Chapters in Books (Curriculum Studies)

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Browsing Chapters in Books (Curriculum Studies) by Author "Le Grange, Lesley"

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    Challenges for curriculum in a contemporary South Africa
    (AFRICAN SUN MeDIA, 2011) Le Grange, Lesley
    INTRODUCTION: Curriculum is a complex and contested terrain that is variously described based on disparate philosophical lenses through which it is viewed. When the word ‘curriculum’ is used it is generally understood as applying to school education, that is to the prescribed learning programmes of schools or more broadly to the learning opportunities provided to school learners, rather than to higher education. A survey of articles published in prominent curriculum journals such as the Journal of Curriculum Studies and Curriculum Inquiry, for instance, shows that very little space is given to articles on higher education. Ironically, the term was first used in relation to higher education rather than school education. It was Ramus, the sixteenth-century master at the University of Paris, who first worked on ‘methodising’ knowledge and teaching. It was in Ramus’s work, a taxonomy of knowledge, the Professio Regia (1576), which was published posthumously, that the word ‘curriculum’ first appears, referring to “a sequential course of study” (for more detail see Doll 2002:31). According to Doll (2002:31), Ramus’s idea of a general codification of knowledge (curriculum) flourished among universities that were strongly influenced by Calvinism, ostensibly because of their affinity for discipline, order and control.
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    The university in a contemporary era: reflections on epistemological shifts
    (AFRICAN SUN MeDIA, 2009) Le Grange, Lesley
    The contemporary university is an institution that is transforming rapidly. In an age of supercomplexity it too must become supercomplex and expand its epistemologies so as to engage with the challenges of a changing world. In this chapter I critically discuss epistemological transformations occurring in the contemporary university as a consequence of both inside-out pressures and outside-in pressures. I examine traces of these shifts in post-apartheid higher education policy in South Africa, and in practices at both a systemic and institutional level. I argue that even though it appears as if transformations that the modern university is undergoing mark the end of the pursuit of universal reason and the ideal of a liberal education, globalisation affords new spaces for reclaiming some lost ground.