Curriculum Making: A conceptual framing

Citation

Priestley M, Philippou S, Alvunger D & Soini T (2021) Curriculum Making: A conceptual framing. In: Priestley M, Alvunger D, Philippou S & Soini T (eds.) Curriculum making in Europe: policy and practice within and across diverse contexts. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Ltd, pp. 1-27. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/978-1-83867-735-020211002/full/html; https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83867-735-020211002

Abstract
This chapter provides an introduction to the European case study chapters in this volume on curriculum making. The chapter explores different conceptions of curriculum and curriculum making. It offers a critique of existing thinking about curriculum making as something that occurs within reified levels within an educational system. Such thinking often construes curriculum making as occurring through linear and hierarchical chains of command from policy to practice. Drawing upon previous conceptualizations of curriculum making, the chapter develops a new approach to understanding curriculum making. This is a heuristic rather than a normative framing; it is essentially non-linear, framed around the concept of intertwined sites of activity – supra, macro, meso, micro and nano – within complex systems, with curriculum making framed as types of activity rather than institutional functions.

Keywords
Curriculum; Curriculum making; Social practice; Curriculum levels; Sites of activity

People

Professor Mark Priestley

Professor, Education

• Intro Curriculummaking