(Dis)Continuities In The “Secondarisation” Of Primary Curricula In The Republic Cyprus: Opportunities And Challenges During A Period Of “Reform”

Author(s):

Stavroula Philippou(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

03. Curriculum Innovation

Format:

Paper

Session Information

03 SES 04 B, Kindergarten and Primary Education Curriculum

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-24

09:00-10:30

Room:

NM-G109

Chair:

Majella Dempsey

Contribution

In 2004 a broad Educational Reform of the Greek-Cypriot public education was launched, culminating in the development of new curriculum texts for all sectors and subject-areas published in 2010 and evaluated in 2014. Drawing upon curriculum theory and history as well as sociological approaches to curricula, this study explores how distinct subject-areas were present in this process of the development and evaluation of official curricula and argues that disciplinary boundaries between subject-areas were a key rationality of “structuring” and “administering/managing” curriculum change. More particularly, using the Bernsteinian concept of (strong and weak) “classification” in the official and pedagogical recontextualisation fields, the argument is formed drawing upon four cases-contexts explored as interconnected: the first is the official primary education curricular texts and timetables that were published in 2010; the second is the process of the development of these official texts by subject-area committees with members of expertise in content, education, didactics or a combination of the above, including academics, teachers and MoEC technocrats; the third is the professional development process through which the MoEC reached teachers and pursued the implementation of these new curricula between 2010-2013; finally, the fourth case-context looks at the evaluation of these curricula by a central committee and anonymous reviewers in 2013-2014 as well as the responses of the first subject-area committees to this evaluation when it was published in 2014.

Method

The four cases-contexts are analysed in official discourse, drawing on official policy and curricular documents, reports, circulars, communications, teacher guides and other materials produced by the Ministry of Education and Culture during this period and the practices of reform described in these documents.

Expected Outcomes

Though as will be shown subject-area “specialism” within primary education has not been a new and certainly not a local phenomenon, it is argued that in the current historical moment and sociopolitical context in Cyprus it is recast in ways suggesting a “secondarisation”’ of primary education i.e. constructed with rationalities more conducive to or emanating from secondary education. The paper concludes with a discussion of new challenges as well as opportunities this presents for primary education curricula, the professional identity of primary school teachers but also teacher education as an academic field in Cyprus. This discussion is held against international literature on teacher professionalism and curriculum change.

References

Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique, (2nd edition).Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield. Bernstein, B. (1999). Vertical and horizontal discourse: An essay. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(2), 157-173. Kirk, D. & MacDonald, D. (2001). Teacher voice and ownership of curriculum change, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 33 (5), 551-567. Moore, R. & Maton, K. (2001). Founding the sociology of knowledge: Basil Bernstein, intellectual fields and the epistemic device. In Morais, A., Neves, I., Davies, B. & Daniels, H. (Eds), Towards a Sociology of Pedagogy: The contribution of Basil Bernstein to research. New York: Peter Lang.

Author Information

Stavroula Philippou (presenting / submitting)

University of Cyprus, Department of Education

Nicosia

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