Current Curriculum Changes in Poland: a national report

The article discusses the Polish system of education, which faces several major challenges. One of them is the necessity of curriculum development in all types of schools in line with changes in the socio-political and economic system of the country, which is in transition from Communism to parliamentary democracy and a free market economy. The school under the previous system was primarily designed to produce loyal and obedient servants. Now these qualities are neither significant nor relevant. A range of key issues of the current school reform are identified and some suggestions are made towards a strategy for change. The paper is critical of the official strategy of introducing national core requirements as a major step in educational change. It is proposed that there is a risk that, without the careful preparation of teachers, the pace of change will be too great, thereby inviting disruption to the whole system of education.     

Policy and curriculum development in Greece. The case of secondary school curriculum

This paper examines the politics and values of the secondary school curriculum in Greece and attempts to find out the influences of cultural tradition and centralized control on curriculum development. In particular, it studies the decision-making process and the politics of educational control, employing some theoretical elements from centralist and corporatist literature, and presents the valued knowledge of the curriculum through a historical perspective. Additionally, it investigates the politics of curriculum change taking into account the tradition of curriculum content and the power of central control on education. In conclusion, it is pointed out that in the current context of social flexibility Greek secondary school curriculum must aim at the development of a culture of learning and reflect on values and visions.     

Boys and music education: RMXing the curriculum

Music is central to the lives of most high-school age boys. However, music education is a marginalised area of the school curriculum, decreasing in popularity as students approach senior school and succumb to pressures to choose subjects perceived to be more useful in the 'real world'. While this process is common for both boys and girls, the drop-off is greater among boys, who sometimes construct music as a 'feminised' subject. Attempts to engage boys in music, thus, often involve music teachers trying to adapt their pedagogies to what they perceive to be boys' interests and learning styles. In some cases music teachers attempt to construct a 'connected' curriculum for boys in ways which accommodate, reinforce and reproduce hegemonic constructions of masculinity. This article argues that it is critical that the pedagogical practices music teachers deploy in order to encourage boys' engagement with the subject take into account the cultural implications of globalisation, media and music technology and capitalise upon diversity rather than participate in the reproduction of dominant constructions of gender. The article further argues that music education, like other marginalised areas of the school curriculum, when demonstrating such nuanced understandings of youth cultures and their relationships to various constructions of young masculinities and femininities, provides an opening for the study of masculinity and gender relations in contemporary society in ways that can benefit both girls and boys.     

What Happens when a School Subject Undergoes a Sudden Change of Status?

This paper reports some of the findings of the first year of a study of the development of the design and technology curriculum in England and Wales. The establishment of a new, high status, practical subject area offers a unique opportunity to study curriculum history as it happens. Furthermore, as the new subject is being taught by teachers from previously gendered areas, the relationship between gender, power and subject status is particularly illuminated in this context. The paper considers what has happened to the subject area as a result of its elevation to extended core status in the English and Welsh National Curriculum, in terms of both subject and teacher status. A particular focus is the increased academic nature and masculinisation of the subject as a result of its increased status. It is argued that the interaction of gender with power and status is an important but largely ignored aspect of curriculum history.     

Complexity theory and curriculum reforms in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is embarking on curricular and pedagogic reforms which replace modernist, Tylerian approaches to the curriculum with recommendations that echo many features of complexity theory. The nature of complexity theory-based curricula are outlined, and these are used to interrogate three seminal curriculum reform documents in Hong Kong. The article suggests that they embody a paradigm shift in curriculum thinking. However, given that complexity theory is not without its problems for curricula, a case is made for an eclectic approach to curriculum planning, and it is this that is taking place in Hong Kong's reformist agenda.     

Swedish school leadership in transition: in search of a democratic, learning and communicative leadership?

This article focuses on the relationship between the nation curriculum in Sweden and the training of head teachers. Pedagogical leadership was first focused upon in the 1960s in Sweden and Norway and later in the other countries. Educational policies since the beginning of 1960 have been dominated by an active reforming process. The original responsibility of the principal in the centralised system was to be a guaranto for good quality and to see that the State curriculum was carried out in accordance with the intentions in the law. The head teacher remains in charge of all educational activity in the school and should be familiar with everyday work in the school and promote educational change for school improvement. Since that time, the role of the pedagogical leader has been under constant review. Since the mid-1980s a National Head teachers Training Programme has focused on pedagogical school leadership and school improvement, and a new programme will be introduced in 2002. The aim of the new training is that head teachers should develop and use a democratic, learning and communicative form of leadership that has its starting point in the national curriculum. The training is also aimed at better equipping head teachers to exercise the responsibility invested in them by the curriculum and other statutory instruments. Furthermore, in relation to the commissioning agent, it should enable the head teacher to make clear the conditions on which his/her organisation operates and to assert its needs. After having completed the training, the head teacher should, on the basis of democratic principles and with regard to individuals' integrity and equal value, be able to lead and develop the school, as well as asserting the rights of children and pupils to the education guaranteed in the government's legislation and regulations. The head teacher should also have the ability to direct the organisation's learning towards better goal achievement and thereby bring his/her own, as well as childrens', pupils' and co-workers' learning, into focus.     

Why i hated socio-cultural theory: confessions of a reformed cognitive-developmentalist

This article explores the nature of developmental and cognitive constructivism as it has historically been related to the early childhood curriculum. The author reflects upon her personal experience in moving from a developmental to a socio-cultural theoretical perspective as an informant to her understanding regarding the education of young children, and the relationship of this view to the early childhood curriculum. The nature of paradigmatic change in professional communities is examined with reference to the axiomatic arguments made by critical theory regarding the nature of knowledge and the manner in which this is employed to inform practice in professions such as education. The article concludes by suggesting that it is not necessarily possible to define a 'good' education for all children, nor a 'good' approach to education for all teachers.     

关于高职院校皮鞋工艺课程教学改革的建议

皮鞋工艺是高职高专《鞋类设计与工艺》专业的核心课程,是一门专业性和实践性都很强的课程,覆盖内容广泛,在《鞋类设计与工艺》专业课程体系中占有非常重要的地位。高职高专皮鞋工艺课程教学与本科教学有着很大的区别,高职高专主要加强学生职业能力的培养,注重实用。本文对如何达到目标,实现较好的教学效果,在课程目标、教学内容、教学模式与方法、实践教学环节及师资队伍等方面提出了自己的建议。     

Ideology, Epistemology, Pedagogy and the National Curriculum for Science: the influence on primary science

This paper examines the ideological, epistemological and pedagogical implications of the National Curriculum for science and argues that a knowledge-based, objectives and assessment-led curriculum has positivist assumptions about the nature of science, an adaptive approach to education and can lead teachers to instrumental teaching methods. This is incompatible with constructivist perspectives which imply reconstructionist approaches to education and an emphasis on process in teaching and learning. It is proposed that the National Curriculum for science, as it has developed, is out of phase with current philosophical, scientific and pedagogical understanding. The influences on the development and implementation of the National Curriculum for science are discussed and some suggestions for development of constructivist approaches to primary science education are made.     

Packaging the Past: the primary history curriculum and how to teach it

This paper explores the manner in which published curriculum teaching and learning of primary history present a particular view of the past and require from teachers that they employ a particular kind of pedagogy. It is claimed that the effect of these materials is to de-skill teachers and to provide children with a partial and distorted view of the past which supports a traditional cultural view of a national past.     

引领式网络课程有效教学探究

现代教育技术在数字化校园环境下带给教学的重要变化就是多样化的网络课程的大量应用,这也成为高校教育教学改革的热点。网络课程在有效改善目前所面临的教学任务量大、课时短、理论课多、实训少等现状的同时,如何最大限度地接近课堂教学效果,使学生真正进入学习过程,得到教师更多的指导,成为网络课程研发的关键问题。以"网络多媒体课件设计与开发"网络课程为研究对象,通过分析学生对现有网络课程的使用情况,有针对性地建构引领式网络课程模式,并提出引领式网络课程设计与开发策略,进一步探讨引领式教学理念在网络课程设计开发中的有效应用。     

Curriculum deregulating practices: towards the loss of educational sense

In this article, the author analyses the implications of three main deregulating practices that sometimes work towards contradictory developments in the processes of contemporary educational reforms. First, the progress towards a more decentralisating school system and the increasing school's autonomy with bureaucratic interventionism of the administration. Secondly, the loss of the unique and coherent curriculum as a consequence of the growing cultural differentiation, which approaches us to certain relativism, questioning the monoculturalism of educational content. This could result in considering difference more valuable than equality. Thirdly, changes in teachers' labour. These are forces and motivations that, together, produce some initiatives and experiences not always easily assessed. The consequences of these tendencies result in contradictory demands of change in the school culture, that need to be reviewed.     

A National Core Curriculum and the Democratisation of Public Education in Hungary

In the wake of recent political and social changes in Hungary 1989 onwards, a new curriculum policy has been proposed and a new national core curriculum drafted. There seemed to be general agreement that more freedom and authority should be delegated to teachers and schools in curriculum matters following the democratic lines emerging in the society as a whole. The idea emerged that some kind of core curriculum could facilitate this trend. A group of experts initiated a national core curriculum. This paper describes the procedure: how the basic idea developed in three subsequent versions, what objectives were formulated and what kind of conflicts arose. It describes the tug-of-war going on between the different groups of the educational elite: the advocates of full freedom and those - like the author himself - who adhere to an equilibrium between state control and school autonomy. Teachers' views about centralisation versus decentralisation in curriculum policy and their attitudes towards the national core curriculum are also discussed.     

Race, Culture and Curriculum Development in the USA: a study of the process of introducing a multicultural dimension into the curriculum

This study, based on the writer's participation in a curriculum development programme in a large school district in a city in the north-east corner of the USA, examines the process by which groups described as minorities, particularly African-Americans, seek to impact on mainstream school curricula. The context against which the study works is that of an African-American community seeking to challenge the curriculum for the punitive effects it has on adolescents. The study is divided into three parts; it begins with a sociological profile of the city and its schools; a second part describes the key phases through which the consultation process of the Education Board moves; and a final part examines the issues which arise in the consultation. The paper argues that curriculum development in the USA, and the struggles which characterise such development, especially around the content of the curriculum, are emblematic of the contested nature of representation in the USA. How are the images and symbols purporting to stand for different groups constructed, and who controls the construction of such images? In focusing on process in curriculum development, the paper tries to show how dominant conceptions of multiculturalism which leave mainstream knowledge unproblematised, including its racial presumptions, have difficulty in engaging with the political and social context in which racism is produced. The outcomes, the paper argues, are accommodations which allow representations of excluded groups to be added to the dominant knowledge repertoire but which leave the social character of the repertoire itself unproblematised.     

Teaching as a Collaborative Profession: spirit of Vichy or comrades in arms?

It has been stated that one important effect of introducing a National Curriculum has been to increase teacher collaboration to the substantial benefit of pupil learning. Drawing upon findings from a research project which studied the implementation of the History and Geography National Curriculum of England and Wales for primary schools, this paper presents evidence which contrasts with that claim and bears witness to an important, and largely unexamined, culture shift in what constitutes curriculum and professional teacher development. It argues that the rhetoric and purposes of teacher collaboration must be closely examined in order to rekindle the debate about educational and pedagogical values. Suggestions are made concerning principled teacher collaboration with a newly-defined concept of teaching as a career. The call is for teachers to sound the clarion of a new era of professional collaboration to enhance pupil learning, rather than to feel obliged to collude with a pedagogically and professionally empty 'accountability' enmeshed in formulating structures and implementing legalities.     

Ethnography for classrooms: constructing a reflective curriculum for literacy

This article discusses the possibilities for using ethnographic methods as part of the literacy curriculum at all levels of the education system. It presents a view of ethnography as a research approach with potential as a learning resource, encouraging reflection and theorizing about literacy in which teachers and students can engage together. It draws on experiences from further and adult education, higher education and professional development courses, and family literacy programmes, as well as school-based learning.     

Capacity building: beyond state and market

This article considers what happens to education under the impact of twin dynamics of neo-liberal reform and globalisation in an Australian Institute of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) located in the state of Victoria. The pattern of policy reform in TAFE is documented in order to emphasise the significant extent of marketisation, commercialization and decentralisation in the vocational education and training sector. The responses by TAFE teachers and managers to these reforms are illustrated. The analysis indicates that while some teachers and managers either actively resist or espouse these reforms, most work out innovative ways of reconciling their old educational commitments with new entrepreneurial demands. These hybrid practices or capacity-building strategies are described and theorised. The article suggests that capacity-building entails a renorming of educational practice, but questions the political significance of these emergent practices given the contested image of the capacity builder - as teacher or as soft-skill manager.     

Communities of practice in art and design and museum and gallery education

This article draws on a wider body of research that explores whether art and design teachers (art teachers) and museum and gallery educators (gallery educators) hold conflicting conceptions of 'critical and contextual studies'. The data analysis focuses on what interviewees said about each other in relation to crossing boundaries between institutions, subject and pedagogical content knowledge, conceptions of the discipline of art and design, the role of gallery education in curriculum development and influence over the development of the pedagogical identities of students. The social theories of communities of practice, discourse and boundary objects are used to explore and conceptualise the complexity of the interaction between the two groups. The article concludes that trans-institutional and inter-professional communities of practice can be established that have the potential to generate new forms of engagement, shared repertoire and joint enterprise.