Towards powerful educational knowledge? Addressing the challenges facing educational foundations, curriculum theory and Didaktik

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces a special issue which aims to address the challenges facing the ‘deliberative’ educational knowledge traditions of educational foundations, curriculum theory and Didaktik as a consequence of the rising tide of empiricism in educational research, the ‘what works’ agenda in global educational reform and internal fragmentation within the traditions themselves. By examining the potential for the reconfiguration or reconstruction of these traditions, we ask whether it is possible to reinvigorate a ‘powerful’ educational knowledge that could provide a meaningful basis for educators to conceptualize their practice, and a robust response to policies that seek to narrow educational activity to a focus solely on learning outcomes and technical efficiency.

KEYWORDS:

• curriculum
• educational theory
• teacher knowledge
• disciplines of education
• comparative studies
• professional knowledge

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This special issue developed from a symposium held at ECER 2019 in Hamburg entitled ‘Can Educational Knowledge be Powerful? Addressing the Challenges in the Sociology of Educational Knowledge and Curriculum Theory’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jim Hordern

Jim Hordern works at the Department of Education, University of Bath. His research interests are in educational knowledge and practice, and he has published widely in these and other related fields. He convened the symposium at ECER 2019 in Hamburg that led to this special issue.

Johan Muller

Johan Muller is Professor Emeritus of Curriculum in the School of Education, and senior research scholar at the University of Cape Town. He is also extraordinary professor in the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology at Stellenbosch University. He is a sociologist of education and has published in the area of curriculum theory and policy, focusing on schooling as well as higher education. His most recent book, Curriculum and the Specialisation of Knowledge with Michael Young, was published in 2016.

Zongyi Deng

Zongyi Deng is Professor of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the UCL Institute of Education, University College London. He is also an executive editor of the Journal of Curriculum Studies (JCS) and has held faculty positions at Nanyang Technological University and the University of Hong Kong. His interest areas include curriculum content or subject matter, curriculum theory, didactics (Didaktik), curriculum policy and reform, and comparative and international education. His publications appear in JCS, Curriculum Inquiry, Comparative Education, Teaching and Teacher Education, Teachers and Teaching, Cambridge Journal of Education, Science Education and other international journals. His latest book is Knowledge, content, curriculum theory and Didaktik: Beyond social realism (Routledge).