Journal of Curriculum Studies 45卷2期文章

1. Overcoming the Crisis in Curriculum Theory: a Knowledge-Based Approach

Author: Michael Young

Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2): 101-118

Abstract:This paper begins by identifying what it sees as the current crisis in curriculum theory. Following a brief history of the field, it argues that recent developments have led to it los-ing its object––what is taught and learned in school––and its distinctive role in the educa-tional sciences. Arising from this brief account of the origins and nature of this “crisis”, the paper argues that curriculum theory must begin not from the learner but from the learner’s entitlement to knowledge. It then develops a framework for approaching the curriculum based on this assumption which is illustrated by an example of how the Head Teacher of a large secondary school in England used these ideas. Finally, it examines three widely held criticisms of the knowledge-based approach developed here and the issues that they raise.

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2. Equality and Academic Subjects

Author: Atli Hardarson

Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2): 119-131

Abstract:A recent national curriculum guide for upper secondary schools in my home country, Iceland, requires secondary schools to work towards equality and five other overarching aims. This requirement raises questions about to what extent secondary schools have to change their curricula in order to approach these aims or work towards them in an ade-quate way. Textbooks on curriculum theory commonly invite their readers to choose between different perspectives that are presented as mutually exclusive. From one per-spective, they tend to emphasize academic subjects, to the exclusion of perspectives that focus on improvement of society or individual development. There are, however, reasons to doubt that organizing a curriculum emphasizing general aims such as equality excludes using academic subjects as its principal building blocks. In this paper, I argue that if we take equality seriously as an aim of education, we should indeed emphasize academic school subjects, just as advocates of liberal education have done for a long time. Focusing on subjects and focusing on aims, such as equality, are therefore not mutually exclusive perspectives but two aspects that must coexist in any reasonable and sound pedagogy.

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3. The “Natur e of Science” in the School Curriculum: the Great Survivor

Author: Edgar W.Jenkins

Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2): 132-151

Abstract:

This paper explores the ways in which the “nature of science” (NoS) has been interpreted, accommodated and justified within school curricula since science was first schooled in the mid-nineteenth century. It explores how different interpretations of ‘the NoS’ have been invoked by those seeking to reform school science education in response to wider political, economic or social concerns such as the demand to ‘humanise’ school science teaching, to increase the supply of qualified scientists or to promo te scientific literacy. It offers some comments upon the implications of these interpretations for current attempts to promote the “NoS” in school science education. The focus of attention is England and, to a lesser extent, the USA but the issues raised are of contemporary relevance to many other parts of the world.

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4. The Science Curriculum; the Decline of Expertise and the Rise of Bureaucratise

Author: Peter J.Fensham

Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2): 152-168

Abstract:The content for the school science curriculum has always been an interplay or contest between the interests of a number of stakeholders, who have an interest in establishing it at a new level of schooling or in changing its current form. For most of its history, the interplay was dominated by the interests of academic scientists, but in the 1980s the needs of both future scientists and future citizens began to be more evenly balanced as science educators promoted a wider sense of science. The contest changed again in the 1990s with a super-ordinate control being exerted by government bureaucrats at the expense of the subject experts. This change coincides with the rise in a number of coun-tries of a market view of education, and of science education in particular, accompanied by demands for public accountabil ity via simplistic auditing measures. This shift from expertise to bureaucratise and its consequences for the quality of science education is illustrated with five case studies of science curriculum reform in Australia.

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5. Collaborative Curriculum Making in the Physical Educationvein: a Narrative Inquiry of Space, Activity and Relationship

Author: Cheryl J.Graig, Jeongae You and Suhak Oh

Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2): 169-197

Abstract:Located at the intersection where teaching and curriculum meet, this narrative inquiry examines how collaborative curriculum making unfolded between and among six members of a physical education department in a middle school in the mid-southern USA. The internationally significant work takes the position that long-term relations are prere-quisite for collaboration to occur and that Schwab’s four commonplaces are essential to the curriculum making act. Three narratives emblematic of three different iterations of collaborative curriculum making emerge: Physical Space Story (the sports field), Physical Activity Story (the fishing field trip) and Human Relationship Story (team teaching). These stories of collaborative experience arise from personal experiences and from the social, narrative and institutional history of the school milieu, and press towards the future in ever changing ways.

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6. The Contribution of TIMSS to the Link between School and Classroom Factors and Student Achievement

Author: Marjolein Drent, Martina R.M.Meelissen and Fabienne M.Van Der Kleij

Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2): 198-224

Abstract:Worldwide, the interes t of policy-makers in participating in studies from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), such as Trends in Inter-national Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) has been growing rapidly over the past two decades. These studies offer the opportunity to relate the teaching and learning context to student achievement. This article presents the results of a systematic review of the research literature on TIMSS. Its main purpose is to find out to what extent TIMSS has contributed to insights into ‘”what works in education and what does not”, particularly with regard to school and classroom factors. The review was guided by a generic framework developed within the tradition of educational effectiveness research. The review showed that: (a) since 2000, the number of publications which use TIMSS data for secondary analyses aimed at explaining differences in student achievement has increased strongly; (b) a number of studies, especially older ones, did not take account of the specific sample and test design of TIMSS; and (c) there are large differences between countries in school and classroom factors associated with student achievement. In the light of these results, we discuss the benefits and limitations of country and system comparisons.

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7. Influence of Culture on Curriculum Development in Ghana: an Undervalued Factor?

Author: Chantal J.Gervedink Nijhuis, Jules M.Pieters and Joke M.Voogt

Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2): 225-250

Abstract:Curriculum implementation often falls short because of a lack of cultural understanding by curriculum developers and aid organizations. This paper describes a single-case study of a professional development programme for polytechnic Heads of Department in Ghana, which aimed at identifying how curriculum development activities were sensitive to culture. A conceptual framework for culturally sensitive curriculum development was applied to facilitate the identification of culture in the curriculum development process. Two curriculum specialists and various project members from Ghana and the Nether-lands participated in the data collection by means of interviews, documents, and a researcher’s logbook. Results showed that the conducted curriculum development activi-ties were strongly impacted by Hofstede’s cultural dimensions –– High-Low Power Dis-tance and Collectivism–Individualism and to a limited extent by Hall’s cultural dimensions –– High-Low Context and Polytime-Monotime. The outcomes of this study strengthen the relevance of Context analyses, iterations of design–implementation–evalua-tion activities, and additional implementation support. Through the conduction of these activities, culture can be taken into account in curriculum development processes and a good fit between the developed curriculum and the local contex t can be ensured. Fur-thermore, this study encourages curriculum developers and project teams working in international cooperation contexts to create more cultural understanding by using the framework and by intensively collaborating with informed experts. 

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8. Education for Citizenship in For-Profit Charter Schools?

Author: Sarah M.Stitzlein

Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2): 251-276

Abstract:Most Americans and many residents of other democratic countries hold public schools to the social and political goal of preparing children to be good citizens. This goal is being challenged by some new forms of schooling promoted through popular education reform movements, especially in the US. This article reveals potentially insurmountable conflicts between the beliefs and practices of one of those forms of schools, for-profit charter schools, and their public task of educating for citizenship. This study begins by exploring the public nature and purposes of public schools, especially their role in creating particu-lar types of citizens. This understanding of public schooling and good citizenship, then, becomes the theoretical lens for analysing the practices of for-profit charter schools. A critical discourse analysis was conducted of school materials such as websites, curricula, investor relation materials, proposals for new charter schools, and interviews with charter school founders. That analysis was used to indicate aspects of support for and incompati-bility with quality citizenship education and to assess the overall likelihood that for-profit schools can educate citizens well.

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9. Constant and Emerging Characteristics of Chinese Learners in Changing School Contexts

Author: Jian Wang

Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2): 277-293

Abstract:The characteristics of Chinese learners and the factors influencing these characteristics become increasingly an important focus of research in the field of educational psychol-ogy, sociology and comparative education ever since the publication of the book, The Chinese Learner: Cultural, Psychological and Contextual Influences, edited by Watkins and Bigg in 1996. The recent essay collection edited by Chan and Rao in 2010, Revisit-ing the Chinese Learner: Changing Education, Changing Contexts, proposes a concep-tual framework for guiding the further inquiry and documents some of the important developments in this line of research. This essay review synthesizes these developments emerging from the book, comments on the potentials of these developments in challeng-ing the existing theoretical and empirical understanding about the relationship between Chinese learners, their learning and their social, cultural and pedagogic al contexts. It further raises some conceptual and empirical questions about the constant and emerging characteristics of Chinese learners in the above contexts that are worth further examination.