Mediating Curriculum Text: Teachers’ Complex Personal Subjectivities and Social Studies Pedagogy

• In Event: Social Studies Curriculum and Pedagogy

Abstract

How might teachers’ attention to their own personal subjectivities shape their respective understandings of the language of curriculum documents, and, in what ways might this impact how they teach subject area concepts in social studies and meet general curriculum outcomes? In this paper I will share preliminary findings from an action research study exploring teachers’ relationships with the language of curriculum documents. The purpose of the research is to develop insights into ways these relationships reveal, conceal, permit and silence possibilities for enlivening democratic citizenship pedagogies in social studies classrooms. The research also involves supporting teacher-participants to draw on insights from the study to develop, test and reflect on citizenship pedagogies that attend to the complexities of teacher subjectivity.

Author

• Laurence Abbott, University of Alberta