The curriculum question in higher education

Abstract

One problem facing Australian curriculum inquiry is the visibility of curriculum as a subject of scholarly debate. This is particularly so for higher education where, as in the UK, the focus of debate is on student learning and engagement, and curriculum has tended to be a "missing term" (Barnett and Coate 2005, p. 1) in policy as well as scholarship. What problems does this raise for how university education is understood and administered? And what challenges and opportunities exist for curriculum research within this context? In this paper, I engage with these questions, drawing on findings from research which examined new online initiatives being developed at two Australian universities. Curriculum and the 'learnification' of higher educationCurriculum and curriculum inquiry are ambiguous terms, meaning different things at different times, in different places and to different people. Despite this, both are traditionally concerned with the "what" of education, in ways which foreground knowledge as a critical issue (Green 2018). Within higher education, there is currently significant debate about what university teaching should look like, what it should emphasise and how it can be better structured to meet the needs of more diverse student populations. Yet, while these arguments attend to some elements of curriculum, the role of formal knowledge in education tends to be neglected and questions around what is taught and why are primarily positioned outside the frame of debate.