‘Knowledge’, curriculum and social justice

This article considers the place of knowledge in developing a socially just curriculum. It pursues the unusual route of a critique of Social Realism, a small but influential tendency in curriculum studies which claims that knowledge has been squeezed out by recent curriculum reforms and that there has been a descent into relativism. This paper shares the Social Realist view that ‘powerful knowledge’ is needed, and particularly by disadvantaged or marginalised young people. However, it critiques Social Realism's limited definition of ‘powerful knowledge’, arguing that for knowledge to be truly powerful, it must open up issues of power and inequality. It contests the Social Realist argument that critical pedagogy which begins from a subaltern stance is intrinsically relativist, arguing instead that alternative perspectives can help uncover concealed truths and break through hegemonic paradigms and ideologies. It argues that this is entirely compatible with a Critical Realist epistemology. Furthermore, the paper presents reasons why a socially just curriculum needs to draw upon the vernacular knowledge of marginalised groups as well as the canonical knowledge of academic disciplines to produce truly powerful knowledge and a social justice curriculum.     

Developing ‘reflective’ development practitioners through an action-learning curriculum: problems and challenges in a South African context

Abstract

The paper begins by looking at the ‘context of practice’: the programmes of the SRCD are briefly described and even more briefly the dominant (global) socio-economic trends as they impact on ours and other tertiary institutions. Because it is important in order to make sense of the programme we then attempt to provide a detailed profile of our students.

The central questions with which we grapple, viz., the problems encountered in the curriculum activities designed to enable students to gain competence in ‘soft’ systems thinking and learning to learn, are dealt with in the sections ‘The Programme’, ‘The Results’ and ‘Bad practice, bad theory, or both’. In the first of these we give a very brief overview of Kolb's learning theory and Checkland's SSM and then show how the two can be (theoretically) integrated — Checkland's learning system is embedded in Kolb's learning cycle (LC). In the next section we report on an evaluation of the programme from the student's perspective. And then, finally, we discuss the shortcomings of Kolb's theory in our context as well as our use of Checkland's SSM. Our critique of Kolb is central to the entire endeavour, because his theory of experiential learning provides the theoretical underpinning of our curriculum development endeavour.

In the final section we make some suggestions for a way forward based on our critique.     

Fostering Students’ Scientific Inquiry through Computer-Supported Collaborative Knowledge Building

Research in Science Education - The aim of this study was to investigate whether and how engaging with a computer-supported collaborative knowledge-building environment helps students to develop a...     

Language policy provisions and curriculum issues： The challenges for secondary schools in Nigeria

Language, language policy and curriculum issues occupy very important and strategic places in educational planning in any society. In a multilingual Nigerian society as well as in similar countries like Australia, India or even in seemingly homogenous linguistic societies like Britain, language planning, development and policies are sin qua non. In this paper, the author has tried to look from the perspectives of the provisions of the National Policy on Education （1981） and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria （1979）, and examine the curriculum issues arising from the language and policy aspects in achieving the national educational aims, goals, objectives and development. This paper takes a cursory look at the constitutional and policy documents as well as the realities on ground in the secondary schools. It is discovered that, this sub-sector of education is characterized with language implementation crisis. The disturbing issue is that, since the language of instruction is bedeviled with crisis, the whole educational system itself becomes a failure. The paper recommends that, Nigeria should carry out a language policy reforms that will be acceptable and effective bearing in mind the role of language and language policy in education.     

From aspirations to practice: curriculum challenges for a new ‘twenty-first-century’ secondary school

This paper reports on the initial stages of an empirical study of a new secondary school in New Zealand. The school vision and organisation reflect current international twenty-first-century learning discourse by confronting long-established beliefs concerning the nature of education and knowledge and the roles of teachers and students. The school's focus is on developing the dispositions and competencies of students through thematic, intersubject, inquiry-based learning. While these twenty-first-century ideas appear widely accepted worldwide, there is little research on the impact of these ideas on student learning. This study considers the challenges faced by the school in moving from aspirational vision to curriculum enactment during its first 18 months of operation. The focus of this paper is the curriculum design and development process. The issues faced by staff in this twenty-first-century school will be of interest to educationalists worldwide who are involved with the planning of new schools and curricular innovation within existing schools. Four key questions that arise from the study and that will form the focus of future research are identified.     

Understanding: ‘Knowledge’, ‘Belief’ and ‘Understanding’

The following paper is intended as an exercise in friendly criticism of one of Harvey Siegel's and Mike Smith's (Knowing, Believing and Understanding, this volume). I'm in substantial sympathy with the general thrust of their paper and my remarks merely provide some criticism of their discussion's conceptual coherence and clarity and a correspondingly slightly adjusted version of what they have to say. My focus is limited to the conceptions of knowledge, belief and understanding and their inter-relationships in terms of which they offer suggestions to science educators.     

‘Shit shows’ or ‘like-minded schools’: charter schools and the neoliberal logic of Teach For America

Over the past three decades, two neoliberal educational reform efforts have emerged in tandem – the charter school movement and Teach For America (TFA). This paper critically examines the relationship between these entities through the lens of TFA corps members placed in charter schools, and explores two types of schools described by interviewees, namely, ‘shit shows,’ and ‘like-minded schools.’ Grounded in corps members’ teaching experiences, this paper argues that even at its best, the close partnership between TFA and charters can create a mutually reinforcing educational subculture that is isolated from broader educational discourses and practices. At its worst, this partnership can result in the ill-advised ‘propping up’ of under-funded, mismanaged, ill-equipped charters that might otherwise struggle to find adequate staffing and, consequently, close. This paper suggests that these two tendencies – toward corps members’ insularity and poor placement – have the potential to conflict with the charter movement’s and TFA’s stated purposes of improving the quality of schooling for disadvantaged and marginalized students.     

‘Shaping the Future’, Black History and diversity: teacher perceptions and implications for curriculum development

ABSTRACT

This study provides an evaluation of history subject leader's perceptions of a project called ‘Shaping the Future’, together with their attitudes towards Black History and diversity. It found that primary subject leaders were less likely to attach importance to these dimensions than their counterparts in secondary schools, whilst only a small minority of subject leaders made use of the project. Nevertheless, the findings provided insights into how some subject leaders used them as threads or within topics in their curriculum. The study argues that this provides a model for developing Black History as a means of understanding the past which is applicable to meeting the needs of all children.     

Narrative Inquiry for Science Education: Teachers’ repertoire‐making in the case of environmental curriculum

This paper considers how the school science curriculum can be conceptualised in order to address the contingent and complex nature of environmental and sustainability‐related knowledge and understanding. A special concern lies in the development of research perspectives and tools for investigating ways, in which teachers are faced with complex and various situations in the sense‐making of science‐related issues, and subsequent pedagogic issues. Based on an empirical examination of Korean teachers’ sense‐making of their curricular practice, the paper develops a narrative approach to teachers’ perspectives and knowledge by considering the value of stories as sense‐making tools for reflective questioning of what is worth teaching, how and why. By employing the idea of ‘repertoire’, the study regards teachers’ stories about their environment‐related personal and teaching experiences as offering angles with which to understand teachers’ motivation and reflection in curricular development and implementation. Furthermore, three empirical cases present ways in which the nature of knowledge and understanding is recognised and potentially integrated into pedagogies through teachers’ narratives. Finally, the paper argues for the need to reconsider the role of the science teacher in addressing environmental and sustainability‐related issues, in ways that facilitate teachers’ reflexive interpretation of meanings in cultural texts and the construction of pedagogic text.     

Selecting schools for closure: theory and practice in ‘rational’ planning

For more than a decade, LEAs have been under pressure to close schools. During this period the scale of contraction in school provision has been substantial but has nevertheless lagged behind DES expectations. This paper is concerned with the selection of schools for closure or amalgamation and examines in detail the procedures adopted and the proposals advanced in one LEA. While existing evidence suggests that the selection of schools for closure has generally been less than rational, the case selected is an example of what has been officially described as ‘strategic planning’ and ‘good practice’. Policy statements, criteria for selecting schools, and the characteristics of schools earmarked for closure are compared to assess the relationship between theory and practice. In practice, the criteria cited by the LEA were generally not capable of strict application. In addition, unstated criteria, notably school size, appear to have been significant. Thus, the LEA's proposals did not correspond directly to its own stated policy. Further, the extent to which the procedure adopted by the LEA conformed to notions of rational planning was limited. Current legislation is likely to reduce still further the ability of LEAs to produce rational schemes of contraction.     

Succeeding against the odds: can schools ‘compensate for society’?

ABSTRACT

Education researchers, policy-makers and practitioners in the UK have debated the question of what, and how much, schools can do to mitigate the effects of parental background on educational outcomes over the last half a century. A range of programmes, strategies and interventions have been implemented, and continue to be implemented in an effort to ‘break the link’ between socio-economic disadvantage and low educational outcomes, but educational inequalities have persisted. This paper draws on theoretical and empirical research to offer a new analysis of compensatory education in England across three main phases since the 1960s.     

Decentring the ‘places’ of citizens in national curriculum: the Australian history curriculum

There is debate internationally about the production of curriculum texts and the epistemologies underpinning the knowledge legitimated in national curricula. National History curricula in particular are a source of contention bounded by calls for coherent and unifying national narratives that are inclusive and reflect the complexity of the discipline and historical consciousness of the nation to which they are bound. This paper uses critical spatial theory to highlight the ‘spaces’ and ‘places’ of the Australian Curriculum History (years 7–10) which organise and disorganise representations of identities in and out of the centre of the national narrative. Interrogating the impact of these representations within purported inclusive and cohesive national narratives draws attention to the notions of belonging presented to Australian citizens. We argue that resistance to normative national narratives and colonial legacies presented with place-based identities can reinhabit the curriculum. This reinhabiting and decentring seeks to engage History students with alternative perspectives and articulations to the national narrative, and foster meaningful connections to place and citizenship. Finally, critical place-based education approaches invite an embodied local/global citizen through local and marginalised knowledges.     

Provoking contingent moments: Knowledge for ‘powerful teaching’ at the horizon

Background: Teacher knowledge continues to be a topic of debate in Australasia and in other parts of the world. There have been many attempts by mathematics educators and researchers to define the knowledge needed by teachers to teach mathematics effectively. A plethora of terms, such as mathematical content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, horizon content knowledge and specialised content knowledge, have been used to describe aspects of such knowledge.

Purpose: This paper proposes a model for teacher knowledge in mathematics that embraces and develops aspects of earlier models. It focuses on the notions of contingent knowledge and the connectedness of ‘big ideas’ of mathematics to enact what is described as ‘powerful teaching’. It involves the teacher’s ability to set up and provoke contingent moments to extend children’s mathematical horizons. The model proposed here considers the various cognitive and affective components and domains that teachers may require to enact ‘powerful teaching’. The intention is to validate the proposed model empirically during a future stage of research.

Sources of evidence: Contingency is described in Rowland’s Knowledge Quartet as the ability to respond to children’s questions, misconceptions and actions and to be able to deviate from a teaching plan as needed. The notion of ‘horizon content knowledge’ (Ball et al.) is a key aspect of the proposed model and has provoked a discussion in this article about students’ mathematical horizons and what these might comprise. Together with a deep mathematical content knowledge and a sensibility for students and their mathematical horizons, these ideas form the foundations of the proposed model.

Main argument: It follows that a deeper level of knowledge might enable a teacher to respond better and to plan and anticipate contingent moments. By taking this further and considering teacher knowledge as ‘dynamic’, this paper suggests that instead of responding to contingent events, ‘powerful teaching’ is about provoking contingent events. This necessarily requires a broad, connected content knowledge based on ‘big mathematical ideas’, a sound knowledge of pedagogies and an understanding of common misconceptions in order to be able to engineer contingent moments.

Conclusions: In order to place genuine problem-solving at the heart of learning, this paper argues for the idea of planning for contingent events, provoking them and ‘setting them up’. The proposed model attempts to represent that process. It is anticipated that the new model will become the framework for an empirical research project, as it undergoes a validation process involving a sample of primary teachers.     

Assembling the actors: exploring the challenges of ‘system leadership’ in education through Actor-Network Theory

This paper presents insights into the leadership implications of recent shifts in a range of policy contexts towards notions of collaboration and partnership. The paper draws on empirical research into the formation and operation of government instituted networks in the context of education in Victoria, Australia. From 2001, School Networks and Local Learning and Employment Networks (LLEN) were implemented by the state government to support young people in their transition through school and into employment in a context of a risk society, a context where pathways into sustainable employment for young people, and others, had become more erratic. For comparative purposes, the paper also draws on published research into the implementation of joined-up approaches, including Primary Strategy Learning Networks (PSLN), in England. Using concepts from Actor-Network Theory (ANT), the paper argues for the value of considering the full range of actors – both human and non-human, real and unreal – involved in networking initiatives and proposes some thoughts on the implications of such a sociology of associations for both leadership and governance.     

‘Nature’ and the ‘environment’ in Jamaica’s primary school curriculum guides

In cases where environmental education is institutionalised within schools, the curriculum can affect what and how students learn about ‘nature’ and the ‘environment’. In Jamaica, schools are considered important settings for environmental education; the curriculum therefore includes environmental issues. Using content analysis, representations of ‘nature’ and the ‘environment’ in the nation’s primary level Curriculum Guides were examined. Findings indicate that although many units emphasise an anthropocentric view of nature, this is tempered by depictions of nature’s fragility and, in some instances, nature’s ‘divine’ dimensions. Several curricular units also facilitate student’s creative engagement with nature, allowing for multiple views of the natural world.     

‘Approaching the sacred’: directionality in the relation between curriculum and knowledge structure

Increasing pressure on all levels of educational provision, whether academic or overtly vocational, to be to ‘relevant’ and ‘useful’ prompts consideration of the relation between curriculum and pedagogy in terms of the internal structure of knowledge forms. Following Durkheim’s distinction between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ orders of meaning and drawing on the work of Basil Bernstein, this paper questions pedagogic presuppositions that directionality from sensory experience to abstraction posits the everyday life of the student as the foundation for the acquisition of complex, systematic knowledge. Two empirical examples are discussed: one focuses on the internal structure of craft knowledge, while the other focuses on the internal structure of mathematics as school subject. They converge in the finding that transmission of knowledge structure, whether in material or symbolic form, requires the transformation of empirical objects into theoretical objects before a connecting point can be found between the world of everyday experience and specialised knowledge forms. This is what constitutes a ‘relevant’ curriculum.