Curricular Policy Borrowing during the Post-Socialist Transition: Methodological Issues

Author(s):

Dominik Dvorak(presenting / submitting)Michaela Dvorakova(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

03. Curriculum Innovation

Format:

Paper

Session Information

03 SES 07 A, Curriculum Comparisons within Countries

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-09

17:15-18:45

Room:

415.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

David Leat

Contribution

The recent reforms and innovations of formal school curricula in Western countries as well as activities of international and trans-national organisations (EU, OECD) influence the (post) transition school systems in Central and Eastern Europe. In this paper, we will present a pilot study of international curriculum comparison and discuss mainly methodological issues related to curricular analysis. This study is a first step in a research project focused on (curricular) policy borrowing in a post-socialist country.

Today schools cope with phenomenon called glocalisation. They must respond to both local (or national) and global demands and expectations. Curricula, traditionally a national enterprise, may become de-nationalised (Sundberg, Wahlström, 2012) by soft, indirect tools. To understand local/micro processes of curricular change in the schools, a deeper understanding of macro/global change is necessary. However, the recent development of formal curricula on the national a transnational level is under-researched (Sivesind, van den Akker, & Rosenmund, 2012). We might even lack tools for such a study.

One general trend in curriculum policy is shift from regulation of inputs to regulation of results/outcomes (by standards). The learners and their competencies became foci of some new curricula that go even further and specify not only „what pupil should know“, but also „what pupil should be“ (Priestley & Biesta, 2013). The shift to generic competences led to neglect of knowledge (Young, 2008), too, and to neglect of questions of content scope and sequence (Dvořák, 2009, 2012). However, the new educational aims do not make these perennial questions of curricular theory obsolete. Rather the new aims call for new ways of selection and ordering of knowledge in curricula (Štech, 2009; Sivesind, van den Akker, & Rosenmund, 2012).

We are interested in questions such as: Which Western curricula serve as models for national curricular policy in the Central Europe? What similarities and differences can be found between paradigmatic foreign curricula and the actual Czech curricula in structure, aims and contents of compulsory schooling? How are trends adapted, modified, translated into the national contexts?

This pilot study will evaluate the usability of different methods of curricular analysis for international comparisons.

Method

The overarching design of the study will be the multiple (comparative) case study (Stake, 2005; Yin, 2014) where individual cases are the new and innovative trans-national and national curricular documents developed foreshadowing the possible trajectories of what may happen in other countries. So the main data source will be the formal curricular documents. For the analysis of the curricular documents, the approach called curriculum benchmarking shall be used. The key steps of this tool describes Donelly (2005, p. 17) as (1) finding the key curricular descriptors, (2) describing development of the difficulty inherent in the key descriptors; (3) discussing the depth of coverage of these descriptors throughout the documents, (4) examining the rigour, detail, clarity and measurability of the key descriptors. Besides general features we will analyse school subject belonging to the core of curriculum (e. g. mathematics) and compare them with non-core subject (social studies), as we expect that core and non-core subject exhibit different behaviour (Ramirez & Meyer, 2002). Last, fifth stage of curriculum benchmarking corresponds to the cross-case analysis and looks for any significant discrepancies or differences of treatment between the trans- and international curriculum documents and the Czech curriculum.

Expected Outcomes

From methodological point of view, we want to describe usability of curriculum benchmarking and alternative tools for content/documentary analysis (Porter, 2002) for the comparison of curricular documents. The previous studies showed that the impulses coming from international and trans-national levels did influence official Czech national curricular policy, but the impulses were accepted rather selectively. Why are some elements/trends adopted and some refused? These processes of “policy borrowing/lending” might be interpreted using the theoretical framework of “world culture of schooling” and new institutionalism (Meyer& Rowan, 2006) or alternative system theories (Anderson-Levitt, 2002). The comparison of curricular policies might show that despite some important changes in schooling in transition countries the risc of "capability trap" (or low capacity) is high even 25 years after return of democracy. The pace of change in the Western countries is so high that transforming countries like the Czech Republic can hardly cath up. The lag between the Western countries and some CEE countries remains almost the same: 'Here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place." (Lewis Carrol). Some CEE countries might lack the capacity to "run twice as fast as that" needed "to go anywhere".

References

Anderson-Levitt, K. M. (2002). Teaching culture as national and transnational: A response to teachers' work. Educational Researcher, 31 (3), 19–21. Donnelly, K. (2005). Benchmarking Australian primary school curricula. Canberra: Department of Education, Science and Training. Dvořák, D. (2009). Řazení učiva v soudobých teoriích kurikula. Pedagogika, 59, č. 2, s. 136–152. Dvořák, D. (2012). Od osnov ke standardům. Praha: PedF UK. Meyer, H.-D., & Rowan, B. (Eds.) (2006). The new institutionalism in education. Albany: State University of New York Press. Porter, A. C. (2002). Measuring the content of instruction: Uses in research and practice. Educational Researcher 31(7), 3–14. Priestley, M. & Biesta,. G.J.J. (Eds.) (2013). Reinventing the curriculum: New trends in curriculum policy and practice. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Ramirez, F. O., & Meyer, J. W. (2002). National curricula: World models and national historical legacies. Stanford University. Sivesind, K, van den Akker, J., & Rosenmund, M. (2012). The European curriculum: restructuring and renewal, European Educational Research Journal, 11(3), 320-327. Stake, R. E. (2005). Multiple case study analysis. New York: The Guilford Press. Sundberg, D., Wahlström, N. (2012). Standards-based curricula in a denationalised conception of education: the case of Sweden. European Educational Research Journal, 11(3), 342-356. Štech, S. (2009). Zřetel k učivu a problém dvou modelů kurikula. Pedagogika, 59 (2), 105–115. Thijs, A., & van den Akker, J. (Eds.) (2009). Curriculum in development. Enschede: SLO. Yin, K. R. (2014). Case study research (5. vyd.). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Young, M. (2008). From constructivism to realism in the sociology of the curriculum. Review of Research in Education, 32, (1) 1–28.

Author Information

Dominik Dvorak (presenting / submitting)

Charles University in Prague

Institute for Research and Development of Education

Prague

Michaela Dvorakova (presenting)

Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic

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