Date of Award

1995

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

William F. Pinar

Abstract

This study aims at exploring the possibility of a new concept of local curriculum. On the basic recognition that the New National Curriculum in Korea which is allegedly localized is not a localized one, this study analyzes the problems of Korean education and the New National Curriculum, and examines the new Korean curriculum in relation to debates on curriculum localization in the United States and England. The debates in the United States and England have been proved to be centered around the relinquishment of power from the central government to the local educational authorities and schools. To search for a new concept of local curriculum, Foucault's and Lyotard's concepts of locality have been derived from their poststructural and postmodern philosophies. The main thesis in the concept is that validity of all knowledge is determined by the local participants. Consequently, a teacher's role in the classroom should be defined differently from the traditional way. This study suggests "deprofessionalization" as a teacher's role in localized curriculum, invoking the Foucauldian concept of self-detachment and Lyotardian imagination and paralogy. "Dialogue" is suggested as a more concrete practice of deprofessionalization in the classroom. Some arguments for dialogue are analyzed and Bakhtinian dialogism based on such concepts as unfinalizability, heteroglossia, death of the author, meaning as a "historical event," intertextual construction of meaning, etc. is suggested as helpful to the practice of local curriculum.

Pages

155

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.5921

Share

COinS