Signalling shifts in meaning: the experience of social studies curriculum design

Abstract

Abstract This article argues the view that curriculum is an educative resource for teachers, and that this view imposes certain considerations on policy. Foremost among these is the need to signal shifts in meaning, in ways that enable teachers to better understand what the reform is requiring of them, and how this is different from existing practice. Past curriculum designs in New Zealand social studies are analysed, and patterns of signalling shifts in curriculum intention are illustrated. The article emphasises the importance of that acknowledges existing understandings, that alerts teachers to possible misconceptions, and that shows how the reform builds on, and changes, past practice. Introduction A key feature of the recent New Zealand Project work has been the development of essence statements that encapsulate the fundamental ideas of each learning area ... and ... that clearly articulate important learning outcomes for students (Ministry of Education, 2004). By redefining each learning area in terms of the unique and fundamental contribution it makes to the learning of young people in New Zealand, the essence statements are simultaneously a statement of student entitlement and a resource for teacher, and community, learning about the revised purposes and value of the learning area. This article begins by examining the idea of curriculum as a resource for teacher learning, and considers the implications of this for curriculum design--especially the way in which acknowledges and represents intended shifts in purpose and meaning. It then draws on examples from New Zealand social studies curriculum from 1942-1997, to illustrate past approaches to communicating such shifts, and, using insights from this analysis, suggests features aimed at enhancing the communication of revised purposes and meanings in the proposed essence statement for the social sciences. and teacher learning Curriculum policy refers to formal written statements of learning intentions mandated by central government. Curriculum design refers to the way in which the elements of the are organised and expressed. This definition positions at the national level as an outcome, and distinguishes it from curriculum development: the process of creating the design. This is not to deny the importance of process in influencing design. Design, in fact, as defined here, is an enduring artefact of process. The research literature on New Zealand social studies, however, has already paid considerable attention to the process of curriculum development, and to the influences on that process, particularly in relation to the development of the current curriculum (see, for example, Hunter & Keown, 2001; Mutch, 1998, 1998/1999, 2004; Openshaw, 1999, 2000). What this article offers, that is different from these, is a focus on curriculum as an influence on subsequent sense making by teachers and other implementing agents. The prime focus here, therefore, is not on the already well-documented nature of the contestation and struggle (Openshaw, 2004, p. 12) that has characterised New Zealand social studies curriculum history, but on the impacts of this history on the detail of design, and on the educative potential of this design. is educative in the sense that it communicates, within the constraints of what the state is prepared to endorse, a representation of the content and purpose of the subject. This is especially the case in a less mature subject such as social studies, whose purposes may be poorly understood, and whose status attracts a lower priority from teachers faced with the competing demands of other subjects they prefer to teach--or that their school regards as being more important. As Hayward, Priestley, and Young (2004) have argued, external agencies have limited control over contextual factors that influence the understanding and acceptance of reform. …