Bringing Curriculum and Didactics Together: A Deweyan Perspective

• In Event: Curriculum and Communication: Dewey’s Influence on Our Professional Lives

Abstract

Using Dewey’s method of resolution exemplified in The Child and the Curriculum, this article attempts to reconcile and bring together two competing traditions, curriculum and didactics, in educational discourse in China. The article argues that a rapprochement of curriculum and didactics requires a re-conceptualization of the two traditions in the light of the Practical (Schwab, 1970) and the German Didaktik tradition respectively. This calls for a rethinking of the basic meanings of curriculum and teaching with a close attention to practice within the socio-cultural, institutional and instructional context of schooling. The article concludes by drawing implications for curriculum reform in China and for standards and accountability movements in the US and beyond.

Author

• Zongyi Deng, Nanyang Technological University - National Institute of Education