What the Little Ones Need: Using Educational Criticism to Enhance Curriculum Deliberations

• In Event: Dimensions of Participatory Evaluation

Abstract

This paper presentation utilizes educational connoisseurship and criticism to foster more generative early childhood curriculum deliberations. The study explored the intended curriculum expressed by building and district-level leadership as well as the enacted curriculum in one preschool classroom. Curriculum aims and enactments were interpreted with reference to Null’s (2016) map of four prominent curriculum traditions. The school administrators emphasized systematically designed curriculum, which was more influential to the preschool teacher’s discourse than her practice. The preschool teacher, on the other hand, put emphasis on the relational aspects of her practice, rather than the systematic implementation of content standards. The paper elucidates how educational criticism can help early childhood educators and school administrators clarify and expand their conceptions of curriculum practice.

Authors

• Daniel J Castner, Indiana University

• Gretchen D. Butera, Indiana University

• Lacy Fajerstein, Indiana University - Bloomington