برنامه آموزشی و نظریه های دانش
Abstract
Starting a dialogue
Didaktik, content and ‘exemplarity’
Curriculum and ‘powerful knowledge’
Didaktik, curriculum and the power of knowledge
Conclusion: knowledge and content, alienation and subjectivity
References
Abstract
Joseph Schwab’s famous remark, that the field of curriculum is ‘moribund’— no longer able ‘to . . .contribute significantly to the advancement of education’—has long echoed in curriculum studies. Although its specific meaning has changed, it still rings in our ears today. It now applies as much to discussions in the United States and United Kingdom as it does to those in Northern Europe—where the cognate field of General Didaktik has been described as ‘quiet’, or more recently, by Zierer and Seel (2012), as ‘dead’. This ‘virtual issue’ of the Journal of Curriculum Studies brings together five articles of direct relevance to the contemporary ‘crisis’ in transatlantic studies of curriculum and instruction that also share a common focus on the question of curricular content. ‘None of the many traditional American educational approaches have paid serious attention to the “school subject” or “instructional content,”’ as Westbury and Doyle have pointed out (1992, p. 137); and others in curriculum studies see this as the underlying reason for its ongoing crisis. This introduction provides an overview of each article included and concludes by outlining a few of the possibilities and challenges presented by questions of ‘content’ and ‘knowledge’ in curriculum studies.
Starting a dialogue
One would think that cross-cultural and intra-linguistic comparisons would be at least a tacit component of work in curriculum studies as an internationalized field of research. However, as Hopmann and Riquarts make clear, efforts at a transatlantic dialogue between the continental and English-speaking world began only with their 1995 article ‘Starting a dialogue’, the first in this virtual issue. They admit that there have been moments of influence between Didaktik and Englishspeaking curriculum at various points in history. For example, there is the highly appreciative American reception of German educational and instructional ideas in the late 19th century. There is also the more recent adoption of American ideas of curriculum in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. Regardless, Hopmann and Riquarts conclude their brief article by saying: ‘Both traditions’ do not at all ‘know each other well enough’ (p. 8). And based on ‘a strong belief that we need an integrative approach’ to address common concerns, the authors recommend that both traditions make an explicit effort at mutual acquaintanceship (pp. 8–9). In introducing Didaktik to their English-speaking readers, Hopmann and Riquarts helpfully explain that it conceives of teaching in terms of the Didaktik triangle, a ‘model’ which brings into connection ‘the content, the learner and the teacher’ (p. 4). In so doing, it fulfills a key requirement that arose with mass schooling in the 16th century, and that became even more urgent with increasing administrative centralization in the 18th and 19th centuries.