Toward a deliberative curriculum?

In this paper, I introduce a deliberative understanding of the formation of the curriculum and school subjects, going beyond a view of subjects as distinctive and prescribed purpose-built enterprises. The basic idea of a deliberative curriculum is developed in relation to curriculum theory and didac...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nordic journal of studies in educational policy 2015-01, Vol.2015 (1), p.26558
Main Author: Englund, Tomas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Class Activities
Curricula
Curriculum Research
Deliberative curriculum
didactic typologies
Didacticism
Education
Learning Activities
Pedagogik
Reid
Schwab
Westbury
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In this paper, I introduce a deliberative understanding of the formation of the curriculum and school subjects, going beyond a view of subjects as distinctive and prescribed purpose-built enterprises. The basic idea of a deliberative curriculum is developed in relation to curriculum theory and didactics (didaktik), and the disposition of the paper is as follows: I begin by presenting a short conceptual overview of curriculum history, based on Pinar's (1978) threefold categorization. I then present what I term 'didactic typologies', implying different interpretations concerning the formation of curriculum and the content of school subjects. I exemplify the need for a problematization of curriculum by analyzing a recent article by Zongyi Deng (2009) on how to deal with curriculum questions at different levels with reference to 'liberal studies', in which he claims 'that a school subject is a distinctive purpose-built enterprise'. I then make an extended case for what I call, with reference to Null (2011), a 'deliberative curriculum', and try to analyze some of the characteristics and consequences of this perspective for curriculum making, teachers' professionalism, and classroom activities. Finally, I link and exemplify these three areas to the recent Swedish educational and curriculum history.
ISSN:2002-0317
2002-0317
DOI:10.3402/nstep.v1.26558