What spurs curriculum making in physical education? Four narratives of experienced teachers

Abstract

Anchored in the narrative inquiry tradition, this paper examines commonly held motives about curriculum making from the perspectives of four experienced physical education teachers in Korea. Field texts were collected throughout by employing narrative research tools such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, class observations and documents analyses, and transformed into research texts using broadening, burrowing, and storying and restorying as suggested by Connelly and Clandinin. For experienced physical educators, this paper illuminates what motivates curriculum making as a narrative phenomenon storied and restoried over time. Different stories produced different motives of curriculum making, and a number of issues related to teacher development for curriculum making emerged.

Keywords:

• Teaching motivation
• Physical education curriculum
• Curriculum reform
• National curriculum
• Curriculum maker

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) (KRF-2008-220-G00005).