Curriculum as Text: Some Implications of Ricoeur's Hermeneutic Theory for Curriculum theory

Abstract

Human existence at the beginning of the 21 st Century is characterised by the quest to create meaning. The contemporary functional focus of education on skills training is seriously impeding the human endeavour in its quest to discover what it means to live meaningfully. To make meaning is to be able to explain and understand, to comprehend and appropriate meaning inherent to knowledge. This process leads to the creation of meaning by the individual - the ability to make sense. The contemporary state of affairs in education is due to the failure to acknowledge this process which can only be approached and addressed from a hermeneutical point of view. In this article the focus is placed on a cursory explication of Ricoeur's hermeneutical theory, followed by a brief discussion of issues related to outcomes based education.

Keywords:

• Curriculum theory
• Text
• Ricoeur
• Hermeneutic theory