music education. The first concerns how to incorporate diverse cultures, including Chinese music, into a Western-orientated music curriculum; and the second is to find a way to cultivate national identity and democracy through music education. The data presented here were collected via in-depth, semi-structured individual interviews with music teachers, school heads and assistant school heads across 40 primary and secondary schools between 2006 and 2007. The findings can be explained by referring to the shortcomings of multicultural education and the underdevelopment of democracy in Hong Kong's education system.     

Powerful knowledge,transformations and Didaktik/curriculum thinking

From the vantage point of knowledge transformations entailed in curriculum making, this article seeks to contribute to a rethinking of the concept of powerful knowledge. It makes a case for linking the teaching of content knowledge to the development of human powers (understanding, ways of thinking, capabilities and dispositions) by way of knowledge transformations. The article starts by examining three perspectives or contributions to knowledge transformations: (1) Bernstein’s recontextualisation; (2) Chevallard’s didactic transposition; and (3) Gericke et al.’s transformations. This is followed by a discussion of what transformations entail from the perspective of Bildung-centred Didaktik, and what transformations mean in today’s context if education is centrally concerned with the development of human powers. It concludes by questioning the conflation of powerful knowledge with disciplinary knowledge.     

“教学做合一”理念下的小学音乐教学创新之路

陶行知先生“教学做合一”的教学理念,在小学音乐教学中的应用与尝试,凸显出生本智慧,在多维互动中带给学生良好的学习体验。本文以该理念为研究核心,定位小学音乐教学的现状,就该理念与当前小学音乐教学的契合度展开分析,发现“教学做合一”的教学理念符合新课程标准对小学音乐提出的新要求,也满足小学生的个性化学习特征。深度挖掘该教育理念的内涵,从音乐课程设计、实践活动等角度出发,搭建一个完整的小学音乐教学创新框架。     

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.     

Reel music teaching: a classroom music teacher reflects on the portrayal of music teaching in Mr Holland's Opus

The commercially successful movie Mr Holland's Opus tells the story of a high school music teacher throughout his thirty year career. It offers the general public a picture of what it is to be a music educator. This article outlines a critical reading of the film from the perspective of a practising high school music teacher. Three broad themes emerged in this teacher's viewing of Mr Holland's Opus: (i) general issues about teaching were identified that were not specific to music education, (ii) issues specifically about music education were critiqued as being unrealistic, and (iii) it is difficult being a musician if you are a music teacher. The themes suggest the movie has numerous possibilities for teacher reflection, as well as exposing myths about teaching which are portrayed in the mass media.     

Powerful knowledge,intercultural learning and history education

This article theorizes on the role of school subjects, especially history, in multicultural and intercultural education, arguing that to ensure intercultural learning there is a need to integrate these curricular intentions in subject teaching. However, the epistemological reorganization that such integration involves will challenge both a traditional structured content knowledge, and the multicultural research focused on deconstructing these traditions. This article investigates Michael Young’s concept of ‘powerful knowledge’ as a way to incorporate knowledge in the discourses of intercultural education. While proponents of the intercultural perspective emphasise educational policies and socialisation, advocates of powerful knowledge tend to dismiss such political interference. In order to use powerful knowledge in this context the concept is reconceptualised by relating it to curriculum theory and Gert Biesta’s conceptual distinction between educational purposes. Finally, this intersection is pursued through the example of history education. When acknowledging that societal needs, policy and disciplinary boundaries are interrelated, the perspective of ‘powerful knowledge’ can bring the potential of subject knowledge to intercultural research, and thus prove useful in identifying the guidelines necessary to develop History as a contemporary relevant subject.     

陕北民歌融入地方初中音乐课的思考

传承和发展我国多地域的民族民间音乐文化,提高普通中学生的民间音乐文化知识素养,是我国基础音乐教育的一个重要责任。在调查分析陕北地区陕北民歌融入初中音乐课程现状的基础上,我们认为陕北民歌有必要融入地方音乐课程,并从教育的理念、领导的重视、教材的编制、师资的培训、课内外实施策略以及健全的评价体系等方面阐述陕北民歌进课堂的的具体实施策略,已期丰富陕北地区普通中学音乐课程的教学内容,为发展传承陕北民间音乐起一定的促进作用。     

新课程改革下的中学音乐教学调适

音乐教育是素质教育的有机组成部分,也是实施素质教育中的一个重要环节。中学音乐教育处于整个音乐教育的重要阶段,在其教学中应摆脱传统思想的束缚。在新课程改革背景下更新教学理念,探索新的教学模式,最大限度的发挥学生的创造性和能动性,达到最好的教学效果。