A sociological approach to education: A revision of community backgrounds of education.Changing school programs.

Abstract

Curriculum change, like the grin of the Cheshire cat, has been with us always. It is only in recent years, however, that it has become such an arduous business for so many schools. At any moment of time, over two-thirds of the nation's schools report curriculum changes of some kind or other. Young teachers may find themselves pulled into curriculum work shortly after they meet their first classes. In spite of so much program-making activity, we know little in any scientific sense about the process of school change—its nature, motivations, problems, and control. Fragmental "success stories" abound, but few experienced persons accept them at their face value. Important parts of the story are left unclear or untold, or claims of outcome exceed the logic of procedural methods. Curriculum change may involve a specific school activity or a general revision in educational goals and practices, a single school or a large school system, one teacher or many. It may take either of two forms: authoritarian, where innovations are proposed by an administrator at his own initiative or on board mandate, or democratic, where a work-group through group processes tries to improve an educative experience conducted by the school. Our interest in Part IV is in the latter pattern, and stress will be placed on the strategies and tactics of organized group action. In this chapter, we shall use case materials to illustrate types of school changes and then generalize some of the elements in the change inducing process. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)