Tradition,Authority and Disciplinary Practice in History Education

Abstract

The concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘authority’ are generally understood to be problematical in history curriculum design. Drawing on MacIntyre’s account of disciplines as social practices, this article argues that, to the contrary, these are concepts that need to be incorporated into any curriculum theory that attempts to build a school subject on the foundations provided by an academic discipline. In history education, there is a strong consensus towards deriving the ideas of the history curriculum from the discipline of history, and this article argues that it is therefore necessary for history curriculum theory to account for the concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘authority’ as they exist in disciplinary practice.     

美国课程史研究的历史演进

美国课程史研究最早是作为传统教育史的次领域而萌芽的,秉持传统教育史的进步史观、重视史料、编年体叙写等特点。20世纪70年代,课程领域的转向和修正教育史学的兴起,促使课程史研究开始思考与教育史的关系,并自觉寻求课程历史的理论解释。20世纪90年代,在后现代、后结构思潮和课程研究“理解范式”的影响下,课程史研究走向多元理论解释的路径。应从课程史与课程理论内在关联的角度,充分认识课程史研究的学术价值。     

课程研究中文化传统规约的文化机理及文化路向

文化传统所规约课程研究的文化机理为：从传统文化与文化传统的区别中,理解文化传统的内涵与旨趣;从文化传统的存在形态中,理解文化传统的性质与形态;从文化传统的变迁方式中,理解文化传统的变革与转型。进而,文化传统所规约下的课程研究的文化路向为：基于文化传统本土回归的课程理论研究与基于文化传统本土关怀的课程文化研究。     

实践哲学视野中的课程改革理论

实践哲学的课程改革理论兴起于20世纪70年代，反映了西方课程现代化改革中的社会矛盾和道德危机，在理论资源上受到了亚里士多德的实践哲学、彼得斯的知识伦理学和罗尔斯的社会正义论的影响。实践哲学的课程改革理论主张把课程改革作为伦理政治实践；课程改革是在实践理性指导下的集体的审议活动；课程改革的方式是一种审议的活动；课程改革需要就课程改革的目的作出集体审议。     

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.     

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.     

Railways,rebellions and Rage Against The Machine: adolescents' interests and meaning‐making in the creation of multimodal identity texts

This paper draws on a Canadian qualitative case study grounded in multiliteracies theory to describe the meaning‐making processes of four students aged 13‐14 years as they created history projects. Students were invited to explore curriculum content in self‐chosen ways and to produce presentations in a range of formats. The data we present and discuss were collected through participant observation and in‐situ interviews with four students who selected digital formats. We examine these data using multiliteracies concepts: specifically multimodality and identity texts. We argue that multimodal literacy practices have potential to bridge gaps between students' in‐school and out‐of‐school lives and underscore the importance of allowing students to draw on their out‐of‐school identities and interests to guide explorations of curriculum content.     

The multi‐modal redesign of school texts

Multiliteracies‐related research is just emerging from the formal discourse of pedagogical theorising and how it may look in practice needs further exploration. This research, initiated under that warrant, presents practitioner research and the enactment of a multiliteracies curriculum with Year 8 students in New York City's Chinatown. The study describes a collaborative digital literacies project with a local contemporary arts museum where students engaged in the multi‐modal redesign of school texts. First, the article outlines a move of multiliteracies theory into curriculum practice where students explored questions of Chinese‐American and immigrant identities through a discourse analysis of history texts. Then, drawing on a digital gothic and hip‐hop cartoon Web project, it outlines how students challenged ways their ethnic identities were positioned by drawing political satire cartoons about immigration to the United States. The project concluded with a virtual exhibition of students' artwork where they inserted their cartoons within existing educational websites using HTML and Flash. It argues that the redesigned websites are a new set of multi‐modal literacy practices that allow youth to disrupt racist and exclusionary discourses they encounter in school texts and their lived experiences.     

课程改革十年:本土实践视角的检视

以本土实践视角检视我国课程改革十年,可以看到,实践层面的课程改革,并非课程理论所认为的完全的西方化,也不似国家政策层面对传统课程思想的表面重视实则忽略。当代课程改革实践的多样性,要求我们对十年来的课程改革作出反思,以为未来的课程实践提供依据。     

二十世纪国外新教学论对我国基础教育课程改革的启示——兼谈国内基础教育课程改革中的几个问题

针对我国新一轮基础教育课程改革中几个问题的认识,结合对20世纪国外新教学论处理类似问题的思路考察,总结出20世纪国外新教学论对我国基础教育课程改革的如下启示:如何对我国教育传统进行继承与批判;我国基础教育课程改革倡导的理论和我国基础教育实践中原有的理论如何匹配和衔接;如何衡量我国基础教育课程改革的条件性因素;如何调和我国基础教育课程改革的理论和教育实践的隔离;如何更好地应对我国基础教育课程改革中出现的问题。     

Postmodern Challenges and Modern Horizons: education ‘for being for the environment‘

This article argues that a ‘humanly‐constructive’ critical theory of environmental education called ‘a critical ecological ontology for educational inquiry’ provides a necessary complement to the ‘socially‐critical’ perspective. This humanly‐constructive curriculum theory focuses on our individual and collective ‘being‐in‐the‐world’. It invites learners, teachers and researchers to study how their ‘lived experience’ of socio‐environmentally problematic circumstances is shaped and stretched globally by various economic and technological imperatives. In so doing, ‘a critical ecological ontology’ highlights the personal politic required for a socio‐ecological praxis. Of particular relevance to the socio‐ecological politic ‘for being’ are interpretations of postmodern agency that emerge from three practical applications of ‘a critical ecological ontology’. This dialogue of theory and practice is necessary in the critical curriculum project of environmental education     

Dynamic Assessment practice: some suggestions for ensuring follow up

This article examines tensions in Dynamic Assessment (DA) practice that relate ways in which its findings can be followed up and made accessible to school staff, by examining how process skill interventions can be implemented in the context of a content‐focussed curriculum. It briefly outlines some of the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of DA that arise from Feuerstein’s theory of structural cognitive modifiability. It then suggests ways in which links can be made between DA and Department for Education and Skills initiatives that emphasise the development of process skills as well as delivery of curriculum content. Finally, three conditions that are likely to ensure links between assessment and intervention are proposed: sharing common assessment and intervention goals; sharing a common curriculum context; and sharing a common language.     

物理课程的文化学：缘起、价值与路向

物理课程文化学是与物理学、文化学、课程论相关联的特殊文化形态,它的研究可将物理学史、物理课程标准、物理教材、物理课堂教学等研究融为一体,然而＂物理课程的文化学研究＂尚未引起学界的足够重视。因此,有必要对＂物理课程文化学研究＂的缘起、价值、路向进行深入分析。     

我国民族地区地方课程开发研究

民族地区的地方课程开发模式可以概括为“国家专门机构统一协作、多省区联合开发、不同层次民族自治区共同使用”,其理论基础在于地方性知识的教育价值及多元文化教育的全球理念。民族地区地方课程的目标是在“中华民族多元一体格局”理论的指导下,立足于各民族优秀的文化知识,放眼全球多元文化教育的发展特点,培养具有多元文化知识、态度与能力的一代新人。地方课程的内容包括生态环境、生产生活、民风民俗、社会历史、传统科学、民族艺术和语言文学等七个方面。     

关怀文化传统:课程改革的又一使命

课程改革无时无刻不以各种方式“遭遇”着文化传统,同时课程改革也以各种形式被传统所“文化”。然而熟知并非真知,课程改革却在课程目标、理论资源和改革阻力等方面刻意地回避和忽视文化传统,基于关怀文化传统的视角,笔者认为关怀文化传统即弥补文化传统的薄弱和消解文化传统在课程改革中的抗拒应作为课程改革路径追索的着眼点和逻辑前提。     

An Immanent Critique of Critical Pedagogy

In this essay, Quentin Wheeler‐Bell aims to reframe recent attempts to rethink the core principles of critical pedagogy. He argues that these attempts have been unsuccessful because they reproduce a deeper problem — specifically, an identity crisis — within critical pedagogy. The source of this problem, he contends, is that those working in this tradition have, over time, become more distant from and forgetful of its roots in critical theory; as a result, critical pedagogy is now in a state of dilution and fragmentation in which critical pedagogues are unable to bring the plurality of critical education approaches together theoretically around a set of shared principles. In order to address this problem and begin to reframe the core principles of critical pedagogy, Wheeler‐Bell first briefly sketches the debates around Max Horkheimer's classic essay “Critical Theory and Traditional Theory,” focusing on why critical theory grew into an interdisciplinary tradition situated between philosophy and social science. Then he explains why the recent attempts to rethink critical pedagogy rely upon a problematic, albeit dominant, narrative of the critical education tradition — a narrative that only tacitly recognizes a connection between critical education and critical theory. This dominant narrative contributes to the identity crisis within critical education because it supports a collective memory loss regarding the importance of both philosophy and social science to critical theory. Finally, Wheeler‐Bell attempts to develop a thin definition of critical education: one that connects critical education back to its roots in critical theory, while respecting the plurality of critical education approaches.     

建构面向实践的本土化的教学论——从课程与教学关系谈起

课程论与教学论的发展各有不同的历史进路，教学论有着不同于课程论的实践担当，以课程论为主导话语体系还是以教学论为主导话语体系，取决本国的历史语境和实践传统。试图用课程论来涵括教学论有碍于教学论的发展，无助于教学实践问题的解决，而当前课程理论概念的泛化更是对教学改革的迷乱和干扰，需要认真清点与反思。教学论要想完成自己的时代课题，必须走向独立，面向实践，寻求本土化重建。     

Goals in physics and chemistry education as seen by teachers and high school students

A contribution is made to the discussion of how science in general, and physics in particular, can be made more interesting and attractive to girls. Members of the PLON‐project have been working for five years on a new curriculum for higher forms of havo (intermediate secondary education) consisting of 10 units. On the basis of evaluation results, girls’ appreciation of the new curriculum can be related to specific subject areas and contexts. Since girls’ reactions have been encouraging we can now draw some general conclusions and relate these to features of the havo curriculum. These features suggest some ways in which girls’ interest in and liking for physics can be stimulated and we compare them with proposals made in the literature about the subject.     

Conceptualizing ‘preoccupation’: evidence from attention‐seeker questioning

Human beings ought to use critical reflection to define and decide their courses of action. This paper examines the use of attention‐seeker questions in the framework of critical pedagogy purposely to study the way some Ugandan teachers are constrained in their practice by their lack of participation in developing the school curriculum. This enables one to explore and discuss curriculum overload, poor resourcing, and imposed curriculum as fundamental issues surrounding curriculum development in Uganda. The major conclusions are centred on putting teachers in charge of the curriculum. This involves making decisions on key issues during its design and its management, as well as training them for a critical approach. It is recommended that policy‐makers consider means for encouraging practitioner participation in developing curriculum theory and policy.     

The Role of Critique in Philosophy of Education: its Subject Matter and its Ambiguities

The role of critique in the Anglophone analytical tradition of philosophy of education is outlined and some of its shortcomings are noted, particularly its apparent claim to methodological objectivity in arriving at what are clearly contestable positions about the normative basis of education. Many of these issues can be seen to have a long history within European, and especially German, philosophy of education. In the light of this the discussion moves on to a consideration of similarities and contrasts between the Anglophone and German‐inspired deployment of the concept of critical rationality in philosophy of education. The claims to objectivity of the Anglophone tradition are contrasted with a more self‐conscious concern for social justice and improvement in other European traditions, which has been followed more recently by a greater scepticism concerning the potential of critique for delivering social justice and improvement in education. This has parallels with the growing Anglophone disillusion with ‘classical’ analytic philosophy of education. This in turn has resulted in a greater awareness of the limitations of critique: its ideological character, its rootedness in specific contexts, its own potential dogmatism and its ambiguities. The various contributions to this volume are briefly described and related to each other.