1. State-based curriculum-making: approaches to local curriculum work in Norway and Finland
Author: Molstad, Christina Elde
Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies 47.4( Aug. 2015): 441-461.
Abstract: This article investigates how state authorities in Norway and Finland design national curriculum to provide different policy conditions for local curriculum work in municipalities and schools. The topic is explored by comparing how national authorities in Norway and Finland create a scope for local curriculum. The data consist of interviews with educational administrators as well as curricula documents and guidance material from the national level. The findings indicate two ways that state-based curriculum-making can provide conditions for control. In Finland, local curriculum work is constructed as a pedagogical process for developing local curriculum. In Norway, local curriculum work is constructed as a process for applying and thereby delivering the national curriculum. This illuminates that forms of state-based curriculum imply various ways of local curriculum control.
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2. Literacy models and the reconstruction of history education: a comparative discourse analysis of two lesson plans
Author: Collin, Ross ; Reich, Gabriel A.
Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies 47.4( Aug. 2015): 462-485.
Abstract: This article presents discourse analyses of two lesson plans designed for secondary school history classes. Although the plans focus on the same topic, they rely on different models of content area literacy: disciplinary literacy, or reading and writing like experts in a given domain, and critical literacy, or reading and writing to address injustice. The discourse analyses focus on how each plan (a) reimagines the field of secondary school history and (b) places students in reading and writing positions in the rebuilt field. Each plan, the article concludes, remakes secondary school history in relation to four other fields: the university, the professional workplace, everyday life and the public sphere. Secondary school history is reimagined as standing closer or farther away from each of these four fields. Moreover, each plan rebuilds secondary school history as a moral environment where certain kinds of moral knowledge, but not others, should be mobilized when reading, writing, speaking, thinking and listening.
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3. Drawing out the value of the visual: children and young people theorizing time through art and narrative
Author: Rudolph, Sophie; Wright, Susan
Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies 47.4( Aug. 2015): 486-507.
Abstract: This article examines the role that drawing can play in enabling children and young people to theorize concepts of time. In two, independent Australian research projects, children aged between 5 and 8years were asked to respond to the question, 'What might the future be like?', while 12-14year olds were asked, 'What does history look like?' There are points of connection and convergence in the analysis of the drawings and the ways in which the children articulate their visual representations of temporality to demonstrate deep and philosophical insights. This research illuminates possibilities for both the value of art practices in learning and the capacity for such approaches in schools. It disrupts narrow visions of neoliberal policy that privileges the teaching of literacy and numeracy in schools and seeks to transform children and youth into particular citizens for the future. We argue that expanding our view of the use and value of visual forms of learning and expression can contribute to a more layered and complex understanding of the capacities of children and young people. Further, this research contributes to better understanding of how students navigate challenging local curriculum and school terrain as they are increasingly posited as global citizens.
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4. The state of the art in Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices: a systematic literature review
Author: Vanassche, Eline; Kelchtermans, Geert
Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies 47.4( Aug. 2015): 508-528.
Abstract: This article reports on a systematic review of the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices research literature published between 1990 and 2012. Self-study research refers to teacher educators researching their practice with the purpose of improving it, making explicit and validating their professional expertise and, at the same time, contributing to the knowledge base of teacher education. Reflecting our analysis, we defined self-study as a research approach in the field of teacher education which can be typified by the following characteristics: self-study research focuses on one's own practice; for this reason, it privileges the use of qualitative research methods; collaborative interactions play a central role in the research process; and its validation is based on trustworthiness. Furthermore, we identified two tensions inherent in the self-study work, on which researchers always and continuously need to position themselves for self-study inquiries to achieve its purposes: the tension between relevance and rigour on the one hand, and that of effectiveness and understanding on the other hand.
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5. Archeology, legos, and haunted houses: novice teachers' shifting understandings of self and curricula through metaphor
Author: Fisher-Ari, Teresa R.; Lynch, Heather L.
Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies 47.4( Aug. 2015): 529-552.
Abstract: As teacher educators in an alternative certification and master's programme, we support Teach For America (TFA) teachers who are developing understandings of learning, teaching, and curriculum while they are already working full-time in classrooms. Using critical discourse analysis, we analysed 109 metaphors for curriculum created by 27 novice TFA teachers at five points during a curriculum design course we co-taught in order to determine, 'What understandings and dispositions related to curriculum design do novice teachers' metaphors reveal, particularly in the context of their work in urban Title One schools?' Two primary continua emerged, creating four distinct categories, one related to agency (the internal vs. external construction of curriculum) and the other to pliancy (the flexibility and responsiveness vs. the rigid and scripted nature of curriculum). Analysis of the metaphors indicated that many novice teachers began to problematize a depiction of curriculum as an externally crafted and rigid construct through which they (and their students) were objects rather than subjects. Our findings indicated that metaphors could serve as a meaningful tool of inquiry which revealed the momentary stances of novice teachers toward curriculum while making evident shifts in the beliefs and understandings over time.
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6. Learning a third language: what learner strategies do bilingual students bring?
Author: Grenfell, Michael; Harris, Vee
Source: Journal of Curriculum Studies 47.4( Aug. 2015): 553-576.
Abstract: This article seeks to develop the research agenda of multilingualism and multicompetence by bringing together three research fields and their related methodologies: bilingualism, third language acquisition and language learner strategies. After a brief introduction to each area, it describes a study to explore whether bilingual adolescent students learning French in two London schools outperform their monolingual peers in reading and listening comprehension. The significant difference in bilinguals students' listening comprehension test scores leads to in-depth analysis of qualitative data of three case study students in order to identify the differential features involved in the interaction of the languages. It appears that their greater use of oral/aural strategies is developed through the home environment; code-switching in the parental input fostering the development of the strategies. The article concludes with implications for pedagogy and for research.