Session Information
26 SES 14 C JS, Education Leadership for Curriculum Change
Joint Symposium NW 23 and NW 26
Contribution
Curriculum and leadership research has for a long time contested the boundaries of traditional historicism. This is in particular true for the re-conceptual turn in curriculum studies during the 1970 and the invention of curriculum history, which even considered empirical and pragmatic studies as being dominated by empiricist assumptions (Pinar, 1978). In today’s research context, the critique is still recognizable, but the alternatives more differentiated (Pinar, 2008). Several scholars, both in curriculum research (Yates, 2012) and in policy research (Schmidt, 2011a) position themselves in-between two alternative poles; a positivist position at the one hand and a constructivist position at the other hand. This paper gives a short introduction to discursive institutionalism (DI) as an example of a bridge-building approach, both in terms of how Schmidt (2011b) articulates her epistemology for studying the dynamics of change, and how she conceptualizes ideas and discourses to connect theory with data. We ask what benefits and constrains there might be in this kind of bridge-building, and how can it contribute to comparative research on educational leadership? The first question will be approached by an analysis of the similarities and differences between DI and historical institutionalism (HI) (Bell, 2011) and how these approaches can complement each other. The second question will be examined by a policy analysis on educational leadership, illustrating how DI and HI highlight different but complementary aspects in the analysis. By comparing two sets of policy texts about school leadership development in Norway and Sweden, the paper exemplifies how the two countries share ideas and histories, however, approach them differently. Our study shows that a HI approach involves an understanding of structural changes of education policies while DI helps to identify how interactive power relations play a role in decision courses. Finally, by addressing curriculum theory (CT) to clarify how ideas and policies connect with educational projects, we also demonstrate how policies about school leadership development connect with local practices, partly transformed by researchers as change agents.
References
Bell, S. (2011). Do We Really Need a New ‘Constructivist Institutionalism’ to Explain Institutional Change? British Journal of Political Science, 41(4), 883-906. doi:10.1017/S0007123411000147 Pinar, W. F. (1978). The Reconceptualization of Curriculum Studies. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 10(3), 205-214. Pinar, W. F. (2008). Curriculum Theory Since 1950. Crisis, Reconceptualization, Internationalization. In C. F. Michael, M. Fang He, & J. Phillion (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction (pp. 491-513). Los Angeles: Sage Publications. Schmidt, V. A. (2011a). Reconciling ideas and institutions through discursive institutionalism. Ideas and politics in social science research, 47-64. Schmidt, V. A. (2011b). Speaking of change: why discourse is key to the dynamics of policy transformation. Critical policy analysis, 5(2), 106-126. Yates, L. (2012). My School, My University, My Country, My World, My Google, Myself…What is education for now? The Australian Educational Researcher, 39(3), 259-274. doi:10.1007/s13384-012-0062-z
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