Hermeneutics,aesthetics, and the quest for answerability: a dialogic possibility for reconceptualizing the interpretive process in curriculum studies

This study reviews six traditional approaches to hermeneutics and presents a dialogic understanding of hermeneutics. It concludes with specific applications of hermeneutics to curriculum development practices in schools with a focus on inter‐subjectivity. While 20^th‐century access to post‐structural notions of subjectivity through aesthetic experience began to engender a language of possibility rather than a language of certitude for hermeneutic inquiry in curriculum studies, it nevertheless did not fully account for interpretation as a productive and collaborative act in the inter‐subjective sense of being for the other. This study explores the dialogic emergence of this language of possibility through a review of historical and contemporary approaches to hermeneutics, and subsequently proposes an alternative understanding of hermeneutics and aesthetics to offer a reconceptualized vision of the interpretive process for curriculum studies.     

高等职业教育及其课程观

首先从明确高等职业教育的内涵入手,为高等职业教育课程的构建指明了方向;然后,在分析及借鉴有关国内外课程专家的课程理论基础上,形成了独特的职业教育课程理论概念框架结构,从而使高等职业教育的课程设计具有了可操作性;最后,以高等职业教育培养目标为指导,以职业教育课程理论概念框架结构为线索,对高等职业教育进行课程设计,从而形成完整的高等职业教育课程观。     

The didactics tradition in South Africa: a reply to Richard Krüger

There has been a growing interest in the European Didaktik tradition as part of a process of ‘internationalizing’ curriculum studies. Krüger provides useful insights into some aspects of Didaktiek in South Africa. However, the essay does not contextualize this tradition within the broader history of South African education. This reply contends that Didaktiek was interwoven with ‘fundamental pedagogics’ and as a consequence played a role in reproducing apartheid ideology—it did not provide a language of critique or possibility. This is one reason why the tradition has seen its demise in post‐apartheid South Africa. I argue that curriculum theory, which crucially deals with the relationship between schooling and society and highlights the socially constructed nature of schooling, offers a more useful alternative for critiquing apartheid education policy and for charting a process of transformation of education in South Africa.     

Alienating curriculum work in Australian vocational education and training

Competency-based training (CBT) is a curriculum model employed in educational sectors, professions and industries around the world. A significant feature of the model is its permeability to control by interests outside education. In this article, a ‘Neoliberal’ version of CBT is described and analysed in the context of Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET). In this version of the model, a division of curriculum labour is instituted that, from the perspective of Neoliberal theory, allows the interests of educators to be limited in accordance with the belief that they will neglect the interests of students and other stakeholders if they have control over the whole curriculum construction process. But this version of CBT denigrates the expertise of educators by forcing them to set aside their own judgement about what is important to teach and implement a pre-existing picture of an occupation that may or may not be an effective representation. Empirical evidence is reviewed that suggests curriculum work in VET is indeed alienating for educators. Existing critiques of CBT are considered and found to have overlooked the specifically Neoliberal form of CBT in VET analysed in the article.     

A study of in-service teacher educator roles,with implications for a curriculum for their professional development

In-service educators have a crucial role to play in meeting the professional learning needs of teachers of the future, according to the Council of Europe’s ‘ET 2020’, although it is less clear what that role entails. This empirical study, undertaken in a university school of English language in Turkey, explores the everyday experience of a team of wholly school-based in-service educators and develops a model of their role based on an analysis of questionnaire, interview and focus group data. The results attest to the complexities of the in-service educator’s role, revealing them to be more than simply effective teachers. Catering for affective needs, coaching a broad range of clients, interpreting contextual variables and providing appropriate feedback represent some of the challenges in-service educators are facing in the research context, which set them apart and suggest important lessons for the development of an in-service educator training curriculum.     

以职业工作过程为导向的高职《网页设计与制作》课程教学改革实践

当今社会对人才的要求越来越高,也给高职教育者提出了新的问题,如何更新观念、运用新的教学方法、改进课堂教学,以满足新时期高职教育对技能应用型人才综合能力培养的要求。本文从分析高职教育《网页设计与制作》课程教学存在的问题入手,结合实际的教学实践,对职业工作过程导向的课程建设进行了探讨。     

高职教育课程重建的正途——构建以就业为导向的现代课程体系

中国高职教育正从初创期向成熟期过渡,亦即进入"内涵式发展"阶段。课程重建乃是时势所需。高职教育课程重建的正途,是以现代课程理论为支撑,构建以就业为导向的现代课程体系。课程的高职范式由此而诞生。     

复杂性科学视野下高职课程改革探讨

课程改革是高职教育研究的核心领域,高职教育的职业性、高等性和教育性等因素决定了高职教育课程改革过程具有复杂性特征。然而在实践中,由于对高职课程改革复杂性的认识不足,导致了高职课程改革的诸多不畅。鉴于此,以复杂性科学理论为指导,从组成要素的多样性、系统结构的多层性、系统行为的开放性、系统的非线性和不确定性等五个方面论证当前高职课程改革的复杂性,对于指导高职课程改革和实践、提高高职院校办学水平具有重要的意义。     

The professional identities of teacher educators in three further education colleges: an entanglement of discourse and practice

Initial teacher education programmes have been identified as crucial to meeting the twin policy aims of professionalising the further education (FE) workforce and achieving improved learner outcomes, yet college-based teacher educators are underrepresented in published research and commentary. Drawing on a case study of teacher educators employed by three FE colleges in England, this paper argues that the contested and politicised nature of the FE sector presents a unique set of circumstances that distinguishes this population from other members of their professional group and severely restricts the identities available to them. Through a thematic discursive analysis of documentation, observation and interview data, it is argued that FE positions teacher educator identity through political governance, through the business practices of colleges and through the sector’s historical relationships with vocational and higher education. Within this distinctive context, teacher educators experience competing identities of ‘qualified and credible’, ‘teacher’, ‘different from others’, ‘part of FE’ and ‘employee’ that are entangled with the dominant discourses of English further education. After discussing the implications of these findings for a professional profile of teacher educators, the paper concludes that teacher educators are better understood as a heterogeneous occupational group in order to avoid obscuring professional concerns linked to policy landscapes.     

Using the curriculum emphasis concept to investigate teachers’ curricular beliefs in the context of educational reform

This paper reports a study on teachers’ domain‐specific beliefs about the chemistry curriculum for upper‐secondary education in The Netherlands. Teachers’ beliefs were investigated using a questionnaire focused on the goals of the chemistry curriculum. The design of the questionnaire was based on three curriculum emphases: ‘fundamental chemistry’, ‘chemistry, technology and society’, and ‘knowledge development in chemistry’. The questionnaire was administered to a sample of Dutch chemistry teachers. The results indicate that, on the whole, the curriculum emphasis ‘fundamental chemistry’ received the strongest support. This is in accordance with the content and the tradition of the Dutch chemistry curriculum. When the two types of upper‐secondary education were compared, it appeared that ‘chemistry, technology and society’ was almost equally valued for both types of education. However, the curriculum emphasis, ‘knowledge development in chemistry’, was considered much more important for pre‐university education than for senior general secondary education.     

高职院校理论课程设置问题探讨

高等职业技术院校理论课程改革要借鉴国外职业教育课程发展状况以及我国经济发达地区职业教育课程改革的经验，以构建一个课程体系更加科学、课程结构更加合理、课程内容更加先进、课程评价标准和制度基本完善的高等职业院校理论课体系。     

高等职业教育课程结构体系设计的研究与实践

依据"领域——科目——模块"结构模式,将高等职业教育的课程结构体系划分为学习领域、课程和教学模块三个结构层次,并相应地进行课程结构体系设计,可有效地扭转高等职业教育沿用多年的学科型课程结构体系,更有利于推进基于"工作过程""、任务引领"、"项目导向"等现代高等职业教育理念的课程开发与设计。     

教师资格国考内容与高职教师教育专业课程融合策略探讨--以S职业技术学院数学教育专业为例

科学合理的课程体系和内容是高职教师教育专业培养合格师资的重要保证。在教师资格证国考的背景下,高职院校如何将国考内容与教师教育专业课程进行有机融合,既能保证师范生的教师资格证的通过率,又能保证教师教育专业的人才培养质量,是摆在每一个教师教育工作者面前的一个重要课题。文章分析了教师资格国考对高职教师教育专业产生的影响,阐述了教师资格国考内容与高职教师教育专业课程融合的必要性,并以数学教育专业为例提出了教师资格国考内容与高职教师教育专业课程融合的策略。     

论工作过程导向职业教育课程开发的取向

为保证工作过程导向职业教育课程开发的质量与效果,首先必须对其进行准确定位,这就涉及课程开发的取向问题。工作过程导向职业教育课程目标应以学生的综合职业能力和人格培养为取向,课程内容应以工作过程知识和学生的经验知识为取向,课程实施应采用相互适应取向和课程创生取向,课程评价应采用过程评价取向和主体评价取向。     

地方本科院校职业教育课程的构建——以山东省德州学院为例

地方本科院校应克服片面追求理论教学的误区,把职业教育课程纳入到课程体系中,构建适应社会经济发展对人才的需求的课程体系,培养学生的应用能力和创新能力,加强课程规范化建设和师资队伍建设,探索与职业院校学分互认机制,形成具有地方特色的课程教学模式。     

Not just skills: what a focus on knowledge means for vocational education

This contribution to the symposium on Michael Young’s article ‘Overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: a knowledge based approach’, supports his contention that curriculum theory has lost sight of its object—‘what is taught and learned in schools’, and argues that this has particularly deleterious consequences for vocational education and training (VET). VET is unproblematically positioned as applied, experiential and work-focused learning, and it is seen as a solution for those who are alienated from or unsuccessful in more traditional forms of academic education. This article argues that rather than being a mechanism for social inclusion, VET is instead a key way in which social inequality is mediated and reproduced because it excludes students from accessing the theoretical knowledge they need to participate in debates and controversies in society and in their occupational field of practice. It presents a social realist analysis to argue why VET students need access to theoretical knowledge, how a focus on experiential and applied learning constitutes a mechanism for social exclusion and what a ‘knowledge rich’ VET curriculum would look like.     

Critically-oriented pedagogical tact: learning about and through our compulsions as teacher educators

The work of critical teacher education centers on making sure future teachers learn to be critically-oriented practitioners. In this article, I assert that this sort of learning must first begin with the critical teacher educators themselves, and that much of the most fruitful learning manifests itself in the teacher educator’s compulsions. Drawing on a key finding from a phenomenological study that focused on cultivating pedagogical tact in teaching, I suggest that the ways in which I compulsively strategized at times limited what I could accomplish as a critically-oriented teacher educator; that each of us as teacher educators have compulsions that limit just as much as they make possible; and that our examinations of these compulsions are important for our students’ growth as critically-oriented practitioners.     

The emotional work of discomfort and vulnerability in multicultural teacher education

This study documents our efforts to implement an ‘ethic of discomfort’ and a ‘pedagogy of discomfort’ in our undergraduate multicultural teacher education courses. Commitments to these moral imperatives inherently involve emotional work for teacher candidates and teacher educators. Such emotional work, particularly in academia, is often invisible and disincentivized. This study examines the following: (1) grappling with students’ emotional reactions that stem from discomfort, (2) engaging in public emotional discourses, (3) negotiating the political dimensions of teaching diverse students, and (4) remaining emotionally available to students as they work through these ideas in their own lives. The implications of this study address the types of preparation and support teacher educators need to facilitate the transformative potential of a pedagogy and an ethic of discomfort. While pre-service teacher education is considered a safe and productive learning space for students to be discomforted, questions are posed regarding the safety for pre-tenured teacher educators involved in this process. We offer a typology of emotional work from a teacher educator perspective in teaching multicultural education.