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Abstract(s)
The 2003 International Handbook of Curriculum Research, edited by William Pinar, represents, as he says, “the first move in postulating the architecture of a worldwide field of curriculum studies” (Pinar, 2003, p. 1). In this new academic world, curricularists have two new tasks: the first task is to begin an international dialogue, a “complicated conversation that is the internationalisation of curriculum studies and the formation of a worldwide field” (Ibid., p. IX); the second task is to create a movement “toward the internationalization of curriculum studies” because, as he recognises, writing notes on the state of the field, “internationalization” is one of those specialisations in which the curriculum studies field is organised (Pinar, 2007, p. XXV).
If internationalisation does not mean globalisation, we’ll be careful to analyze its signification, namely when globalisation is a movement towards uniformatisation and standardisation of decisions’ criteria concerned with knowledge and learning outcomes, having as a guideline the purpose to create more similarities than differences among schools.
In a time of meaningful change, globalisation means increasing homogenisation and leads us to this question: “Are curriculum and instruction in fact becoming more similar around the world? ” (Anderson-Levitt, 2008, p. 349). The answer must be multiple, and any perspective will include the study of the national as category-in-change. The cross-national study of curriculum is a first step to understanding the global changes and to recognizing how the national is intersected by international parameters. In this text, we take as a starting point the mapping of Portuguese perspectives, focusing on four main aspects, contributing to the intellectual history of the curriculum field in Portugal, and thus to its disciplinarity through the establishment of a nationally distinctive curriculum studies field (Pinar, 2007).
The first of these aspects regards the genesis of the curriculum field in Portugal. We intend to analyze the conditions of its emergence, related to a school-based curricular tradition and its consolidation through an academic curricular tradition. Secondly, we will refer to the development of curriculum research, approached from the perspective of three cycles: the political, academic, and institutional cycles. Thirdly, we will direct our attention towards the process of Europeanisation that has been taking place in recent years. Because Portugal is a semi-peripheral country, the European agenda has a strong and incisive impact in educational policies.
Lastly, we will focus on the didactisation1 that has been a focal point for the return of the curriculum field to neo-Tylerian approaches, stressing the resignification and commodification of school knowledge. As we foresee, the discussion on the curriculum field will be increasingly influenced by “standards,” we believe the study of the genesis and consolidation of an international curriculum field may contribute not only to analyses focused on specific settings, but also for the construction of an international field built upon the diversity and the recognition of realities, that, in many ways, are intersected.
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Keywords
Curriculum Research Education