Sulin Cheng

The ‘Reconceptualization’ of Curriculum Studies

Reconceptualization is “a reaction to what the field has been and what it is seem to be at present time.”

Reconceptualists view research as a political as well as intellectual act, they identified the difficulties to relate curriculum to the culture, which requires fundamental structural change in the culture.

“What is necessary is a fundamental reconceptualization of what curriculum is, how it functions, and how it might function in emancipatory ways. “ (Pinar, 211)

Reconceptualization

Reconceptualist curriculum theory seeks to drive a wedge between theory and practice by suspending the instrumentalist intention. (Pinar & Grumet , 1982)

This presentation takes Canadian curriculum as an example, analyses the formation of Canadian curriculum from an historical perspective, as well as the features of postmodernism and ecology reflected in Canadian’s curriculum and curriculum policy.

Form different perspective, we can see how the historical and political factors lead to the demand of reconceptualization in Canadian Curriculum.

Overview of this presentation

Canadian’s Curriculum

and Curriculum

Policy

Historical Perspecti

ve

Ecological,

Postmodern

Perspective

Different Perspectives on Canadian’s Curriculum and Curriculum Policy

From historical perspective

I The formation of Canadian curriculum (1800-1876)II. The influence of social change after 1867III. The Professionalization of Canadian educational theory and practiceIV. Demand for more Canadian content in Curriculum after mid-1950s

The first highly centralized curriculum established in Canada: Ratio Studiorum (established by Jesuit in 1599)

From 1800-1840, a comprehensive system of public education extending from the elementary through the university levels in Quebec was established by the conquerors.

Egerton Ryerson, a founding father of the Canadian curriculum in anglophone Canada, drew eclectically on European, British and American sources, which led to the incorporation of the ideas from Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Herbart into the Canadian curriculum.

Although he feared the breakdown of community under the impact of industrialization, urbanization, and the influx of “alien elements”, he failed to eliminate these foreign influences, ironically he replaced American readers with the famous Irish National Readers, an event which may be seen as the beginning of a British “imperial” curriculum that would be influential in anglophone Canada into the 1950s.

I. The formation of Canadian curriculum (1800-1876)

Social change such as MacDonald’s National Policy in Canada and the beginning of the progressive era in American education all contribute to the curriculum differentiation in Canada. Therefore, science, higher technical education are gradually gained a place in the universities.

However, Stamp (1978) claimed, as Ontario’s education was praised in Philadelphia Centennial Exposition by winning two medals in 1876, as argues Stamp, made the Ontarians resist change in their education system, the expansion of industrial and vocational education at the high school level was slower.

II. The influence of social change after 1867

i. American influences on the Canadian curriculum were being manifested in many ways:

According to 1925 Putman-Weir Survey of Education in British Columbia: between 1923-1938, more than one thousand Canadians enrolled at Columbia University alone. (Stamp et al. 1970, p.373)

The US Committee of Ten of 1893 became a requirement four years later for Manitoba teachers seeking first class certification

The teaching principles of the Herbartian movement was significant in teacher training in Ontario after 1905.

Hadow Report of 1926 was cited later in Ontario and British Columbia as a source of progressive ideas.

III. The Professionalization of Canadian educational theory and practice

Canadian tend to assess their society’s character and experience in terms of categories developed by their southern neighbours.

The different emphasis on the policy of “Anglo-conformity” which made to address the vast numbers of non-English-speaking immigrants who came to both countries between 1880 and 1914. Canada emphasized on imperial patriotism.

After WWI, social milieu in both countries was changing, which manifested in the diverse students in terms of social-class and achievement-level backgrounds as well as in terms of occupational and vocational demands resulting from dramatically increased enrollments. All these trends developed more slowly in Canada and curriculum differentiation occurred at a slower pace. (Tomkins, 1981)

ii. Canadianization vs. Americanism

The academic formalism of Scottish education and elitist or aristocratic concept derived from English education, which may lead to the Canadian curricular conservatism

An academic curriculum reform was peaking by the mid-1960s. Canadian response was to a large degree derivative, which resulted from the often indiscriminate importation of American curriculum materials and projects and naturally enough dealt with American social problems.

iii. The possible reasons for Canadian’s derivative response to social changes

The large amount of Americanization of Canadian curricula since the mid-1950s provoked a reaction in the form of demands for more Canadian content. (Tomkins, P. 165)

The curricular response was the Canadian Studies movement. At the same time, the Canadian curriculum has continued to manifest its traditional dependent and derivative character. (Tomkins, P.164)

IV. Demand for more Canadian content in Curriculum after mid-1950s

From Ecological, Postmodern perspective

I. Postmodernism and Canadian Identity

II.Ecology and the example of CanadaIII.Ecological PostmodernismIV.The demand of a distinctive

Canadian identity and curriculumV. The Emergence of Canadian

Curriculum

i. What is Postmodernism? A rejection of the belief that the universe is

unified, finished Posits that we live in a world of partial

knowledge, local narratives, situated truths , and evolving identities. (Lyotard, 1984)

Interested in how human continuously adapt to new conditions of experiences and , at the same time reinterprete the past.

An uncritical embrace of interpretive multiplicity

I. Postmodernism and Canadian Identity

The essential qualities of Canadian identity is a lack of essential qualities

Canadian identity tend to cluster around claims that Canadians are not overbearing, not totalizing, not monolithic, not unified, not static. (Sumara, et al. 2001. p.147)

Canadian self-definition may be explained as “an explicit rejection of what is seen as Americanism’s two-way mirror of inward-looking rationalism and outward-looking imperialism. ” (Sumara, et al. 2001. p.147)

ii Canadian identity and post-modernism

“ecological” is about the relationships with particular attention to the complex co-evolutions of humans and the more-than-human world. (Sumara, et al. 2001. p.148)

Due to Canadian long winter, ecological particularly interests in how human bodies tied to environmental circumstances.

II. Ecology and the example of Canada

Postmodern discourses provide support for ecological discourses by examining the evolving web of interactions that constitute human relations within the more-than-human world.

The term ecological postmodernism in itself represents an attempt to refuse a dissociation of the biological and the phenomenological, an effort reflected in such recently invented terms as geoepistemology and ecosophy..

III. Ecological Postmodernism

Curriculum theorists in Canada seem to have learned that meanings and identities are not discovered, nor can they be fully represented.

Believe that the nation and the identities of Canadian continually being created.

Saul(2001) suggests that Canadian contends that nations are made of collections of minority groups and interests, who identities are continually shaped by the overlapping of history, geography, memory and language.

Canadian curriculum from Ecological Postmodernism perspective

The reasons to the lack of Canadian identity Influenced by Britain, as Canada is a postcolonial

country

Canada’s strong economic, political, and cultural relationships with the United States

Conduct much of the intellectual work of Canadian academy within structures that are American or, at least, shared with America

* We should note that Canada’s primary identifications and affiliations are also influenced by other countries, which can be seen from the historical perspective

As Canada is a country colonized by French and English, its national identity has arisen from complex and innovative rights frameworks, social infrastructures, and government services.

Because the colonial powers and the numerous First Nations could not draw on shared language or ancestry, so Canadian should develop policies and principles to maintain a national unity, and embrace linguistic and ethnic diversity.

To succeed as a nation, Canada needed to develop a system of governance that embraced the notion that identities, individual and collective were continually invented, including the invention of a national character. (Sumara, et al. 2001. p.154)

IV the demand of a distinctive Canadian identity and curriculum

Historical influence on Canadian Curriculum, which was presented in the first part of the PPT.

Formal education in Canada is a shared responsibility of federal and provincial governments, with specific accommodations for local ethnicities, religions and languages. Public school and post-secondary education in Canada are funded federally. Each province has a minister of education who is responsible for overseeing educational structures and processes, including the development of curriculum content. (Sumara, et al. 2001.p.155)

V. The Emergence of Canadian Curriculum

From the above perspectives, we can see the historical and political influence on Canadian curriculum theory. As a country colonized by French and English, Canadian curriculum and curriculum policy was heavily influenced by the colonizers. The Canadian curricular conservatism and derivative response to social changes may resulted from the aristocratic concept derived from English education and the importation of the neighbor American curriculum materials and projects.The OFID report of 1975 noted that no Canadian-based rationale or philosophy existed that could serve as a basis for policy. (p.165), so the demand for fundamentally reconceptualizing the Canadian curriculum and curriculum theory was pressing.

Conclusion

Pinar, William. (1978). The reconceptualization of curriculum studies. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 10(3), 205-214.

Grumet, Madeleine. (1989). Generations: Reconceptualist curriculum theory and teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 40(1), 13-17.

Tomkins, George. (1981). "Foreign Influences On Curriculum And Curriculum Policy Making In Canada - Some Impressions In Historical And Contemporary Perspective" Curriculum inquiry , 11(2), 157-166.

Sumara, D., Davis, B., Laidlow, L. (2001). Canadian identity and curriculum theory: An Ecological, Postmodern perspective. Canadian Society for the Study of Education. 26(2), 144-163.

References