The notion of curriculum making is based upon the premise that curricula are constructed – made – across multiple sites of activity within education systems, and that curriculum can be studied as social practice. As a foundation for the Centre, the following definition of curriculum is adopted:
The multi-layered social practices, including content selection, infrastructure, pedagogy and assessment, through which education is structured, enacted and evaluated, with at least three dimensions:
- the notion of curriculum as social practice; something ‘made’ by practitioners and other actors, including young people, working with each other;
- the idea that curriculum is made across multiple ‘sites of activity’ within education systems, and by interactions among educational settings, places beyond classrooms, and wider civic society;
- the multitude of practices which comprise curriculum [1].
This approach entails analysis of the ecology of curriculum making – the development of systemic understanding of how the different components of curriculum work together across education systems to enable the development of coherent programmes. Thus, the Centre develops research across the full panoply of activities which comprise curriculum making, from discourse formation, to policy framing, to practical curriculum making in various educational settings (schools, colleges, early years settings, HE, community/non-formal).
[1] Priestley, M., Philippou, S., Alvunger, D. & Soini, T. (2021). Curriculum Making: A conceptual framing. In: M. Priestley, D. Alvunger, S. Philippou. & T. Soini, Curriculum making in Europe: policy and practice within and across diverse contexts. Bingley: Emerald.
