Curricula and curricular analysis: Some pointers for a debate

Abstract

This introduction to our guest-edited issue provides a framework for reflecting on curricula, based on the four still fundamental questions raised by Tyler (Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1949) about effective ways to organize educational experiences that can meet the school's educational purpose. The authors begin by decoding the Franco-European and Anglo-Saxon/North American approaches to the concept of curriculum, and seek points where the two are complementary. Using Tyler's four questions, they then clarify the concept in a conceptual outline, organize it into a rational model, and seek a reference framework that can offer pointers for a debate on curriculum. They then show that, because a curriculum necessarily originates in a specific society, some of that society's irrationality affects the nature of the curriculum. Thus, any curriculum experiences a tension between the rationality of the models that define it in theoretical terms and the irrationality of its surrounding societywhich has the power to regulate it. Therefore, tools for curriculum analysis must consider all these dimensions, contradictions, and tensions to achieve a truly systemic perspective. While a system model is important for evaluation, it is also important to understand the less rational aspects and to place them in dialogue with their models. In this respect, providing pointers for the debate on curriculum remains a perilous exercise. Finally, the authors reflect on a systemic and holistic approach to the curriculum, and suggest pointers for contemporary reflection on curriculum.

Effective Pedagogy in the Context of a Competency-Based Curriculum Reform: Perceptions of Teachers in the Dominican Republic

“…In order to properly implement an educational reform in any system, Care and colleagues (2019) identify the need for the "alignment" of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. Thus, when analyzing the implementation of a curriculum policy, a more systematic and holistic approach is necessary (Jonnaert & Therriault, 2013). As the UNESCO report (Amadio, et al, 2015, p. 17) indicates: "the curriculum needs an institution that appropriates it to develop it."…”

Re-imagining curriculum in India: Charting a path beyond the pandemic

“…For Dewey, formal education provided the critical social space necessary to constantly review the social fabric that was being depersonalized by the industrial and commercial culture of the early 20th century. Although Dewey ( 1902 ) brought the academic and public universes closer through his conception of curriculum, revealing its broad scope, in more recent times the organisation, structuring, codifying, and hierarchy of knowledge has been the focus of a formal curriculum (Jonnaert and Therriault 2013 ).…”

“…As a logical, rational tool of dialogue, curriculum can negotiate spaces that lie between the local and the universal, the contextualised and the decontextualized, and the intrinsic and the extrinsic. It is this “flexibility that allows curriculum to become both a tool of social dialogue and a means of adapting educational systems to dynamic societies” (Jonnaert and Therriault 2013 , p. 413).…”

Problematika guru dalam penerapan pendekatan saintifik pada pembelajaran PPKn

“…Dimensi mental adalah asumsi-asumsi yang terkadang membuat seseorang takut untuk melakukan perubahan. Berbagai asumsi dan ketakutan ini tidak hanya dialami oleh peserta namun juga oleh guru (Garcia & Lewis, 2014;Jonnaert & Therriault, 2013). Penciptaan kondisi lingkungan yang aman dan suportif diharapkan dapat mengatasi berbagai hambatan yang terkait dengan dimensi mental (Kisfalvi & Oliver, 2015;Schmidt, 2018;Wanless, 2016) Melalui proses refleksi, setiap guru juga dimungkinkan untuk dapat saling menyemangati dan memupuk komitmen untuk dapat beradaptasi dengan segala perubahan (Clarkeburn & Kettula, 2012;Kurniawan & Toharudin, 2017;Mulyasa, 2013).…”