School Knowledge in Comparative and Historical Perspective: Changing Curricula in Primary and Secondary Education

November 20, 2013

Return to CERC Studies in Comparative Education.

Edited by Aaron Benavot and Cecilia Braslavsky

2006, 315pp

ISBN 10: 962-8093-52-5
ISBN 13: 978-962-8093-52-6

HK$200 (local), US$32 (overseas)

Published by Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC) and Springer

Order from CERC, Springer, or online.

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School curricula are established not only to prepare young people for a real world, but also to beckon an imagined one anchored in individual rights and collective progress. Both worlds – the real and the imagined – increasingly reflect influential transnational forces.

In this special edited volume, scholars with diverse backgrounds and conceptual frameworks explore how economic, political, social and ideological forces impact on school curricula over time and place. In providing regional and global perspectives on curricular policies, practices and reforms, the authors move beyond the conventional notion that school contents reflect principally national priorities and subject-based interests. Some authors emphasize a convergence to standardized global curricular structures and discourses. Others suggest that changes regarding the intended contents of primary and secondary school curricula reveal regional or trans-cultural influences. Overall, these comparative and historical studies demonstrate that the dynamics of curriculum-making and curricular reform are increasingly forged within wider regional, cross-regional and global contexts.

Aaron Benavot is a senior policy analyst at UNESCO (Paris) working on the Global Monitoring Report on Education For All, and a senior lecturer (on leave) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. His research focuses on the effects of education on development and democratization, the expansion of mass education, and worldwide patterns of official school curricula.

Cecilia Braslavsky was Director of UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education (IBE) from July 2000 until her untimely passing on 1 June 2005. A remarkable educationalist in the realms of both theory and practice, she made significant contributions to the field of curriculum development and change. She was formerly Educational Coordinator of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), and Director-General of Educational Research in the Argentine Ministry of Education.

Read a review published in the journal Comparative Education Review, Volume 54, Number 3, (August 2010)

Citizenship Curriculum in Asia and the Pacific

November 19, 2013

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Edited by David L. Grossman, Wing On Lee and Kerry J. Kennedy

February 2008

ISBN 978-962-8093-69-4

HK$200 (local), US$32 (overseas)

Published by Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC) and Springer

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Based on case studies of 11 societies in the world’s most dynamic region, this book signals a new direction of study at the intersection of citizenship education and the curriculum. Following their successful volume, Citizenship Education in Asia and the Pacific: Concepts and Issues (published as No. 14 in this series), the editors, widely regarded as leaders in the field in the Asia-Pacific region, have gone beyond broad citizenship education frameworks to examine the realities, tensions and pressures that influence the formation of the citizenship curriculum. Chapter authors from different societies have addressed two fundamental questions: (1) how is citizenship education featured in the current curriculum reform agenda in terms of both policy contexts and values; and (2) to what extent do the reforms in citizenship education reflect current debates within the society? From comparative analysis of these 11 case studies the editors have found a complex picture of curriculum reform that indicates deep tensions between global and local agendas. On one hand, there is substantial evidence of an increasingly common policy rhetoric in the debates about citizenship education. On the other, it is evident that this discourse does not necessarily extend to citizenship curriculum, which in most places continues to be constructed according to distinctive social, political and cultural contexts. Whether the focus is on Islamic values in Pakistan, an emerging discourse about Chinese “democracy” a nostalgic conservatism in Australia, or a continuing nation-building project in Malaysia – the cases show that distinctive social values and ideologies construct national citizenship curricula in Asian contexts even in this increasingly globalized era.

This impressive collection of case studies of a diverse group of societies informs and enriches understanding of the complex relationship between citizenship education and the curriculum both regionally and globally.

David L. Grossman is an Adjunct Senior Fellow of the Education Programme of the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Dr. Grossman was formerly Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Languages, Arts and Sciences, and co-Head of the Centre of Citizenship Education at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). Before that he was Director of the Stanford University Programme on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE).

Wing On Lee is Acting President and Vice-President (Academic) of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Before that he was Professor of Education and Director (International) for Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney in Australia, where he remains an Honorary Professor. Prior to his Australian appointment, he served at HKIEd as the founding Dean of the School of Foundations in Education, Head of two Departments, and co-Head of the Centre for Citizenship Education.

Kerry J. Kennedy is Acting Vice-President (Academic) and Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Professional and Early Childhood Education at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. He has also served as Head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at HKIEd. Prior to that, he was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Canberra in Australia.

Read the review in Asia Pacific Journal of Education, Vol.30, No.1, pp.123-126