The reform of schooling : a study of the relationship between major curriculum change and school reform

The major purpose of the research is to establish the extent to which reform to schooling can be effected by the initiation of major curriculum change such as the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (England) and the Health Education programme (Tasmania). The study investigates the impact of the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative and the Health Education programme on the knowledge, beliefs and practices of teachers in five schools as the stages of implementing the initiatives proceeded. It investigates the outcomes of professional development programmes and the intervention of change agents as part of the process of changing teachers' knowledge, beliefs and practices, and it investigates the organisational adjustments schools make to accommodate curriculum change. The study uses a conceptual framework drawn from the literature on planned change, and adopts a research orientation largely derived from symbolic interactionism. The research methodology is based on the constant comparative method developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967). Data were gathered using participant observation, key informants, interviews and document analysis, and analysed at the time of collection. The major conclusion of the study is that the curriculum initiatives appear to have failed to reform schooling in the ways intended by the governments which introduced them. The findings suggest that the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative and the Health Education programme have little capacity to reform schooling for a number of reasons. The initiatives have not become incorporated into schools' curricula because they do not accord with the theories of forms and fields of knowledge or translate into classroom practice as \traditional\" subjects do; and they lack a view of schooling which is congruent with the beliefs values and norms of teachers. Planning for the implementation of the initiatives did not account for changes to the roles and role definitions of school personnel involved in the implementation. The planning of professional development programmes did not include the development of a model for change which reflected the Increasingly consistent findings of research into implementing change. Nor did planning account for the fact that the extent to which curriculum initiatives succeed can be assessed by the organisational changes schools make to accommodate them. If reform to schooling is to be effected through curriculum change these conclusions commend further research into the relationship between the characteristics of schools' organisational cultures and curriculum change."