Memorizing a memory: Schwab’s the Practical in a German context

The paper outlines the reception of Schwab’s essay ‘The practical: A language for curriculum’ in German-speaking countries in the 1970s and 1980s. The story is a good demonstration of the ways in which different circumstances and phases of development determine transatlantic exchanges and the influence of concepts in the field of education, and especially of curriculum. The central ideas of Joseph J. Schwab’s concept of curriculum theory and curriculum-making were related to the traditions of general Didaktik in the German-speaking world. It would have been well suited for a reception. Nevertheless, the reception the essay received was at first not a story of success; on the contrary, we have to diagnose a historical neglect. Circumstances today are much better for rethinking Schwab’s analysis under the new conditions of standardizing and competence-oriented curriculum policies.     

Smoking, discount rates, and returns to education

Individual time preference determines schooling enrolment. Moreover, smoking behavior in early ages has been shown to be highly related to time preference rates. Insofar as discount rates are uncorrelated to ability, predicting school enrolment by discount rates can get rid of the ability bias in an earnings regression. Accordingly, we use smoking at age 16 as an instrument for schooling. Doing this for Austrian cross-sectional data, we find no evidence of ability bias in a simple earnings regression; the results are more mixed if family background is also included.     

Teaching methods for modelling problems and students’ task-specific enjoyment, value, interest and self-efficacy expectations

In this study which was part of the DISUM-project, 224 ninth graders from 14 German classes from middle track schools (Realschule) were asked about their enjoyment, interest, value and self-efficacy expectations concerning three types of mathematical problems: intra-mathematical problems, word problems and modelling problems. Enjoyment, interest, value and self-efficacy were assessed before and after a ten-lesson teaching unit promoting modelling competency related to the topics “Pythagoras’ theorem” and “linear functions”. The study aimed to answer the following research questions: (1) Do students’ enjoyment, value, interest and self-efficacy expectations differ depending on the type of task? (2) Does the treatment of modelling problems in classroom instruction influence these variables? (3) Are there any differential effects for different ways of teaching modelling problems, including a “directive”, teacher-centred instruction and an “operative-strategic”, more student-centred instruction emphasising group work and strategic scaffolding by the teacher? The findings show that there were no differences in students’ enjoyment, interest, value and self-efficacy between the three types of tasks. However, teaching oriented towards modelling problems had positive effects on some of the student variables, with the student-centred teaching method producing the most beneficial effects.     

Die ganztagsschule in der ČSSR

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