Understanding Curriculum As Phenomenon, Field, and Design: A Multidimensional Conceptualization
Understanding Curriculum As Phenomenon, Field, and Design: A Multidimensional Conceptualization
Understanding Curriculum As Phenomenon, Field, and Design: A Multidimensional Conceptualization
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Daniel Johnson-Mardones
University of Chile
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Note: A first version of this paper was presented at the first European conference of Curriculum
Studies held at the University of Minho, Braga Portugal, in October 2013. A second version of it
was presented at the International Conference of Curriculum Consciousness, Curriculum
Capacities, and Curriculum Building held at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in
November 2014. The former was later published in the Journal of the European Association of
Curriculum Studies (Johnson-Mardones, 2015).
Introduction
The main question in the field of curriculum seems to be “What is curriculum?” The polysemy of
the concept has been traditionally pointed out by listing the multiple definitions that the authors
in the field have offered over time. These definitions have been organized, for instance, by
distinguishing between those that can be labelled as prescriptive and those that can be termed
descriptive. In the field of curriculum, prescription abounds while descriptions scarce, Stenhouse
affirmed in England, beginning the 1970’s. The same criticism has been taking place in the
United States from the late 1970’s for those concerned by a field dominated by the so-called
Tyler rationale. Since then, Jackson would name a hidden curriculum taking place in schools,
Schwab would call for the practical as the language of curriculum, and the next decade would
bring a vibrant scholarship seeking to reconceptualize the field. All that brought up a
proliferation of new definitions. Those definitions were put into to classifications and typologies,
which proliferated just as the definitions did. The field became a very complicated conversation.
In the United States, the crisis of the Sputnik and the educational reform in the 1960’s, among
other factors, co-helped to provoke a main gap in the field: the gap between curriculum
development and curriculum theory. The latter was no longer concerned with the development of
curriculum prescription, but with understanding curriculum as lived educational experience.
Kridel (2010) has argued that curriculum studies “designates a shift of theory and practice as
scholars sought understanding of curricula as a phenomena of interest and societal import in
contrast with sole concentration on service to leaders of practice in schools” (p. 230). As a result,
the field of curriculum studies has been fractured, broadly speaking, among those working in
curriculum design and those doing curriculum theory. Therefore, this complicated field has been
incapable of, and reluctant to, offering a unified view of the field. This is not a problem by itself
but definitely becomes an issue when we situate our reflection upon teacher education. In fact,
thinking about curriculum becomes even more complex when thinking about how to teach it to
future teachers. It seems to me that at this level we cannot avoid to assume a pluralistic view of
the field thinking what is its historical legacy, including the major gap between curriculum
theory and curriculum development. In this regard, having teacher education in mind, I
unavoidably and indirectly address some “unpacking curriculum controversies” (Cochran-Smith
& Demers, 2008, p. 261) and reflect about what remains in the field.
With that in mind, I address in this paper the challenge of developing a concept of curriculum
that might help to understand curriculum as a phenomenon, curriculum as a process of design,
and curriculum as a field. My hunch is that this can be made by looking at the history of the field
and its multiple conceptualization of the curriculum phenomenon and organizing them in as if
every type were a dimension of a complex phenomenon. This, I believe, would not only be of
some help in the field of teacher education but also may help to build our capacity of taking
across within the field of education including policy makers. The pedagogical concern both in
teacher education and schooling as a public sphere informs this search for a multidimensional
concept of curriculum that allows to understand curriculum as a phenomenon, as design and as
field.
Beginning the second decade of the 21st Century, curriculum is established as a divergent field
moving in different directions (Pinar, 2011). This is the weakness and strength of the field “that
(supposedly) is there to help us think rigorously about what and whose knowledge is of most
worth” (Apple, 2010, p. 100). These centripetal tendencies are certainly a consequence of the
field’s history during the last decades of the Twentieth Century. This history is marked by the
reconceptualization of curriculum studies in the United States and the incorporation of
phenomenology, existentialism, psychoanalysis, critical theory, biography, gender, race, and
class analysis, postmodernism, poststructuralism, and so on, in the project of understanding
curriculum. The three decades of the last Century we times of expansion for the field of
curriculum. Those times of expansion permitted curriculum studies to surpass the theoretical
feature of the field and to some extend to advance in overcoming its, in Kliebard’s (1977) words,
disturbing “lack of historical perspective” (p. 55). This historical understanding needs still to be
explored, both in the US and other contexts. As Pinar (2011) has argued, becoming historical
“restores the field’s historic concerns as historic,” (p. 111) connecting us with our legacy.
Therefore, looking inward and backward in the field would make possible “finding some
common cause and common understanding across our vast landscape of difference” (Hlebowitsh,
2009, p. 15).
Working from a historical perspective, Shubert (2010) has suggested that there is a “tension [in
curriculum studies] between the expansion of curriculum ideas and the need to summarize them
for dissemination,” say in teacher education programs, graduate programs in curriculum studies,
professional development for in-service teachers, educational administrators and supervisors,
policy makers, and so on. Furthermore, Schubert (2010) claims that these “expansive and
synoptic dimensions of the field complement one another” (p.18). If so, this synoptic
reconstruction in curriculum studies should be undertaken by understanding the main conceptual
contribution to the field as shedding light onto a dimension of the complex curriculum
phenomenon. What is possible to come out of that process is an understanding of a field that has
changed by incorporating different dimensions to the concept of curriculum, making it a layered
or multidimensional concept. These different dimensions are emphasized by different curriculum
discourses that can be conceptualized as research space opened by scholars concerned with
understanding curriculum. The organized view of the field, resulting from that endeavour,
provides possibilities of dialogue with other fields within the field of education such as
educational policies, teacher education, and subject-matter oriented fields. This view connects
curriculum theory and curriculum design, as well as facilitates the research in the field to be
enriched by the field’s conceptual development, and vice versa.
Curriculum as a Phenomenon
Curriculum is a complex phenomenon. This complexity makes the curriculum a complex as well
as controversial endeavour (Pacheco, 2012). However, this complexity has not always been
addressed as such. Under the dominance of curriculum development, curriculum was defined as
written or official curriculum. The word “written” emphasized the curriculum’s feature of being
a document: a document that regulates the content of schooling, shapes the school experience,
and controls teachers’ work. This written document was conceived as a selective tradition that
one generation passes through to the next. Curriculum is a document of identity, as the Brazilian
curriculum scholar Tomaz Tadeu Da Silva (1999) reminds us. This narrow conceptualization of
curriculum, as a written official prescription and only a course of study, was called into question
during the 1960’s. Life in Classrooms (Jackson, 1968) was probably the first text that explicitly
affirmed that what students learned at school was something more than just the official or written
curriculum. Through schedules, routines, and school rituals students learned what Jackson called
a hidden curriculum. Ever since, different types of curriculum have been named: hidden
curriculum (Jackson, 1968; Apple,1970); ideal curriculum, formal curriculum, perceived
curriculum, operational curriculum, experiential curriculum (Goodlad, 1979); explicit, implicit,
and null curricula (Eisner, 1979); recommended, written, supported, taught, tested, hidden, and
learned curricula (Glatthorn et al, 2006). Again, different criteria for classifying curriculum types
pointed to different dimensions of this complex phenomenon. They are no more than an
expression of the complexity of curriculum which “has intended, taught, embodied, hidden,
tested, and null dimensions” (Shubert, 2008, p. 410). Ever since, different types of curriculum
have been named, making curriculum a much more “complicated conversation” (Pinar, 1995).
Curriculum as design
Having conceptualized curriculum as a complex phenomenon and pointed the expansive and
synoptic dimensions of the field of curriculum, now it is the time to connect this reflection to the
problem of curriculum design. Curriculum development has typically emphasised the written
dimension of curriculum as prescription. The development of a curriculum is more or less a
matter of implementation taking place when the written curriculum has been formulated. Under
Tyler rationale, this process is a technical task that teachers should address by developing what
has already been decided and will be tested. Bloom’s taxonomy was the perfect tool to
accomplish that goal. This tool provided an uncritical procedure in which teachers could develop
curriculum by choosing a series of verbs associated with different skill levels, formulating more
and more specific objectives, which would allow measuring those educational goals. In this
approach, teachers were not curriculum makers (Connelly & Clandinin, 1991) but technical
developers of curriculum decisions already made by the designers of a teacher-roof curriculum.
In that sense, Grimmett and Halvorson (2010) have claimed that what was missing in the process
of reconceptualization was “to re-conceptualize the process by which curriculum is created,” (p.
241) failing to frame “the creation of non-technicist curriculum” (p. 242). As a result, curriculum
design has remained under a technical or instrumental approach. The practice of developing
curriculum is part of schooling, and curriculum reform remains a main component of every
educational reform. Therefore, Pinar (2013) would add, “the inability of the field to intervene in
so-called school reform undermines any sense of professional and individual agency” (p. 3). As
we see, the challenge of curriculum design is a concern across camps in the landscapes
curriculum studies.
Therefore, curriculum design needs to incorporate the field’s legacy while moving from the idea
of curriculum development to a conception of curriculum design. Curriculum design should
become also multidimensional. In designing curriculum at national, state, district, school, or
classroom level, we should include every dimension of the curriculum phenomenon such as the
written curriculum, the taught curriculum, the hidden curriculum, the learned curriculum, and so
on. All these dimensions should be included as a variable or set of variables in the deliberative
process of decision-making. In design, as a decision-making process, curriculum reaches school
and classroom levels. In that process, a collective act of “educational imagination” (Eisner, 1979)
takes place. Through this “educational imagination”, educators address the endeavour of
enriching students’ school experience.
A Precarious Multidimensional Concept of Curriculum
This multinational concept is precarious because is based on the curriculum history in the US; it
also precarious as a reminder of that every conceptualization opens a space of meaning, while
closing others. Being aware of this situation is essential in order to acknowledge the uncertainty,
complexity, and unpredictability of curriculum practices and contexts. Consciousness of this
precariousness is essential for the expansive and the synoptic dimensions of curriculum studies
to complement one another. Under that understanding, I propose a multidimensional concept of
curriculum which includes intended, non-intended, and experienced or lived curriculum.
The intended dimensions comprise those dimensions that are explicitly deployed by the older
generation as part of what they want to convey to the younger generation. The intended
dimensions comprise the official prescription, but also come about in the process of verification
of any prescription. Therefore, four aspects of curriculum are considered to be intended
curriculum. This intended dimensions are the written, the supported, the taught, and the tested.
The written dimension implies the formulation and content of the written document that
prescribes what should be taught at schools. The written dimension should include the national
curriculum, but also those written documents at state, district, and school levels. The supported
dimension composes all those aspects that make possible the actualization of any curriculum
prescription. It is curriculum as embodied in materials “in which the content is selected,
organized, and transformed for social, cultural, educational, curricular, and pedagogical
purposes” (Deng, 2011, p. 538). It is the result of the process by which scholarly materials are
translated into curriculum materials. Glatthorn et al. (2006) mention textbooks as an important
component of supported curriculum. The taught dimension is the curriculum as is understood and
put into practice by teachers. This is the curriculum as it is actually delivered by teachers,
reinvented. As it has been said, “at some point, the design of the curriculum leaps off the paper
and takes on a life in the school curriculum” (Hlebowitsh, 2009, p. 22). Finally, the tested
dimension has to do with the forms of evaluations that students are asked to take by their
teachers, the school, the district, the state, the central government, and even by international
organizations in order to assess how well the prescribed curriculum has been learned by students.
However, these evaluations also teach what is considered important in the classroom, school,
society, and the world. Summarizing, the written,supported, taught, and tested dimensions of
curricula are parts of the educational intention.
On the other hand, there are also non-intended, or at least non-explicit, aspects of curriculum.
Those dimensions situates beyond the explicit educational intention. There, we find
the hidden and nulldimension of curriculum. The hidden dimension is what school teaches
without teaching it. The nulldimension is what is left outside of the official curriculum, what is
not taught. In this sense, Glatthorn et al (2006) write:
Certain important aspects of the hidden curriculum are so intrinsic to the nature of schools as a
cultural institution that they might be seen as constants. The depiction of those constants
presented below has been influenced by a close reading of several authors: curricular
Reconceptualists such as Apple (1979), Pinar (1978), and Giroux (1979); sociologists such as
Dreeben (1968); and educational researchers such as Jackson (1968) and Goodlad (1984). One of
the constants of the hidden curriculum is the ideology of the larger society, which permeates
every aspect of schooling. Thus, schools in the United States inevitably reflect the ideology of
democratic capitalism. (p. 23)
Finally, the experienced or lived curriculum dimension is a combination of the intended and
the non-intended curriculum dimensions, but also exceeds that. It is the curriculum from the
point of view of the student. Not the imagined student of policy documents, academics projects,
or parents desires but the actual student in all his-her humanness. “The experienced curriculum
expands attention to thoughts, meanings, and feelings of students as they encounter it” (Schubert,
2008, p. 409). In a more restrictive perspective what can be considered
the experienced or lived curriculum is what Glatthorn et al (2006) names the learned curriculum.
The learned curriculum is what students have actually learned in school: a combination of the
intended and hidden curriculum. By discussing the experienced or lived curriculum, they make
the point of thinking about the curriculum from the point of view of the student. Then curriculum
becomes a complicated conversation about one’s educational experience, as Pinar (2011) has
argued.
Curriculum studies are an intellectual tradition within the field of education. Its institutional
location is within schools of educations; it is a common course in teacher education programs.
There exists a responsibility to convey the history and traditions, as well as the main concepts, of
curriculum to newcomers to education. That is the pedagogical possibility that a
multidimensional concept of curriculum presents. The potential of offering an organized view of
the field, based on its intellectual contributions, it’s a pedagogical endeavour that those who
advocate for the educational field cannot ignore. This multidimensional concept it is part of the
synoptic dimension of the field of curriculum studies that synthetized curriculum thought for
dissemination (Schubert, 2008). This dissemination has teacher education and teachers’
professional development two main sites –sites in which curricularists usually conduct their
work. Efforts in that direction have certainly been made.
In addition, since each of these dimensions also rely on the role of different individuals within an
educational system, the same work can be done from many points of view, providing insights to
bridge the gap between the academic work and the practice of curriculum. Therefore, the
consideration of these individuals around specific issues or programs make it possible to include
the following individuals and groups in the analysis: the Government (written curriculum);
Owners, administrators and publishing companies (supported curriculum); Teachers (taught
curriculum); Teachers, government, and assessment agencies (tested curriculum); and Students
(lived curriculum). The complexity of the curriculum phenomenon, thus, is also acknowledged in
terms of the various participants in the field.
Final remark
The field of curriculum studies has grown by incorporating different dimensions to the concept
of curriculum, making it a layered or multidimensional concept. A multidimensional concept of
curriculum can be a theoretical tool to understanding curriculum, to create knowledge about it,
and to inform curriculum design. This multidimensional perspective could, then, inform a
research program to understand curriculum locally, nationally, and globally, providing a baseline
of knowledge about curriculum that everyone in the field should be familiar with and, more
importantly, a minimum of curriculum knowledge to be passed to the next generation. Whether
or not this minimum has been reached is something that every intellectual community should
answer nationally and internationally.
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