Reculturing Curriculum: The Struggle for Curriculum Leadership

This paper describes a program of master's level professional development for experienced educators, discussing school change, teacher leadership, and reculturing of curriculum and schools. The program emphasizes integration of theory and practice, defining curriculum in ways that accord teachers their rightful place in curriculum leadership. It highlights the concept of curricular cultures and expands critical consciousness about individuals' approaches to curriculum and practice. Using cultures of curriculum as a platform for inquiry, it encourages students to consider whether their curriculum work reflects disorganized efforts or an overarching goal enacted daily and embodied within a congruous set of practices. Students complete curriculum journals to examine influences on the process of curriculum selection and teaching within a particular setting. The opportunity for curriculum inquiry through the heuristic of curricular cultures provides a structure for examining the curriculum in classrooms and schools and contrasting the real and the ideal. Many participants have come to realize that their schools are not doing right by their students and that their own practice needs redirection. Many have changed their image of themselves as curriculum workers. Data from interviews with eight participants highlight four themes: the struggle against barriers, the struggle for goals and visions, engagement and action, and perceptions of leadership. (Contains 43 references.) (SM)