A Framework for Bridging Curriculum Theory/Didaktik With Educational Leadership Studies: Discursive Educational Leadership

• In Event: 32.022 - Bridging Educational Leadership and Curriculum Theory/Didaktik for Achieving Educational Opportunity in an Era of Globopolitanism

Abstract

Outcomes or purpose. This paper pulls the symposium papers together and presents a general theoretical framework for curriculum studies, Didaktik and educational leadership that builds upon strengths and limitations of these traditions respectively - in Europe and the US.

An analysis of leadership and curriculum/Didaktik literature. Our framework builds upon literature from two distinct fields, educational leadership and curriculum theory/Didaktik as well as philosophy and discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008) that we believe address a key blindspot in both fields. A blind spot for both curriculum theory / Didaktik and educational leadership is the limited attention paid to the interplay between, on the one hand aims, contents and methods, and leadership forms / structures and interactions on the other.

Methods. Methodologically, we utilize a meta-theoretical approach to construct a general framework for curriculum work and discursive educational leadership.

Substantiated conclusions: A general theoretical framework for curriculum work and discursive educational leadership. In contrast to pre-modern and modern explanations of education as being located within existing society (socialization-oriented), education as revolutionary or super-ordinated to society (transformation-oriented), and centrist that combine social reproduction and transformation perspectives, our general framework explains the relation between education and politics, economy and culture, respectively, as non-hierarchical.
We further consider what kind of influence educational leadership has and how this influence is related to the person being influenced. Educational leadership, from classroom to school, district, national, and transnational organizations, is understood as an invitation, intervention or provocation, a violation, disturbance or expectation concerning the Other’s relation to himself/herself, the world and others. Educational leadership is to recognize somebody as if they are already capable of doing what they are supposed to become capable of - and to act accordingly (Kant, Fichte, Herbart, Schleiermacher as conceptualized further by Benner, 1991). To elaborate, we find three concepts particularly relevant: 1) recognition - how the Self is aware of the Other as being free (ontological assumption); 2) summoning to self-activity - how a teacher or a principal has a mediating role with respect to the Other in the maintenance and development of the Other’s self-relations; and 3) Bildsamkeit - the individual’s own conscious efforts aimed at making sense of the world and her experiences.
Finally, in light of the contemporary situation, we move the meta-analysis beyond the nation state level to consider the pedagogical dynamics and relations between states as well as networks and states. How do we explain cosmopolitanism and education, i.e. i) cosmopolitanism as an educational ideal as related to individual identity, multiculturalism, the nation-state and social cohesion and ii) cosmopolitanism as transnational network relations between nation-states and between nation-states and various kinds of conglomerates, institutions, etc.? Here we consider transnationalism in terms of the crisis of the nation state and introduce two interrelated approaches to thinking about transnational relations as a theoretical ideal and now as an empirical reality.

Scientific or scholarly significance. This general framework and related research agenda will extend our understanding of what curriculum work-leadership means in an era of globopolitanism and beyond.

Authors

• Michael Uljens, Abo Academy University - Finland

• Rose M. Ylimaki, The University of Arizona