Teachers’ principled resistance to curriculum change: A compelling case from Turkey

Outline Reform implementationTeachers’ resistance Contextual background: TurkeyMethodologyFindings

Teacher views on content changeTeaching practicesTeacher motives for supplementing the curriculum

Conclusion

Reform implementation

Role of teachers

Curriculum mediation

Factors: Educational level, knowledge, skills, identity, beliefs, age

Typology of teacher responses

Teacher resistance

Definition: A desire and intention to maintain existing practices in the face of changes that teachers consider to be undesirable and threatening.

Causes of resistance

Typical characterisation

Principled resistance

Overt or covert acts that reject instructional policies, programmes, or other efforts that contradict teachers’ professional principles

Motives for resistance

Background information :Turkey

Size: 783 000 sq kmPopulation: 76 millionOfficial language: Turkish

Curriculum change

Rationale for curricular changeKnowledge economy

Globalisation

EU harmonisation process

Low student motivation

Low international test results

Curriculum 2004Competency based curriculum

Student- centred pedagogy

Authentic assessment

MethodologyFieldwork

Turkey (Spring 2009)Sample

Pilot schools in Ankara (8)School management, teachers and key informants

Interviews 14 head teachers and deputy head teachers69 classroom teachers

Teacher viewsAcknowledgement of the need for change

High content coverage requirementsRote learningOverloading of studentsTime pressure to complete curriculum

Disagreement on what kind of change is needed

Welcoming change

Children do not need to acquire much information up to grade five

The role of education in behavioural and attitudinal change is more important

Lessons are easier and more enjoyable

Students learn better

The role of teacher is no longer imparting knowledge, but teaching children about the ways to seek and attain knowledge

Opposing changeContent load is reduced too much

Too much focus on student activities

Quality of textbooks are low

Insufficient information on subject matters

Lessons are boring and superficial

Concerns about academic success

Exam dilemma

Intensification of educational inequalities

Teaching practices

The majority supplemented the curriculum with additional knowledge

Use of supplementary educational materialsUse of old textbooksPhotocopy-centred learning

Direct teaching

Teacher motives for supplementing the curriculum

The ‘emptiness’ of the books

The myth of research assignments

Preparing students for nationwide exams

Old habits

Parental pressure

Conclusion

Marginalization of knowledge acquisitionTwo different types of resistance

Conventional resistancePrincipled resistance

Tendency to perceive ‘knowledge’ as diametrically opposed to ‘competencies’Emptying the content, denying a distinct voice for knowledge in education