Enhancing Curricular-Instructional Gatekeeping in Social Studies

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Teachers inevitably serve as curricular-instructional gatekeepers although this fact often goes unrecognized by teachers, school reformers, educational researchers, and teacher educators. How and why teachers tend the curricular-instructional gate is key to understanding and enhancing practices in social studies curriculum and instruction. By curricular-instructional gatekeeper, I mean that teachers make the day-to-day decisions concerning both the subject matter and experiences to which pupils have access and the nature of that subject matter and those experiences. Gatekeeping encompasses the decisions the teacher makes about curriculum and instruction and the criteria they use to make those decisions. A teacher tending the curricular-instructional gate shapes classroom encounters among teacher, students, and curriculum materials. These encounters are the true test of the effectiveness of a curriculum and the main determinant of what students learn. Because gatekeeping cannot be circumvented, it must be considered in the implementation of educational changes. Generally change agents have tried, however, to dictate to teachers. This is evident in insistence on, for instance, fidelity to the curriculum developer's wishes as the prime criterion for judging the effectiveness of curriculum reforms. However, since teachers all tend the gate somewhat differently, complete fidelity is an unreachable goal. Moreover, there are sometimes sound educational reasons why a teacher should adapt a curricular-instructional innovation to the conditions in a particular setting. Taking gatekeeping seriously implies a shift in the traditional questions and methods of educational research strategies as well as in the goals and design of teacher education programs.

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  • 社会科研究

    社会科研究 77 (0), 29-39, 2012

    全国社会科教育学会

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