Thesis (Ed. D.)--Oklahoma State University, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Oklahoma State University, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oklahoma State University, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Oklahoma State University, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas A&M University, 2005. / "Major Subject: Curriculum and Instruction" Title from author supplied metadata (automated record created on Feb. 23, 2007.) Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas A&M University, 2005. / "Major Subject: Curriculum and Instruction" Title from author supplied metadata (automated record created on Feb. 23, 2007.) Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas A&M University, 2005. / "Major Subject: Curriculum and Instruction" Title from author supplied metadata (automated record created on Feb. 23, 2007.) Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas A&M University, 2006. / "Major Subject: Curriculum and Instruction" Title from author supplied metadata (automated record created on Feb. 23, 2007.) Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

The aim of this thesis is to explore how different competing discourses in the historical context of the Swedish education development have qualified and disqualified different constructions of national curriculum. How and after what kind of principles is the curriculum constructed? What qualify who are going to be recognized as the author and addressee of the curriculum? These key ques-tions of the study are discussed in the first part of the thesis. My point of depar-ture is that the curriculum can be understood as a relation between freedom and control. In an educational system this relationship reflects the problematic ten-sion between the external demands from an authoritative center and the local need to independently reflect over educational issues. How these concepts are defined by the prevailing social discourses affect specific relations and construc-tions of curricula as a steering tool and a producer of specific teacher identities. In this sense, I claim that curriculum is constructed in different ways depending on which of the didactic questions are emphasized and answered and who is judged as the legitimate author. Based on this, three models of curriculum con-struction are formulated; the content based, the result based and the process based. These models are subsequently used as an analytical tool to examine the historical development of Swedish national curricula. The second part of the thesis investigates the Swedish education system and the production of the national curriculum as a product of rival discourses. The historical investigation begins 1842 when the first state curriculum was issued and the inquiry concludes in 2008. The findings indicate that no one single con-struction has been totally dominant and that there has been an on-going discur-sive struggle between different alternative and opinions about what teachers must do and be.

The main problem being investigated is why there were such divergent views on the appropriate curriculum for ANC education-in-exile from within the ANC, and in the light of this contestation, what happened in reality to curriculum practice at the institutions. The arguments for Academic, Political and Polytechnic Education are contextualized in the curriculum debates of the times, that is, the 20th century international policy discourse, the African curriculum debates and Apartheid Education in South Africa. This study examines how Academic Education, despite the sharp debates, was institutionalised at the SOMAFCO High School. It also analyses the arguments for and various notions of Political and Polytechnic Education as well as what happened to these in practice at the school. The SOMAFCO Primary School went through three phases of curriculum development. The school opened in 1980 under a ‘caretaker’ staff and without a structured curriculum. During the second phase 1980-1982 a progressive curriculum was developed by Barbara and Terry Bell. After the Bells resigned in 1982, a conventional academic curriculum was implemented by Dennis September, the new principal.