Students experiencing and developing democratic citizenship through curriculum negotiation: the relevance of Garth Boomer’s approach

Abstract

When students are involved in curriculum design they offer unique perspectives that improve the quality and relevance of the curriculum. The processes involved in negotiating their curriculum give school and university students possibilities to practice, experience and develop the qualities to participate as citizens of a democratic society. Enabling students to have a role in curriculum design requires that the curriculum is regarded as a process instead of a predetermined, externally established product. Treating the curriculum as a process supports teachers to co-create the curriculum together with students based on broad principles or aims, but with greater freedom for students to negotiate the content and methods of learning.In the 1980s the concept of curriculum negotiation was developed by the Australian curriculum specialist Garth Boomer and colleagues. We explore Boomer's ideas about curriculum negotiation and how his approach can: 1) enable students to become meaningful agents in curriculum design; 2) integrate student voice into the curriculum, and foster a more democratic educational environment; and 3) develop specific citizenship qualities.We demonstrate the potential application of Boomer's curriculum negotiation approach to current school and university settings and make comparisons with other related democratic citizenship education and curriculum approaches.

Markov Model-Based Learning Aid for Students’ Civics Course

“…e measured value of road performance in 2013 is 96.86 and predicted value is 98.14; the measured value of road performance in 2015 is 88.61 and predicted value is 87.15; the measured value of road performance in 2017 is 82.24 and the predicted value is 83.01; the measured value is 79.61 in 2018 and the predicted value is 78.84. It can be found that the error between the predicted value and the actual value is about 0.99, which meets the expectation of the predicted value [10]. It can be concluded that the establishment of Markov model to predict the road performance is a good method [11].…”

A systematic approach for curriculum redesign of introductory courses in engineering: a programming course case study

“…Thus, democratic relationships must be fostered in order to include all the interested parties so their voices could be of importance in curricular decisions. Negotiation per se is an educative process of learning, which invites to reflect and recognize the inner visions of those involved in a particular phenomenon (Bron et al. , 2016).…”

“…Negotiation per se is an educative process of learning, which invites to reflect and recognize the inner visions of those involved in a particular phenomenon (Bron et al, 2016). Therefore, curriculum negotiation delivers a two-fold benefit for course and/or programs design or redesign.…”

Conceptualisations of curriculum co-creation: ‘it’s not them and us, it’s just us’

“…Wider educational literature describes how negotiated processes of curriculum development can be more inclusive by inviting students to contribute to that creation process (Boomer, 1992;Bron et al, 2016;Green, 2021), and creativity can reframe and enhance current educational practices to engage students who learn in different ways (Gee, 2003). Furthermore, students and staff often take on non-traditional roles and identities whilst co-creating curricula and working in partnership in democratic and egalitarian learning communities (Bergmark & Westman, 2016;Lubicz-Nawrocka, 2019b;Matthews et al, 2018a;Mercer-Mapstone et al, 2018).…”

“…Boomer’s work has also been influential in acknowledging democratic values and issues of power (Green, 2021 ) and by setting the scene for more recent literature curriculum studies including those in curriculum co-creation (Breen & Littlejohn, 2000 ; Bron et al, 2016 ; Green, 2021 ). Inspired by the work of Boomer ( 1992 ), Fraser and Bosanquet ( 2006 ) and Barnett and Coate ( 2004 ) in particular, I see the curriculum as a creative, student-centred space where staff and students engage in a process of learning and teaching that they continually adapt—and can take up opportunities to co-create within certain constraints—to meet their shared objectives of developing students’ knowledge, skills and wider capabilities.…”