Discretionary spaces and practices of recontextualization of curriculum objectives across three cases

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Uwe Gellert; Professorin Dr. Eva Jablonka
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 446370134

The project explores how variations in realizations of shared curriculum objectives are brought about and investigates the question of how schools and teachers execute curricular choices. Systems with state-mandated curricula have different policies for controlling the implementation of curriculum objectives. These policies pursue the goal of enabling objectives, teaching and assessment to work together effectively in delivering and enhancing the espoused ideals of the official curriculum. Depending on differences in these policies schools and teachers might enjoy greater or lesser freedom to adapt their curriculum in line with their school ethos, their professional identities and the needs of their students. The project adopts a comparative approach by exploring contexts with varying assumed discretionary spaces. These are Germany-Berlin, Chile- Santiago, and Turkey-Izmir. The focus is on the school subject mathematics, because it occupies a significant position in compulsory school. The project will identify shared objectives and privileged forms of mathematical knowledge and their interpretational spaces for each of the three systemic contexts. For selected curricular topics it will then investigate how the meanings of shared objectives are being produced in the classrooms in the different systemic contexts and how these meanings vary. The project will so generate knowledge about different practices of how curriculum recontextualization functions in contexts that vary in the assumed discretionary spaces for schools and teachers.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants