Curriculum and the Specialization of Knowledge


Book Description

This book presents a new way for educators at all levels - from early years to university - to think about curriculum priorities. It focuses on the curriculum as a form of specialised knowledge, optimally designed to enable students to gain access to the best knowledge available in any field. Papers jointly written by the authors over the last eight years are revised for this volume. It draws on the sociology of knowledge and in particular the work of Emile Durkheim and Basil Bernstein, opening up the possibilities for collaborative inter-disciplinary enquiry with historians, philosophers and psychologists. Although primarily directed to researchers, university teachers and graduate students, its arguments about specialised knowledge have profound implications for policy makers.




Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies


Book Description

The study of curriculum, beginning in the early 20th century, first served the areas of school administration and teaching and was used to design and develop programs of study. The field subsequently expanded and drew upon disciplines from the arts, humanities, and social sciences to examine larger educational forces and their effects upon the individual, society, and conceptions of knowledge. Curriculum studies now embraces an array of academic scholarship in relation to personal and institutional needs and interests while it also focuses upon a diverse and complex dynamic among educational experiences, practices, settings, actions, and theories. The Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies provides a comprehensive introduction to the academic field of curriculum studies for the scholar, student, teacher, and administrator. This two-volume set serves to inform and to introduce terms, events, documents, biographies, and concepts to assist the reader in understanding aspects of this rapidly changing, expansive, and contested field of study. Key Features Displays different perspectives by having authors contribute independent essays on the nature and future of curriculum studies Presents a unique and in-depth treatment of the Twenty-Sixth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE), a 1927 publication that has taken on legendary dimensions for the field of curriculum studies Contains bibliographic entries which feature specific publications by curriculum leaders that helped to define the field Helps readers to learn unfamiliar terms and concepts, to become more comfortable with specialized phrases, and to understand the many significant and perplexing concepts and questions that characterize the field Key Themes Biography and Prosopography Concepts and Terms Content Descriptions Influences on Curriculum Studies Inquiry and Research Nature of Curriculum Studies Organizations, Schools, and Projects Publications Theoretical Perspectives Types of Curricula The Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies offers the careful reader a surprisingly revealing depiction of the conventions, mores, and accepted research and writing practices of the field of curriculum studies as it continues to expand and change. Availability in print and electronic formats provides students with convenient, easy access, wherever they may be.




Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies


Book Description

The Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies provides a comprehensive introduction to the academic field of curriculum studies for the scholar, student, teacher, and administrator. The study of curriculum, beginning in the early 20th century, served primarily the areas of school administration and teaching and was seen as a method to design and develop programs of study. The field subsequently expanded to draw upon disciplines from the arts, humanities, and social sciences and to examine larger educational forces and their effects upon the individual, society, and conceptions of knowledge. Curriculum studies has now emerged to embrace an expansive and contested conception of academic scholarship while focusing upon a diverse and complex dynamic among educational experiences, practices, settings, actions, and theories in relation to personal and institutional needs and interests. The Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies serves to inform and to introduce terms, events, documents, biographies, and concepts to assist the reader in understanding aspects of this rapidly changing field of study. Representative topics include: Origins, definitions, dimensions, and variations on Curriculum Studies Curriculum development and design for schools Curricular purpose, implementation, and evaluation Contemporary issues, e.g., standards, tests, and accountability Curricular dimensions of teaching and teacher education Interdisciplinary perspectives on institutionalized curriculum Informal curricula of homes, mass media, workplaces, organizations, and relationships Impact of race, class, gender, health, belief, appearance, place, ethnicity, language Relationships of curriculum and poverty, wealth, and related factors Modes of curriculum inquiry and research Curriculum as cultural studies, exploring the formation of identities and possibilities Corporate, state, church, and military influence as curriculum Global and international perspectives on curriculum Curriculum organizations, journals, and resources Summaries of books and articles on curriculum studies Biographic vignettes of key persons in curriculum studies Relevant photographs




Perspectives in Curriculum Studies


Book Description

Perspectives in Curriculum Studies by Margaret Nalova Endeley and Martha Ashuntantang Zama is a comprehensive textbook for graduate students of Curriculum Studies and Instruction, and a guide for education practitioners wherein they articulate contemporary curriculum concepts, principles and applications in the field. With illustrations from informed African perspectives, the authors situate curriculum theory and practice in local contexts so that African scholars, educators, and others may be equipped with knowledge and skills to develop and maintain appropriate and relevant curricula for quality education. Framed in sixteen chapters, grouped in five parts, the text begins with the exposition of basic terminology, curriculum theory and foundations of the curriculum before delving profoundly into the curriculum development process. The latter portion gives the reader the opportunity to explore, analyse and evaluate different curriculum planning approaches and models, curriculum design dimensions and patterns, and procedures for the development of syllabuses, textbooks, and other curriculum materials. Also, Curriculum implementation tasks as well as strategies for evaluation of programs and courses are presented and discussed. Since curriculum and instruction are highly intertwined notions, instructional design is elaborately treated in two chapters bringing out its theoretical underpinnings and procedures. The book closes with global perspectives of curriculum development in practice. The goal here is to provide insights into trends, issues, and challenges not only in curriculum development but also in the curriculum field, which should generate action towards the improvement of curriculum practice and spur the search for new knowledge.




Why Knowledge Matters


Book Description

In Why Knowledge Matters, influential scholar E. D. Hirsch, Jr., addresses critical issues in contemporary education reform and shows how cherished truisms about education and child development have led to unintended and negative consequences. Hirsch, author of The Knowledge Deficit, draws on recent findings in neuroscience and data from France to provide new evidence for the argument that a carefully planned, knowledge-based elementary curriculum is essential to providing the foundations for children’s life success and ensuring equal opportunity for students of all backgrounds. In the absence of a clear, common curriculum, Hirsch contends that tests are reduced to measuring skills rather than content, and that students from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot develop the knowledge base to support high achievement. Hirsch advocates for updated policies based on a set of ideas that are consistent with current cognitive science, developmental psychology, and social science. The book focuses on six persistent problems of recent US education: the over-testing of students; the scapegoating of teachers; the fadeout of preschool gains; the narrowing of the curriculum; the continued achievement gap between demographic groups; and the reliance on standards that are not linked to a rigorous curriculum. Hirsch examines evidence from the United States and other nations that a coherent, knowledge-based approach to schooling has improved both achievement and equity wherever it has been instituted, supporting the argument that the most significant education reform and force for equality of opportunity and greater social cohesion is the reform of fundamental educational ideas. Why Knowledge Matters introduces a new generation of American educators to Hirsch’s astute and passionate analysis.




Understanding and Shaping Curriculum


Book Description

Understanding and Shaping Curriculum: What We Teach and Why introduces readers to curriculum as knowledge, curriculum as work, and curriculum as professional practice. Author Thomas W. Hewitt discusses curriculum from theoretical and practical perspectives to not only acquaint readers with the study of curriculum, but also help them to become effective curriculum practitioners.




Knowledge, Content, Curriculum and Didaktik


Book Description

Bringing to bear a wealth of literature from curriculum theory, Didaktik, philosophy of education and teacher education, this book broadens and enriches the conversation initiated by Michael Young and his colleagues on 'bringing knowledge back in' (Young, 2007). Knowledge, Content, Curriculum and Didaktik is distinctive in providing a comprehensive and multifaceted analysis of the role of knowledge, and in particular curriculum content, in relation to curriculum policy, curriculum planning and classroom teaching. It makes a case for linking knowledge and content to the development of human powers or capabilities needed for the 21st century and unpacks the challenges for curriculum policy, curriculum planning and classroom teaching. The book discusses, among other issues: Educational aims and theories of knowledge School subjects and academic disciplines: differences and relationships School subjects and theories of content Understanding the content for teaching The book will be relevant for scholars, researchers, policy makers and curriculum developers who seek a more sophisticated, more balanced and philosophically better grounded understanding of the role of knowledge and content in education and curriculum.




Why Knowledge Matters in Curriculum


Book Description

What should we teach in our schools and vocational education and higher education institutions? Is theoretical knowledge still important? This book argues that providing students with access to knowledge should be the raison d’être of education. Its premise is that access to knowledge is an issue of social justice because society uses it to conduct its debates and controversies. Theoretical knowledge is increasingly marginalised in curriculum in all sectors of education, particularly in competency-based training which is the dominant curriculum model in vocational education in many countries. This book uses competency-based training to explore the negative consequences that arise when knowledge is displaced in curriculum in favour of a focus on workplace relevance. The book takes a unique approach by using the sociology of Basil Bernstein and the philosophy of critical realism as complementary modes of theorising to extend and develop social realist arguments about the role of knowledge in curriculum. Both approaches are increasingly influential in education and the social sciences and the book will be helpful for those seeking an accessible introduction to these complex subjects. Why Knowledge Matters in Curriculumis a key reading for those interested in the sociology of education, curriculum studies, work-based learning, vocational education, higher education, adult and community education, tertiary education policy and lifelong learning more broadly.




Knowledge, Curriculum and Equity


Book Description

In 2008 the first in a series of symposia established a ‘social realist’ case for ‘knowledge’ as an alternative to the relativist tendencies of the constructivist, post-structuralist and postmodernist approaches dominant in the sociology of education. The second symposium focused on curriculum, and the development of a theoretical language grounded in social realism to talk about issues of knowledge and curriculum. Finally, the third symposium brought together researchers in a broad range of contexts to build on these ideas and arguments and, with a concerted empirical focus, bring these social realist ideas and arguments into conversation with data. Knowledge, Curriculum and Equity: Social Realist Perspectives contains the work of the third symposium, where the strengths and gaps in the social realist approach are identified and where there is critical recognition of the need to incrementally extend the theories through empirical study. Fundamentally, the problem that social realism is seeking to address is about understanding the social conditions of knowledge production and exchange as well as its structuring in the curriculum and in pedagogy. The central concern is with the on-going social reproduction of inequality through schooling, and exploring whether and how foregrounding specialised knowledge and its access holds the possibility for interrupting it. This book consists of 13 chapters by different authors working in Oceania, Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. From very different vantage points the authors focus their theoretical and empirical sights on the assumptions about knowledge that underpin educational processes and the pursuit of more equitable schooling for all.