Conceptualizing curriculum and understanding curriculum as culture

The contemporary notion of curriculum lacks a manner of critical inquiry due to its narrow understanding. In an effort to explore curricular meaning with multiple means of theories, frameworks, and images, Joseph et al. bring forward six distinctive classroom cultures that carry unique hopes, visions, challenges, and faults. They are named a) Training for Work and Survival; b) Connecting to the Canon; c) Developing Self and Spirit; d) Constructing Understanding; e) Deliberating Democracy; f) Confronting the Dominant Order.

To understand curriculum as culture, first we need to review multiple curricular conceptualization as grounds, such as Eisner’s conception of “three curricula that all schools teach” (explicit, implicit and null curriculum) and Cuban’s four categories of official, taught, learned and tested curriculum. These diverse meanings help us develop lenses to see curriculum as “multiple layers of phenomena.”

Second, we need to have an essential grasp of the nature of culture thus to become aware of it. Culture can be interpreted as sense-making, symbols, rituals, or “a continuing dialogue that revolves around pivotal areas of concern in a given community.” Because it appears as normal and natural as usual life, we usually are unaware of the culture that surrounds us. So effective ways to see our culture is to experience culture shock by living in another culture and/or to systematically analyze how social activities are interrelated in various ways.

When we apply the above analytical process and cultural lens on curriculum, we learn to see classrooms and schools as cultures – “a series of interwoven dynamics.” The authors also provide a very helpful framework for understanding cultures of curriculum, which consists of essential variables and questions about history, students, teachers, content, context, planning, and evaluation. Eager to know “how educators try to put visions into practice” within a cultural framework, I look forward to reading the rest of the book.