Understanding Curriculum: Definition, Sources, and Types

_{The curriculum is the totality of the phenomena occurring in the educational process. It encompasses all that the school provides for achieving educational goals. Walker, D. (1983) defines it as "a continuum from the rhetoric of the statements, aims, and ideas, to practice, so that it has been defined as a theory of practice." Stenhouse (1987:38) states, "Curriculum, from my perspective as a teacher, is a proposal that clearly specifies a set of content/methods, which holds the rank of suggestion as to what my class can be valuable and can teach and learn."}

Curriculum Purposes

Gimeno Sacristán, J. (1985) outlines the following purposes of the curriculum:

1. To provide a vision of the culture that is transmitted in schools.
2. To serve as a curriculum project, historically conditioned, selected according to the dominant social forces, capable of reproduction and innovation.
3. To define the relations between theory and practice.

Curriculum Contributions

• Specifies the educational intentions and proposes useful action guides for teachers.
• Forms part of the specific processes of change.
• Rearranges programs and curricula.
• Changes educational reality (Competency-Curricular).

Sources of the Curriculum

• Socio-Cultural Source: Social organization, social values, technological development.
• Epistemological Source: Developments in science, logic of the discipline.
• Educational Source: Type of subjects, educational practices, educational reality.
• Psychological Source: Characteristics of the subjects, learning process.

Curriculum: Grouping into Three Basic Sections

1. Content of education, knowledge, discipline.
2. Planning framework in which educational activity develops in a school.
3. Interactive reality, also trying to recover what happens in the classrooms as an important part of the construction of the curriculum.

Types of Representation

• Action
• Manifestation of Curriculum

Emergent Curriculum

It is important to state that students learn not only through the planned curriculum but also through what is called the emergent curriculum. This emerges spontaneously from the interests and needs of students or unexpected events. It provides for the formation of student affect and may be more effective than the planned curriculum. Unlike the planned curriculum, in the emergent curriculum, initiative and curriculum decisions regarding educational content and objectives are rooted in students, while in the planned curriculum, these are for the teacher.

Hidden Curriculum

The hidden or implicit curriculum refers to learning that students acquire without it being explicitly included in the planned, explicit, or manifest curriculum. It is a form of socialization in which students internalize, in a more profound and lasting way, roles, concepts, values, and social practices. These are lessons that are located in the subconscious and unconscious levels of a person.

Null Curriculum

On the other hand, one must take into account that, through the hidden curriculum, the student may acquire positive and negative learning. The term "hidden curriculum" is used by Hargreaves (1982), Sarason (1971), and Jackson (1968), among others. The expression "implicit curriculum" is used by Elliot Eisner (1979). The null curriculum refers to the teaching that is not given, to the educational options that are not offered (Carreter Mora, Diccionario Teaching, 1994).

Explicit Curriculum

It is made explicit.

Eisner's Classification:

1. Explicit: What appears formulated and is valued as important.
2. Hidden: Spoken in a non-visible way, partially controlled, difficult to prevent (groups, sex, relationships).
3. Absent: Everything that is put aside.

Integrated Curriculum

1. Wide Field Curriculum: Combines different materials.
2. Emergent Curriculum: Develops a topic of study from another.
3. Partner Curriculum: Relates two or more areas of study and reinforces them.

Components of the Curriculum

(Interdependent)

1. Structure of assumptions about the person and society.
2. Purpose and objectives.
3. Content and subjects.
4. Pupil interaction modes.
5. Evaluation.

Assumptions About the Person and Society

Pivot of curriculum action: Capacity, needs, interests, motivation, and opportunities for the student in the contents.

Purpose and Objectives

There is uniformity of treatment; they are the horizon of the curriculum.

Contents

Selection and sequencing should be worked together by teachers and students.

Teaching Modes of Interaction

Activities and methodology carried out for significant learning.

Evaluation

Guide-pupil interaction, procedure to assess student learning.