Session Information
23 SES 08C, Reforming Classroom Practices
Paper Session
Time:
2008-09-12
08:30-10:00
Room:
B1 132
Chair:
Ingolfur Asgeir Johannesson
Contribution
Innovation is seen as an important part of most modern societies today. In Iceland innovation has been prominent in the official discourse for over a decade. ‘Innovation education’ has been a separate but distinctive part of the official compulsory school curriculum in Iceland since 1999 but seems to be a part of the null curriculum of most Icelandic schools. In this paper the official discourses in Iceland concerning innovation and education will be examined and compared to how it is realized in schools.
To help us link the larger institutional and societal factors to the world of schools we use Basil Bernstein’s theories to understand our data. Bernstein proposes a pedagogic device that uses language carrying social messages and by detecting the device it is possible to reveal the underlying principles of how general knowledge is transformed into pedagogic knowledge. The rules of the device are relatively stable and the rules that come out of the device are contextually regulated (Bernstein, 2000). These are rules of discourses that are interrelated: distributive rules, recontextualising rules and evaluating rules. The pedagogic discourse is a rule that embeds two discourses, discourses of skills and discourses of social order. The discourse that creates specialized skills and their relationship to each other is called the instructional discourse (ID) and the moral discourse which creates order, relations and identity is the regulative discourse (RD). Bernstein’s fundamental argument is that the regulative discourse is the dominant discourse that creates the criteria which give rise to character, manner, conduct and criteria of knowledge. The RD produces the order in the instructional discourse. Bernstein’s concepts includes viewing curriculum subjects in light of their insulation between them either by strong or weak classification. Strong classification applies to a curriculum that is highly differentiated and separated into traditional subjects and weak classification applies to an integrated curriculum where the boundaries between subjects are blurred. Framing is another of Bernstein’s concepts that refers to the location of control over the rules of communication or the form of the legitimate message of teaching and learning. Strong framing may limit options between teacher and students and weak framing implies more freedom (Sadovnik, 2001).
Method
In this paper official discourses in Iceland for the past decade were analyzed. The general compulsory school curriculum of 1999, the curriculum for information and technology, the arts curriculum, the Compulsory School Act, policy documents from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, the Ministry of Industry and Finance and, the policy of the Science and Technology Policy Council are analysed in light of Bernstein’s theories. The official discourses about innovation and education are considered and compared with the realities in school work. Views and wishes concerning innovation and innovation education (and creativity) and the general “ethos” – view of the world, view of the present, past and future are looked for in the official discourses. The main question to be answered here is: What sort of pedagogic discourses can be revealed in the official discourse about innovation and innovation education?
Expected Outcomes
Preliminary findings show that the regulative discourse of innovation is not prominent in the enacted curriculum as innovation education. It seems to be a weak discourse that struggles for survival. The instructional discourse that can be detected appears to take its nature from a regulative discourse that is contradictory to the official discourse of the importance of innovation in society. The translation from the wishes of the official innovation discourse into education is rare and weak. The cultivation of innovation seems to be expected to happen by itself without removing the obstacles that work against its flourishing. Explanations may lie in the weak framing and classification of innovation education versus the tendency to strong classification and framing embedded in the school system. Educational policy and official discourses may need to address the changes needed in the views and demands towards education and make them visible to make the realization of innovation in society more likely to blossom.
References
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity (2. ed.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC. Sadovnik, A. R. (2001). Basil Bernstein (1924–2000). Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education, XXXI(4), 687-703.
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