Cultures of Curriculum

Author(s):  
Pamela Bolotin Joseph

The concept of cultures of curriculum is an iteration of the classification system known as curricular orientations. Intended as a framework for curriculum development and a heuristic for curriculum inquiry, a culture of curriculum is a philosophy-based curricular orientation supported by coherent practices. A curricular culture is characterized by a shared and unifying vision that guides articulation of goals, inspires consensus, and stimulates the desire for change. Diverse cultures of curriculum have existed historically and are enacted in contemporary schools and universities; they are not static. Societal change, scholarly discoveries, and political or ethical discourse influence educators’ knowledge and public beliefs about education. Essentially, this conceptual model involves perceiving curriculum through a cultural perspective, as a series of interwoven dynamics and not merely as explicit content. Curriculum theorized as culture attends to continuing dialogue, values, metaphors, the environment in which education takes place, power relationships, and the norms that affect educators’ and stakeholders’ convictions about right or appropriate education. Subsequently, the cultures of curriculum framework for curriculum inquiry comprises both analysis of beliefs and ethnographic study of lived curriculum. This conceptual model also casts light on curriculum transformation, viewed through the cultural lens as reculturing curriculum. The process begins with inquiry through the cultures of curriculum framework to investigate the extant curriculum in classrooms and schools. Such examination may result in awareness of ad hoc curriculum featuring a multitude of contradictory purposes and activities or the realization that authorized curriculum work conflicts with educators’ philosophies and moral purposes. Concurrently, the study of curricular cultures may stimulate curriculum leadership as educators imagine ways to change their own curriculum work, initiate conversations with colleagues and stakeholders, and eventually commit energies and resources to reculturing curriculum. Rather than making partial modifications to school structures or trying out the latest instructional methods, curriculum transformation informed by the concept of curricular cultures embodies profound change to values, norms, and practices, as well as to classroom and school cultures.

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 1262-1269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel F. Baskerville ◽  
Kerry Jacobs ◽  
Vassili Joannides de Lautour ◽  
Jeff Sissons

Purpose Accounting research has struggled with how ethnicity is to be understood in relation to concepts such as nation and nationality and how ethnicity may impact on accounting and auditing practices, behaviours, education and professional values. These themes are explored and developed in the papers presented in this special issue. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to explore the contrasting theoretical and methodological approaches reflected by the papers in the issue. Design/methodology/approach This is a reflective and analytical paper which explores how notions of ethnicity are conceived and operationalised in accounting research. The authors identified two distinctive analytic ordering processes evident within this AAAJ Special issue: Mary Douglas’ scheme of Grid and Group and the Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual tools of field, capital and habitus. Findings The “Grid and Group” Culture Theory with Bourdieu’s theoretical tools evident in the papers provide powerful tools to explore the relationship between ethnicity and accounting both conceptually and empirically, suggesting that ethnicity can be deployed to reveal and challenge institutionalised racism. This paper highlights the potential to integrate elements of the “Grid and Group” Culture Theory and Bourdieu’s theoretical tools. The issue of ethnicity and the relationship between ethnicity and accounting should be more fruitfully explored in future. Research limitations/implications The authors acknowledge the challenges and limitations of discussing the issue of ethnicity from any particular cultural perspective and recognise the implicit dominance of White Anglo centric perspectives within accounting research. Originality/value The papers presented in the special issue illustrate that the issue of ethnicity is complex and difficult to operationalise. This paper highlights the potential to move beyond the ad hoc application of theoretical and methodological concepts to operationalise coherent concepts which challenge and extend the authors’ understanding of accounting as a social and contextual practice. But to achieve this it is necessary to more clearly integrate theory, methodology, method and critique.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 59-77
Author(s):  
Peter Scourfield

Social work students shadowing more experienced practitioners is usually regarded as self-evidently a positive learning experience by  practice educators, on-site supervisors; university tutors, and not least by the students themselves. Whilst it can form part of a formal practice learning agreement, much shadowing is also undertaken informally often on an ad hoc and impromptu basis. Given the extent to which shadowing takes place, it is a basic assumption of this paper that it must have a significant impact of what students learn about practice both in their specific placement but also more generally about social work. For this reason the primary aim of this paper is to bring more of a critical gaze onto shadowing as a learning activity in social work practice placements. The paper begins by examining the different purposes of shadowing and putting them into context. It explains how shadowing can be seen as both part of the process of socialisation into professional social work but also into a specific workplace culture. As such shadowing experiences need to be understood as part of the implicit (hidden) curriculum of social work. The second part of the paper considers some ways in which examining shadowing experiences more critically can improve certain aspects of practice. This includes understanding power relationships but also how shadowing can provide important opportunities for professional leadership. It is proposed that, often taken as a background or taken for granted activity, shadowing needs to be given a higher profile and therefore better preparation in social work practice placements.


Ethnicities ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 418-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zerihun Abebe Woldeselassie

In this paper, I will analyse a case of ethnic transformation in post-1991 Ethiopia based on an ethnographic study of the Eastern Gurage. The case represents an ethnic setting where the conventional conceptualization of ethnicity in terms of a notion of origin undermines the diversities expressed in various forms of category and boundary formations. The ethnic setting does not also fall into, but combines, the commonplace dichotomization of primordialist versus constructivist notion of ethnicity. Not only by taking Barth’s (1969) formalist anthropological conception of ethnicity as boundary formation, but also suggesting my own analytical distinction, I will attempt to account for the various forms of ethnicities particularly those based on clanship, locality, Islam and state’s categorization. In this regard, I have introduced a distinction between the concepts of identity and belonging in order to explain the different forms of social and political classifications, ideologies and power relationships that are often treated as implying a single phenomenon, i.e. identity formation.


Author(s):  
M.A. Bakel ◽  
A. Appadurai ◽  
C. Baks ◽  
Ákos Östör ◽  
W.E.A. Beek ◽  
...  

- J. van Goor, Rechtzetting. - M.A. van Bakel, A. Appadurai, The social life of things. Commodities in cultural perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1986. XIV + 329 pp. - C. Baks, Ákos Östör, Culture and power; Legend, ritual, bazaar and rebellion in a Bengali society, New Dehli etc.: Sage Publications, 1984, 224 pp., including notes and glossary. - W.E.A. van Beek, B. Bernardi, Age class systems; Social institutions based on age, Cambridge University Press, 1985, 199 pp. - H.W. Bodewitz, J.-M Péterfalvi, Le Mahabharata. Livres I à V. Livres VI à XVIII. Extraits traduits du sanscrit par Jean-Michel Péterfalvi. Commentaires, résumé et glossaire par Madeleine Biardeau, Paris: Flammarion, 1985 and 1986. 381 + 382 pp., M. Biardeau (eds.) - Paul Doornbos, Raymond C. Kelly, The Nuer conquest - The structure and development of an expansionist system, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1985, 320 pp. - Henk Driessen, Paul Spencer, Society and the dance: The social anthropology of process and performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, 224 pp. - D. Gerrets, Daniel Miller, Ideology, power and prehistory, Cambridge: University Press, 1984. 157 pp. numerous figs., Christopher Tilly (eds.) - Peter Kloos, Jacques Lizot, Les Yanomami Centraux, Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris 1984, 267 pp. - Peter Kloos, Jacques Lizot, Tales of the Yanomami; Daily life in the Venezuelan forest, Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology no. 55, Cambridge University Press, 1985, 196 pp. - Peter Kloos, H. Zevenbergen, Zwakzinnigen in verschillende culturen, Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1986, 109 pp. - Piet Konings, Freek Schiphorst, Macht en Onvermogen: Een studie van de relatie tussen staat en boeren op het Vea-irrigatie project Ghana, Universiteit van Amsterdam, CANSA publikatie nr. 20, 1983, 107 pp. - S. Kooijman, E. Schlesier, Eine ethnographische Sammlung aus Südost-Neuguinea. - H.M. Leyten, Bernhard Gardi, Zaïre masken figuren, Museum für Völkerkunde und Schweizerisches Museum für Volkskunde, Basel, 1986. - J. Miedema, Bruce M. Knauft, Good company and violence: Sorcery and social action in a lowland New Guinea Society, Berkeley, Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1985, X + 474 pp. - David S. Moyer, David H. Turner, Life before genesis, a conclusion: An understanding of the significance of Australian aboriginal culture, Toronto Studies in religion volume 1, Peter Lang, New York, 1983, vii + 181 pp. - B. van Norren, Peter Kloos, Onderzoekers onderzocht; Ethische dilemma’s in antropologisch veldwerk, DSWO Press, Leiden, 1984. - Jérôme Rousseau, Victor T. King, The Maloh of West Kalimantan. An ethnographic study of social inequality and social change among an Indonesian Borneo people, Dordrecht-Holland/Cinnaminson-U.S.A.: Foris Publications, Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde no. 108, 1985. viii + 252 pp., maps, diagrams, plates, glossary. - Jérôme Rousseau, Alain Testart, Le communisme primitif, I. Economie et idéologie, Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1985, 549 pp. - Arie de Ruijter, David Pace, Claude Lévi-Strauss. The bearer of ashes, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (Ark Paperbacks), 1986. - B.J. Terwiel, Roland Mischung, Religion und Wirklichkeitsvorstellungen in einem Karen-Dorf Nordwest-Thailands, Weisbaden: Franza Steiner Verlag, 1984. - B.J. Terwiel, Niels Mulder, Everyday life in Thailand; An interpretation, Second, Revised edition, Bangkok: Duang Kamol, 1985. 227 pages, paperback. - R.S. Wassing, Sidney M. Mead, Art and artists of Oceania, The Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 1983. 308 pp., drawings, black and white illustrations., Bernie Kernot (eds.) - Harriet T. Zurndorfer, Maarten van der Wee, Aziatische Produktiewijze en Mughal India, Ph.D thesis, Katholieke Universiteit, Nijmegen, 1985. xv + 399 pp. - M.A. van Bakel, J. Terrell, Prehistory in the Pacific Islands. A study of variation in language, customs and human biology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1986, XVI + 299 pp.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
J L Potter

Abstract Background The securitisation of borders against the threat of invading microbes, carried by immigrant bodies, is not a new phenomenon. Tuberculosis (TB), transmitted through coughing, has been a core member of the infectious diseases deemed important to control for more than a century. Following evidence suggesting airport screening for TB using chest x-rays was ad hoc, ineffective and costly, the UK - following in the footsteps of other high-income, low TB-burden countries - moved to pre-entry screening of migrants for TB. Thus the 'biosecuritisation' of immigrant bodies was shifted off-shore. Since 2014, pre-entry screening for TB has been a mandatory part of the visa application system for those moving to the UK for a period of 6 months or longer from high-incidence countries. This ethnographic study explores how pre-entry screening is experienced by migrants. Methods Data was drawn from a project exploring migrants' experiences of accessing healthcare. This involved a focused ethnography, comprising 180 hours of field work over four weeks including interviews with clients and staff, in a pre-entry TB screening centre in India in 2017. During this time over 1000 individuals were screened for active pulmonary TB as part of their visa application. In addition, 14 in-depth interviews were conducted with migrants diagnosed with TB in the UK. Foucault's concept 'governmentality' and sociological theories of bordering were used alongside thematic analysis to analyse the data. Results This study reveals the previously undocumented harms experienced by individuals who are required to undergo pre-entry screening for TB. Through the 'biosecuritisation' of some, but not all, off-shore bodies; some, but not all, off-shore TB; some, but not all, infectious diseases; pre-entry screening becomes a border force, reinforcing global inequities and racialised hierarchies. In this context, I argue pre-entry screening makes UK citizens live while letting 'others' die. Key messages Pre-entry screening marks migrants as ‘other’ in a global, racialised, hierarchy of TB risk that ignores intra-country heterogeneity, obfuscating solutions that might reduce inter-country inequities. The global health security agenda must consider the experiences of those caught up in its policies and practices in order to ensure disease control does not do more harm than good.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Olsson ◽  
Krzysztof Wnuk ◽  
Slinger Jansen

AbstractQuality requirements are vital to developing successful software products. However, there exist evidence that quality requirements are managed mostly in an “ad hoc” manner and down-prioritized. This may result in insecure, unstable, slow products, and unhappy customers. We have developed a conceptual model for the scoping process of quality requirements – QREME – and an assessment model – Q-REPM – for companies to benchmark when evaluating and improving their quality requirements practices. Our model balances an upfront forward-loop with a data-driven feedback-loop. Furthermore, it addresses both strategic and operational decisions. We have evaluated the model in a multi-case study at two companies in Sweden and three companies in The Netherlands. We assessed the scoping process practices for quality requirements and provided improvement recommendations for which practices to improve. The study confirms the existence of the constructs underlying QREME. The companies perform, in the median, 24% of the suggested actions in Q-REPM. None of the companies work data-driven with their quality requirements, even though four out of five companies could technically do so. Furthermore, on the strategic level, quality requirements practices are not systematically performed by any of the companies. The conceptual model and assessment model capture a relevant view of the quality requirements practices and offer relevant improvement proposals. However, we believe there is a need for coupling quality requirements practices to internal and external success factors to motive companies to change their ways of working. We also see improvement potential in the area of business intelligence for QREME in selecting data sources and relevant stakeholders.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0252782
Author(s):  
Elena Guichot-Muñoz ◽  
María Jesús Balbás-Ortega ◽  
Eduardo García-Jiménez

In areas of social exclusion, there are greater risks of facing discrimination at school. The teaching-learning processes may contribute toward the perpetuation of this inequality. This research analyzes a literacy event that takes place in a low-income school in Southern Spain. The new literacy studies have come to examine how power relationships and affective bonds work in such literacy practices. An ethnographic method was followed to facilitate a deeper understanding of multimodal literacy. Further, a social semiotics multimodal approach was adopted to analyze the meaning-making social process that takes place in the classroom. The participants comprised two teachers and 17 children, whose ages range from 5 to 7 years. Data were collected in the form of reports, audio recordings, video recordings, and photographs over a two-years period. The results obtained have revealed that the children have been taught writing and reading through a dominant orthodox model that fails to consider the community’s and families’ cultural capitals. They also show that the literacy process does not grant any affective quality. Neither is there an authentic dialogic space created between the school and the community. This lack of dialogue generates an inequality in the actual acquisition of comprehensive reading and writing skills at school, with instances of groups exclusion, owing to the anti-hegemonic practices of knowledge acquisition.


2022 ◽  
Vol 6 (GROUP) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Kalle Kusk ◽  
Claus Bossen

In this paper, we present the results of an ethnographic study focusing on food deliveries for the digital platform Wolt. The platform manages food transport ordered by customers to be delivered at home from restaurants, and subcontracts the transport to workers called 'couriers', who act as independent firms or entrepreneurs. The paper is based on six months of participant observation, during which time the first author worked as a courier, as well as on ad-hoc conversations and semi-structured interviews with other couriers. We describe couriers' work for the platform and discuss our findings using Möhlmann and Zalmanson's definition of algorithmic management. We found both similarities and differences. It was noticeable that the couriers were positive about their work that no penalties or wage reductions were enforced, and that human support complemented the platform's algorithmic management. Thus, the algorithmic management we observed is neither harsh (as it has been described on other platforms including Uber), nor like the algorithmic despotism present on Instacart, for example. Hence, we refer to it as 'lenient algorithmic management' and underline the importance of adding new perspectives to our understanding of what algorithmic management can be, as well as looking at the context in which it is practised. To complement this finding of lenient algorithmic management, we present a set of strategies couriers must engage in to be effective on the platform: Thus, couriers must 1) schedule their work for peak hours to limit the amount of time they waste, 2) bundle orders to increase their payment per tour, 3) make use of support to handle customers and cancel orders involving delays, and 4) make use of the ecology of local support structures. The contribution of this paper is to add new perspectives to the way we perceive algorithmic management by presenting a lenient form of algorithmic management and indicating the importance of looking at the context in which it is practised, while describing what it takes to be an effective worker on the Wolt platform.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document