The challenges of curriculum change challenges of curriculum change teachers in Limpopo province
Date
2006-11-17T09:07:08Z
Authors
Marneweck, Lorraine Veronica
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Abstract
This thesis focuses on the challenges a particular group of rural primary school
teachers experienced as they implemented a national outcomes-based curriculum
through the support of an external agent. It uses Fairclough’s (1991) model of
critical discourse analysis and his theory of critical language study as a framework to
explore the discourses and practices of this group of South African teachers.
Methodologically, this thesis is located in the qualitative paradigm, and uses
interviews and observations to systematically probe teachers’ understandings of
curriculum and change.
Three themes are developed in this thesis. First, the theme of teacher collaboration
is presented as a new social practice that the teachers creatively took up during a
school development project. It shows that while social and institutional process
determined the nature of the project as a social practice, at a situational level, the
teachers played a much more determinative role as they shaped the project and its
practices in several intriguing ways. Second, the curriculum roles that were
discursively produced by the teachers as they struggled to transform their practice
from isolation to collaboration are revealed. This demonstrates that while many of
these roles were common to all schools, the role of the teacher as leader emerged
in only two of the schools. And third, through analysing the lessons taught by this
group of teachers in their classrooms, the tacit knowledge of pedagogy and content
on which their practice was based is made explicit. These themes provide
opportunities for certain common sense assumptions about teacher collaboration,
leadership, learning and practice to be interrogated in terms of their applicability to
the schools in the project.
The thesis concludes with a discussion of the possibilities that still exist for teacher
educators to enhance understanding of what happens inside traditional rural
schools.
Description
Student Number : 9407325P -
PhD thesis -
Faculty of Human and Social Sciences
Keywords
challenges, rural primary school teachers, national outcomes-based curriculum, Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis, teacher collaboration, curriculum roles, pedagogy and content, enhance understanding