Not available / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Curriculum Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The purpose of this study is to ascertain, from a review and analysis of the literature, if any key messages emerge within which curriculum reconstruction of primary science education in South Africa can be undertaken. Firstly, three paradigms in education are equated with three philosophies of science and the compatibility of modes of inquiry are highlighted. It is argued that paradigms can be used as a form of analysis to locate particular approaches to the teaching and learning of science. Thereafter, an overview of major trends in science education is provided. The various views of and approaches to science education are analysed and located within particular paradigms. In order to assist in such analyses, a conceptual framework is developed. This draws on key determinants of curriculum development and locates these within each of the three paradigms. The framework is applied to a review and analysis of international emphases in primary science education, within which five different perspectives are identified. These are located within different paradigms. Science education in developing countries is considered thereafter and some recent trends in primary science curriculum development in South Africa are examined. It is shown that the recent syllabus revision process and the revised syllabuses in South Africa are still located in a technical approach to curriculum development. In seeking an alternative approach, the weaknesses of imported ready made solutions from more developed contexts are highlighted, and an exploration of alternative approaches that are more responsive to local contexts is then undertaken. Some innovative examples of curriculum development in other parts of Africa and South Africa are examined. From the review and analysis a set of key messages emerge for curriculum development in primary science education. In selecting appropriate programmes, it is vital that attention is given to children's' existing abilities and ideas, to the expected role for science in society, and to a particular society's values and norms. Material provision, of itself, does not bring about meaningful change, and teachers can and should be involved in the production of teaching materials. Another key message is that it is crucial for teachers to be involved in curriculum decision making, although they may need inservice support to make this possible. Approaches to inservice education must therefore give due consideration to this, and to developing classroom based teaching competencies. Finally, attention is given to some of the factors which may contribute to systemic change in science education. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, 1996.

This study is an attempt to outline an overall curriculum plan for the management education programs of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which would be adapted to the needs of the country while drawing on knowledge and resources from the West. This study also searches for an analytical tool to facilitate cross-national comparisons in areas of management. A need-based curriculum planning process is followed, which focuses on the discrepancies between the actual and required managerial capabilities in the PRC. A framework conceptualizing the nature of management is proposed to provide an overall structure for examining the needs for management training. It is suggested in this framework that national characteristics affect organizational environments, which in turn influence the nature of organizational management. It is further suggested that organizational environments in various national contexts be examined from two perspectives: (a) internal vs. external, and (b) technical vs. institutional. Effective management involves forming and implementing strategies and tactics which would balance all aspects of organizational environments within a particular context. Based on the framework, the management of PRC’s enterprises involves reconciling economic with ideological and social criteria, as well as reconciling the interests of the state and the community, and of the organizational members. This perspective on management in the PRC is partially tested through a questionnaire survey administered to a sample of PRC managers from the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade (MOFERT). The survey results support the notion that, to succeed in the PRC, it is important not only to manage the technical but also the institutional aspects of organizational environments. The questionnaire also surveyed MOFERT managers’ self- reported managerial capabilities to uncover the overall and the differentiated needs for training among managers from various backgrounds. As predicted, MOFERT managers recognize their skill deficiency in all aspects of management identified. This echoes the widespread recognition of the urgent need for upgrading managerial skills in the PRC. The survey results indicate the extent to which managers’ different backgrounds contribute to their capabilities of dealing with various aspects of management. MOFERT managers having tertiary education, contrary to the prediction, do not report more confidence in fulfilling managerial tasks which are supposedly highly related to their specific disciplines of technical and professional training. On the other hand, managers’ work experience, connections with government agencies, and/or sympathy with the official ideology are shown to contribute, in general, to better capabilities in aspects of management requiring more behavioral and political as opposed to technical skills. However, those same managers report no more confidence than other managers in dealing with aspects of management which, though still calling for political skills, are dramatically affected by the current economic reforms in the PRC. Based on conceptual and empirical analyses, curriculum plans are recommended for the various levels of business administration programs of the PRC. The extent of transferability of existing Western teaching materials in various subject areas are also discussed. While this study focuses primarily on the content issue of management education in the PRC, the proposed framework has much broader implications in both topical and geographical terms. It synthesizes various contemporary advancements in organizational research, enabling a holistic view of organizational management. It is also geocentric in orientation, enabling genuine cross-cultural comparisons and contrasts. Hopefully, the framework provides a general model for systematic analyses of cross-national similarities and differences in organizational management.

This qualitative study compares an "integrated" art program with a "discipline-oriented" art program at the grade eight level in two Ontario public schools. Data were collected through ethnographic interview and observation. The comparison is based upon the intentional, curricular, structural and evaluative dimensions of schooling as outlined by Eisner (1991). The study indicates that integrative practices are complex and multi- dimensional. Integrated outcomes occur and may be cultivated within a discipline-oriented school structure.

The purpose of this study is to understand why and how media education became legitimate in the Ontario educational system in the 1980s. The theoretical focus is on how a new social movement (the new social movement in Ontario) led to the legitimation of a new social curriculum (the media education program). This study on media education in Ontario is contextualized in the epochal shift to the information society. Adopting the approach of historical sociology, it documents the influence of those social forces which gave rise to media education and investigates how key individuals brought media education into schools. In the 1970s and 1980s, the societal shift brought with it rapid development in media technologies and induced new social tensions. This study finds that the conceptualization of the mass media as "invisible curriculum," the ideology of techno-cultural nationalism and the moral controversy over media sex and violence directed public attention to the importance of media literacy. The media literacy movement in Ontario subsequently placed media education in the formal school curriculum. Legitimating media education can be regarded as a social and educational response to the technological changes in the information age. This study also indicates that less powerful groups in the community and the educational field were able to put a body of low-status knowledge into the formal school curriculum. In order to analyze the process from social movement to subject formation, a theoretical framework is put forward identifying strong justification, effective lobbying, proper positioning and unofficial support for curriculum-building as the four key elements for legitimating a new social curriculum. Instead of justifying media education in terms of utilitarian and academic values, the advocates emphasized the pragmatic solution provided by the new curriculum to social problems. The manipulation of public support by creating a "climate of opinion" was vital to the success of lobbying. "Subject inhabitancy" was an effective way to find a curricular niche for a new social curriculum. Finally, the advocates' support for the curriculum development and implementation played an important role in strengthening the government's confidence in mandating a new program.

[abstract missing]

This thesis investigates the curriculum discourses of academics within a University of Technology, exploring their responses to curriculum challenges and considering the degree to which national and institutional shifts contest existing curriculum discourses. Curriculum discourses are identified and discussed against the national and institutional environment and are found, to some degree, to reflect the entrenched assumptions of teaching and learning that were dominant during the apartheid era. Existing curriculum discourses also reveal the influence of curriculum practices adopted within the highly bureaucratic technikon system out of which the institution has evolved. This critical inquiry rests on the assumption that with more insight into socio-cultural values and assumptions, understandings of knowledge, teaching and learning, and existing power relations within individuals’ working context, the possibility of transforming curriculum will be increased. Selecting a small sample of twelve participants from the Durban University of Technology, I conducted in-depth, open-ended interviews intended to explore these academics’ curriculum discourses. Adopting discourse analysis as my primary method of data analysis enabled me to explore the discourses which academics use to construct the notion of curriculum and their own roles in regards to the curriculum. Further to this, I used my own experience of the institutional context and the literature on the national and international contexts of higher education to inform the study and add to the richness of the data. Issues of professional, disciplinary and institutional knowledge and culture are acknowledged to play a central role in participants’ curriculum discourses. These socio-cultural factors are found to affect academic identity construction and change, assumptions about knowledge production and dissemination and notions of teaching and learning. These insights are then overlaid onto a consideration of the extent to which academics have the agency to transform their curricula to align with current higher education policy and the societal and economic transformation agenda. Competing curriculum discourses evident in post-apartheid policy, enormous institutional changes resulting from mandated institutional mergers, changed institutional management team profiles, significantly different student profiles and increased student numbers have all to a large degree overshadowed issues of teaching and learning and led to confusion, disillusionment and uncertainty among the academics participating in this study. There is evidence of a weakening institution-identity with academics feeling uncertain about their roles and responsibilities within the institution, feeling under-valued by the institutional leaders and over-burdened in their workloads with limited support and resources. On the other hand there is a strong identification with workgroups which include both professional and departmental groups that share sets of assumptions and established practices that provide academics with the stability, familiarity, security and affirmation that they need. The issue of individual agency as reflected in the findings, demonstrates that there was a continuum of participant agency that tentatively points to a correlation between the level of agency and the amount of stability and value gained from allegiance to and participation in workgroups. Despite the increasing pressure upon academics to interrogate their own systems and disciplinary structures that chiefly focus on a traditional mode of specialised knowledge production, there is limited evidence of significantly changed understanding of curriculum practices. Furthermore there is little to suggest that these academics’ curriculum practices have been impacted by international trends towards globalisation, marketisation and shifts in modes of knowledge production. Traditional views of knowledge construction and low skills training discourses were strongly evident in the data. With the challenges presented not only by the need for economic and social transformation within South Africa, but also by the need to respond to fast-paced technological and knowledge advancements, exceptional leadership and improved capacity are required to enable rather than inhibit curriculum transformation. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

This study opens in a critical paradigm and explores the previously unheard experiences of caregivers who have been trained in and who practice palliative care in a context of rural African, isolated, profoundly impoverished homes. Instead of a healthcare focus, the study used curriculum theory to provide a fresh look at and to better understand palliative care in context. Curriculum theory distinguishes a curriculum as preactive (espoused) or interactive (enacted), and preactive and interactive curricula for palliative care were compared and interrogated as exemplarity of a circumstance when a curriculum is transported into a context other than that where it originated. The study offers several contributions to health sciences, including a link between curriculum theory and palliative care, and provides deep insights into the experiences of those who practice palliative care with limited guidance and support from senior healthcare professionals. In the 1970s palliative care developed in a hospital context in the United Kingdom as a response to ideas which included that society is death-denying and that medicine and associated sophisticated technology act to render patients passive spectators in care decisions. An aim is to coordinate and plan care which includes a focus on empowering patients and their families by giving them choices around living with a life-shortening illness and dying as comfortably and peacefully as possible. A common theme is an intention to relieve or prevent suffering, and palliative care services have developed throughout the world. Palliative care is delivered by healthcare professionals acting within a multidisciplinary team who provide care at various sites including hospitals, homes and hospices. Palliative care has been introduced to post-apartheid South Africa relatively recently, and the preactive palliative care curriculum is largely based on notions of palliative care which developed in a European context while the interactive curriculum is enacted in rural African homes. Ideas around palliative care may not have a universal or rigid quality, but may represent an agreement among people in a certain context and the unexplored introduction of such ideas into another context may potentially give rise to a hegemonic flow of ideas. Systemic challenges around healthcare in Africa may preclude a patient from having choices in their healthcare. The agency of patients may be undermined by their material living conditions. The study site was rural KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, where the incidence and prevalence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus are the highest in the world. Study questions revolved around a curriculum as a source of knowledge for practice and experiences of a context and practice. Data sources were twofold: firstly a palliative care curriculum text was scrutinized and analyzed in terms of who is cared for, place of care, work of caregivers and palliative care; and secondly data from participants (nurses and home-based care workers) were analyzed to produce deep insights into their experiences of practising in context. Data were generated using a visual technique of “photo-elicitation”, where participants were invited to discuss photographs they took to convey their experiences, and analyzed inductively using naturally emerging themes. Curriculum data indicated that patients should be offered palliative care when there is awareness that they face a life-limiting illness, and a focus was on home care. The espoused curriculum foregrounded physical care and placed less emphasis on aspects such as spiritual, cultural or psychosocial care; the curriculum was delivered at a site distant to caregivers’ practice. In South Africa the legacy of apartheid lingers, and data from caregivers revealed that physical conditions are harsh in that patients are starving, housed in makeshift shelters and face profound social challenges. Spiritual care and cultural care were highly valued, as patients map onto traditional beliefs and cultural practices Data revealed that caregivers were sometimes unsure, angry, felt powerless and could be placed in physical and emotional danger. Patients and their families valued some aspects of palliative care, such as preparing for death and bereavement support, but found challenges in understanding other aspects such as why caregivers did not appear to make attempts to cure disease. Juxtaposing study findings with published literature revealed that diametric worldviews of teachers and learners have an impact on curriculum delivery. The home could be a beneficial place for care but could also create challenges. The study theorizes beyond a palliative care curriculum, and in concluding the study I found that I must move from a critical to a post-structural paradigm. A critical paradigm seeks data around oppression and marginalization so that transformation may be enacted, and data indicated that aspects of the practice of palliative care were both empowering and disempowering for caregivers; they were empowered by being able to practice in an independent, autonomous way, but were also disempowered since the curriculum did not adequately consider context. The study unearthed no universal truth for a curriculum for palliative care; an African curriculum should take cognizance of an African context. I use the study findings to put forward a thesis around certainty in curriculum, and the study prompts understanding of certain curriculum in contexts that are uncertain. Key words: Certainty, curriculum, palliative care practice, context, rural homes / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2012.