WORKING WITH CURRICULUM INNOVATION: TEACHER IDENTITY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF VIABLE PRACTICE

Abstract

A reading of a history of research into curriculum innovation appears to find the process of teacher mediation a weakness when measuring the moderate gains made. Employing data derived from a project at the Manchester Metropolitan University based on Realistic Mathematics Education (RME), we seek to examine the dynamics involved as teachers begin to adapt their practices in response to the demands of new curriculum design. Employing a post-structualist framework, we examine transition in relation to the processes at play and find that teachers’ pedagogical constructs are both fluid and constantly evolving as they seek to reconcile varying and sometimes conflicting demands for practice. We acquisition the term ‘trajectory’ resonant of both RME and Deleuze and Guattari's (2003) ‘line of flight’, to suggest a more fruitful framing for responses to change.