Session Information
23 SES 14 C JS, Education Leadership for Curriculum Change
Joint Symposium NW 23 and NW 26
Contribution
We see educational leadership for curriculum change occurring within and between different levels this means that it is important to highlight mechanisms through which the political will formation and its results (ideas) transform or find their way, in cooperation with professional expertise, into a ’pedagogical agenda’ by being communicated to practitioners (Uljens & Ylimaki, 2015; in press). Schmidt’s (2008, 2016) discursive institutionalism provides a new point of departure to consider the “institutional” or “structural” dimensions, particularly those that are evident in later deliberative and discourse-oriented curriculum theory. According to Schmidt (2008), discursive institutionalism aims at understanding how cognitive and normative ideas are developed and communicated across societal, philosophical, policy, and program levels. Cognitive ideas speak to how programs define problems to be solved, how policies offer solutions to the problems at hand, and how both policies and programs resonate with underlying assumptions. Normative ideas are associated with values, serve to legitimate the policies in programs, and explain how policies meet emerging or long-standing ideals of society and public life. Schmidt (2008) argues that ideas operate as coordinative and communicative discourses, first among policy actors and second among policy actors and the public. Thus, from a public administration perspective on macro and micro institutions, the term ‘discourse’ refers not only to structure (what is said, or where or how) but also to agency (who said what to whom) creating patterns of interactions, cultures, which in turn frame but structure and agency. Schmidt (2008) also emphasizes the importance of discursive interactions or how ideas are conveyed within and various institutional levels. However, with its grounding in public administration, Schmidt’s (2008) discursive institutionalism does not have any underlying educational language or theory of education. Thus, we consider deliberative and discourse-oriented curriculum theory and classic concepts from non-affirmative education (recognition, summoning, Bildsamkeit,) as well as discursive institutionalism. Coherent with discursive institutionalism, discourse-oriented curriculum and educational leadership theory, and the core concepts of modern educational theory, a curriculum is here viewed as a systematic interruption at different levels regarding practitioners’ way of understanding herself and carrying out one’s professional tasks. Discursive institutionalism, combined with non-affirmative education theory creates a language for curriculum work and other human-institutional interactions, including those concerning the broader system (e.g. law, policy documents). In our framework, then, curriculum theory (preparation and transformation aims, content), leadership/institutional studies (structure) and policy (ideas) now complete each other conceptually.
References
Benner, D. (2015). Allgemeine Pädagogik: eine systematisch-problem-geschichtliche Einführung in die Grundstruktur pädagogischen Denkens und Handelns. 8. Aufl. Weinheim & Basel: Beltz Juventa. Uljens, M. & Ylimaki, R. (2015). Towards a discursive and non-affirmative framework for curriculum studies, Didaktik and educational leadership. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy 1(3). http://nordstep.net/index.php/nstep/article/view/30177 Uljens, M. & Ylimaki, R. (in press). Bridging Educational Leadership, Curriculum Studies and Didaktik. Grounding Comparative Research and Dialogue in Non-Affirmative Theory of Education. Dordrecht: Springer. Schmidt, V. A. (2008). Discursive institutionalism: The explanatory power of ideas and discourse. Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci., 11, 303-326. Schmidt, V.A. & Radaelli, C.M. (2014). Policy Change and Discourse in Europe: Conceptual and Methodological Issues. West European Politics, 27:2, 183-210. DOI: 10.1080/0140238042000214874. Schmidt, V.A. (2016). Conceptualizing Europe as a ”Region-State”. In: T. Spanakos & F. Panizza (eds.), Conceptualizing Comparative Politics (pp. 17-45). New York: Routledge.
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