[Call for Papers] Seminar – Didactics and Curriculum in Complicated Dialogue

Seminar entitled “Didactics and Curriculum in Complicated Dialogue” will be held from January 25-26, 2018 at University of Southern Denmark.

Purpose:

Over a 20-year period, radical reforms and development initiatives have penetrated the Danish educational system. Core manifestations are the shift from content-based to outcomebased or competence-based study regulations, the enhanced focus on transparency in learning objectives and the preoccupation with learning data.

This is an invitation to participate in a research seminar addressing consequences and perspectives of these changes. The seminar is the opening activity in an international network project funded by the Danish Research Council for Independent Research, entitled Didactics and curriculum in complicated dialogue. The project is managed by associate professor Ane Qvortrup, professor Ellen Krogh, and associate professor Tina Keiding, and anchored at Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark, and Centre for Teaching Development, Aarhus University.

Taking its point of departure in changes within the Danish educational system, the overall research interest of the network project is to initiate a renewed dialogue between Didactics and Curriculum. In the opening seminar focus will be on consequences of these changes for teachers’ choices concerning aims and content of classroom-based practices and the conceptualizations of knowledge reflected in these choices.

The aim of the seminar is to map existing knowledge on these issues and to develop models for investigating the impact of the current educational changes, focusing:
• Theory development and empirical research related to the question of how to analyze curricula and syllabi in and across specific disciplines
• Theory development and empirical research related to the question of how to investigate forms of knowledge produced and carried out in teaching

As already indicated, a leading assumption behind the network project is that a substantial reference for understanding and reflecting the background of the educational changes is the dialogue between the two theoretical fields of didactics and curriculum (Steffensen 2003; Gundem & Hopmann 1998). Over time, research on curriculum and didactics has been mutually influential in the USA and Europe (Kansanen 1995; Uljens & Ylimaki 2015). The dialogue between the two fields of research was initiated by Gundem & Hopmann (1998) and Hopmann, Westbury & Riquarts (2000). Pinar (2004, 2012) is one of the few recent North American curriculum theorists to incorporate German and Nordic Bildung traditions and core concepts in theorising curriculum. Issues such as the differences emanating from statedefined versus locally-defined study regulations, school levels, school types and school subjects have been investigated (Uljens & Ylimaki 2015; Goodlad 1966, Benner 1995; Gundem 2010; Reid 1994). However, while there is an abundance of research on the conceptual, political and systemic implications of these changes, not much has been done to systematically reflect either their background, or their concrete manifestations at classroom level (Hopmann 2008). This is imperative since, as Hopmann (2015) notices, the reciprocal inspiration at the level of educational policies has resulted in a complicated pattern of changes that have only to a limited degree been informed by research. The network will follow the trails of the international movements and sketch similarities and differences between specific practices, differentiating on a general level between practices rooted within the tradition of didactics vs the curriculum tradition. The network will further explore the explanatory forces of other differentiations, as well as their mutual relationship.

 
Submission:

Please submit papers to . Papers should be written in English. Abstracts will undergo a double-blind review. Length of abstract (excluding references): max 500 words. Length of paper (excluding references): max 7500 words.

Important Dates:

Questions/Full Details:

For questions/inquiry regarding this call for papers, please send email to . We plan for publication of conference contributions. Information concerning how to submit material will follow on the conference website. Click here for a PDF copy of this call.