Title: Exploring Teachers’ Dilemmas and Opportunities in Developing a More Hybridised Curricula
Stream: Teaching Experiences, Pedagogy, Practice & Praxis
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
Authors:
Jo Trowsdale, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Richard Davies, University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom
Abstract:
Evaluation of a series of projects that hybridise ‘science’ and ‘arts’ within the primary school (The Imagineerium, 2014-2019) showed positive subject specific learning outcomes in science and the arts and development of broader learning behaviours. The model has attracted the interest of headteachers for redeveloping the school curriculum, which led to a further curriculum development project (Teach-Make) to develop teachers’ skills in curriculum design. Key to The Imagineerium model is framing children as members of a community of practice, where making using the arts is central (Lave and Wenger, 1991); where relational, horizontal structures and ‘real-world’ contexts are foregrounded; and where subject knowledge is situated and hybridised. Drawing on interviews with primary school teachers and school leaders, we identify and discuss firstly, and focally, the perceived barriers to realising this vision of more hybridised curricula and pedagogies in English Schools, and secondly the potential value of such a change. Developing themes previously reported (Authors, 2019; Author, 2020), we argue that these issues are not simply operational, but reflect deeper, socio-culturally ingrained tensions (Bourdieu, 1977) between teachers’ conceptions of an ‘ideal education’, their recognition of the educational value of hybridity and their perception of other stakeholders’ more traditional expectations of schooling. We explore how teachers are responding to the provocations of first phase of Teach-Make: in which they recognise the dilemma of doing what they judge to be best for their pupils’ development, yet still want to hold on to their usual ways of meeting the curriculum requirements.
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