The Selection of Contents in School Projects in Spain

8/12/2019 The Selection of Contents in School Projects in Spain

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The Selection of Contents in School Projects in SpainAuthor(s): Maria Clemente, Elena Ramrez and Ana B. DomnguezSource: Curriculum Inquiry, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 295-317Published by: Wileyon behalf of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University ofToronto

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The Selection of Contents in SchoolProjects in SpainMARIACLEMENTE,ELENA RAMIREZ,and ANA B. DOMINGUEZUniversityof SalamancaSalamanca,Spain

ABSTRACTStudies on curricular contents have predominantly been focused along lines thatare sociopolitical (what type of culture is selected by general policies) and episte-mological (history of disciplines and their role in the configuration of what schoolknowledge is). These studies have also moved within a sphere that is prior to thedecisions taken in a school or classroom, even though they have served to sustaina large part of the actions that teachers have carried out in this respect. In thepresent article our aim was to learn how teachers decide on educational contents,since new Spanish educational policy demands that teachers participate in theselection of the contents to be taught at their schools. In order to learn how this isdone, our research began with the definition of six criteria (epistemological, fac-tual, pedagogical, pragmatic, psychologicaland socioideological) that teachers couldemploy in the selection of contents, in order to subsequently verify the importanceof each by means of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was answered by approx-imately 900 teachers from Infant and Primary Compulsory Education. The resultsobtained have allowed us to include in our conclusion different ideas and initiativesthat could be taken in relation to content selection. These have to do, above all,with the training of teachers in schools.

1. INTRODUCTION 1Justification for our work within the framework of curricula, and in par-ticular curricular contents, lies in the fact that we believe that few worksfaithfully reflect the criteria used by teachers when they choose the con-tents for their schools. We feel that there are two reasons for this: The firstis that decision making by teachers as regards school curricula has beenbased more on aspects related to the tasks and routines that are addressedin the classroom than to the choice of contents for the school. Implicit inthis is the second reason: that is, the fact that decisions about contents havebeen made by other parties, such as the educational administration andpublishers, responsible for channelling school contents through texts, ashas been the case in other countries and has been pointed out by Snyderet al. (1992) in a study addressing the imposition of curricula in the United? 2000 by The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. CurriculumInquiry30:3 (2000)Published by Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road,Oxford OX4 1JF,UK.

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States. This explains why nearly all studies on curricular contents refer toissues that have nothing to do with decisions by teachers but, instead referto cultural and sociopolitical aspects. As examples, we refer to Kirk'swork(1986) on whether there should or should not be a general curriculum fora given country and also the work done towards the end of 1988 by thecommission created by the French Ministryof National Education, certainaspects of which are familiar to us (Bordieu and Gros, 1990), such as thecriteria to be used in selecting general contents for school teaching. An-other example regarding comparative education is the study carried out byBenavot et al. (1991), in which heterogeneous groups of researchers fromverydiverse geographic areas compare curricularpolicies all over the worldas from the 1920s with respect to the type of obligatory materials forprimary schools. These authors concluded that there was great similarityamong them, a considerable standardization of contents, and a noteworthystability in primary school curricula with time.This debate parallels another issue that has also been at the forefront ofresearchers' thoughts since the 1980s; namely, studies on the history ofcurricula and on the concept of school discipline as a social construct(Chervel, 1991). These are studies on the genesis of knowledge in schools,understood as an original culture and not merely a derivation of scientificknowledge. In this sense, Goodson (1991, 1995) advances the idea thatschool knowledge and disciplines are a social invention, and this allows theauthor to propose that they should be revised and reconstructed over time.In keeping with this, it would be possible to mention specific works ad-dressing the origin of certain disciplines such as the sociogenesis of thesubject of history in the Spanish context (Cuesta, 1997). Another interest-ing series of studies on contents, notably that of Popkewitz (1987a, 1987b),has explored how variations in institutional imperatives and the values ofthe school itself affect school teaching.

Currently there is a whole series of studies available on ethnic or genderdifferences-in general all of them cultural-and their projection ontoschool curriculum (McCarthy,1993;WongFillmore and Meyer,1992). Theseworks, which could be grouped according to a sociocultural perspective,contrast with the philosophical viewpoint of Hirst (1977) and others whodefend the idea of a type of knowledge divorced from the concept ofusefulness; an objective and stable type of knowledge valid for everybody.Despite the different approaches, as mentioned above this is a field ofstudies that moves in a terrain prior to specific school- or classroom-baseddecisions about curricula. These approaches are thus more sociopoliticaland sociocultural and support debate about which type of knowledge shouldbe transmitted at school; who should choose it; how to shape it; etc. How-ever, there should be a more school-oriented approach to how thesemacropolicies are implemented in the reality of schools; that is, how theteacher transmits the major curricular definitions to the school and to the

classroom, since in our opinion the teacher has the power to enhancethem, deform them and even to prevent them. Indeed, we do not believethat there are in fact any teacher-proof curricula, although we do realise

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that macropolicies undoubtedly configure the mentality and even the epis-temology of teachers. We thus feel it relevant to determine how teachersdecide on school contents since the most recent Spanish educational pol-icy demands that it be the teachers themselves who should be involved incontent selection for their schools. This is a new task for teachers that mustbe implemented with professional consensus. The importance of this topicprompted us to carryout a study whose main goal is to pinpoint and assessthe criteria on which teachers base their decisions when choosing contentssince there is a paucity of literature on pedagogy dealing with this aspect.

2. LEGISLATIVEFRAMEWORKOF TEACHERS'DECISIONSAs far as Spain's recent change in the role of schools is concerned,beginning with the passing of the new law of education (LOGSE)2 inOctober 1990, and the subsequent setting in motion of the EducationalReform starting in 1991, a sequence of curricular planning on threesuccessive concrete levels was put forward. The first is the Basic Curric-ular Design (official and minimum curriculum = National Curriculum)prescribed by the Administration, which establishes the objectives, thebasic contents and also a set of suggestions, pedagogical orientationsand directives as to evaluations, which the schools must adopt by law.On a second level, schools are prompted to update this curriculum andadapt it to their school's own particular situation in the so-called SchoolCurricular Projects. The teaching teams of the school should contextu-alize and detail the objectives and contents proposed in the Basic Cur-ricular Design as well as the means to carry them out. This SchoolCurricular Project forms part of the School Educational Project, which isbroader and makes reference to the more organizational aspects of theschool, to its links with the community, to its own ideology, etc. Aspointed out before, those responsible for finally giving the project atotal and coherent perspective in this second level of implementationare the teachers of the schools, grouped either by fields of learning orby the levels in which they teach. According to official documents: theteaching teams shall contextualize and detail the objectives and contentsthat the Basic Curricular Design proposes, as well as the means to attainthem, adapting them to their particular circumstances. 3 This task in-troduced new needs in the work of the school teaching teams in that itinvolved carrying out a series of basic choices with respect to the objec-tives and contents of the levels, the curricular material and the didacticresources to be used, the reasons on which their choice is based, theprocedures for evaluating the students' progress in learning and thecriteria for evaluating and promoting students in the case of PrimaryEducation.4

Finally, the third level of implementation is classroom programming,which, taking as a basis the School Projects, attempts to determine theparticular action of each teacher in his/her classroom with the students,

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and which establishes the sequence of the didactic units that will be usedat that level. The more personal choices of the teachers can thus be in-cluded in this programming, even when they do not necessarily have to becarried out individually and refer especially to activities, to materials, to theorganization of work and space, and to evaluation in the classroom.

3. DESCRIPTION OF RESEARCH3.1. Criteria for Content SelectionWith the progressive implementation of the educational reform of 1991,one of the tasks that has already been taken up by the teachers of InfantSchools (3- to 6-year-olds) and PrimarySchools (6- to 12-year-olds) is theelaboration of the Curricular Projects. From our point of view, one of thekey decisions to be made in the elaboration of these projects is the selec-tion, sequencing and organization of the contents, since these constitutethe basis for cultural transmission in schools in the broadest sense of theword. For this reason we were interested in studying these projects andexamining how they had been carried out, limiting ourselves to the ques-tion of contents. The studywas done in two stages: in the first we attemptedto learn the opinions of the teachers themselves about how they carried outthe selection, sequencing and organization of the contents, for which weused a broad questionnaire which enabled us to learn their subjectiveopinions. In the second stage we analysed directly the projects developedby the teachers. The results discussed here are basically those extractedfrom the first stage of the research.In the first place, we defined the criteria that we felt the teachers couldapply when selecting, sequencing and organizing the contents. After athorough revision of the literature and after much debate among themembers of the team, we decided on six criteria: epistemological,actual,pedagogical, pragmatic, psychological and socio-ideological. These criteria wereprecisely defined by determining a series of traits in each one (Clementeet al., 1994).Thus, the criterion which we call epistemologicalefers to the specific andtypical character of each discipline, that is, whether it is based on thedescription of a reality or on the establishment of laws and principles,whether it has an aesthetic or vital sense insofar as it leads to immediatelyuseful experiences or whether it deals with contents that narrate a reality,and so on. All these particulars also entail methodological differencesequally essential for understanding each discipline or study area, and, whatis most important for us, each type of discipline requires didactic ap-proaches which to some extent are differential (Stodolsky, 1988). Anotherdimension of the epistemological criterion lies in the knowledge that teach-ers have of the paradigms from which each science or discipline is ex-plained and, based on that knowledge, the choices they make about whatis most appropriate for teaching, since what is most scientifically advancedis not necessarily what is most suitable for the different educational levels.

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The factual criterion is expressed in the pressure exerted on decision-making by what is prescribed, what is legally established, since a legalframework can be taken as a fixed model or merely as guidance, as un-questionable or as improvable. To accept the Basic CurricularDesign with-out question means adhering to the wayof orienting the contents that thedocument itself establishes. The document considers that the educationalcontents should be articulated from a triple perspective, establishing thatall knowledge will be approached from the dimensions of concept, proce-dure and attitude and, therefore, accepting that any discipline can beconsidered under these three typologies. However, the value that this clas-sification may have for different educational levels, and indeed for anysubject, can be questioned. Also each educational reality, each socioedu-cational context, requires the selection and adaptation of the contents. Inthis sense, our question would be: What importance do these determinantshave in selection and adaptation? Although of a different nature, we alsoconsider as factual the role played by the publishers in the shaping of thecurricular projects; even though we had doubts about whether to charac-terise it as factual, as pragmatic (because it may simplify the professionalactivity of the teacher), or even as pedagogical (since it can be consideredas material, as an instrument, etc.). However, we include it in this criterionbecause we believe that the pressure exerted by the publishers may be of asgreat factual importance as the legal framework, as we had some proofthat the books, the didactic guides, and even certain models that the pub-lishers launched for carrying out the School Curricular Project had exer-cised a profound influence on a considerable number of teachers. Wealso consider as factual the possible ideological, even explicit, frameworkswhich characterize the schools.

The pedagogical riterion concerns those aspects having to do, on the onehand, with the structural determinants of each school and, on the other,with the curricular concepts of the teachers. The structural determinantsof the schools would include the school's infrastructure-as the place wherethe activities are carried out-the materials available, the organization ofthe school insofar as it concerns the grouping of teachers (the existence ofseminars, departments, stable working groups, etc.), as well as the groupingof students or the existence of groups at one same level, and so on. Thissecond aspect, the teachers' concepts on the curriculum, would includeissues such as the way in which the realization of a project is conceived bythe teachers; the value conceded to the objectives as determiners of thedesign; whether the activities affect decisions on curricular planning and,finally, the meaning given to evaluation. In other words, this criterionstudies which explicit or unconscious curricular model the teacher assumesas his/her own.The pragmaticcriterion refers to several aspects: the meaning that theteachers' preparation acquires, that is, whether that which they have abetter command of is subsequently reflected in decision-making; theirprofessional experience which enables them to elaborate schemes for ac-tion and for interpretation of the activity itself (Stenhouse, 1975); also

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MARIACLEMENTETAL.other questions such as the habits of group work and the way in which thework routine is reflected, that is, that which is taught year after year. Inorder to analyse these aspects it could be useful to analyse how the teach-er's own speciality affects the selection of contents, whether they chooseidentical contents year after year and how routine affects these decisions.In the same sense, Schwille et al. (1983) reported that in the absence ofpolicies and external pressures teachers were more likely to select topicsthat they had taught previously and that were part of their repertoire. Alsoregarding this criterion, the same authors highlight the dangers of exces-sive autonomy of teachers in content selection in that this may lead toredundancy and gaps in the contents that students workwith from one yearto the next.

The psychologicalriterion entails taking into account the cognitive, mo-tivational, affective, and other aspects of the student in relation to thestages of development. Likewise, this criterion refers to the questions con-cerning learning; in this sense, the theories that explain learning todayoffer some principles which should be borne in mind when teaching: thesignificant nature of learning, the value of constructivism as an element inthe production of knowledge, and therefore the value of cognitive activityas a principle, etc.Finally,another criterion which is specially relevant when selecting con-tents has to do with the socioideologicalspects (Eggleston, 1980). One of theclear aims of education consists of helping the student to assimilate andintegrate a whole series of social concepts, norms and values. It is preciselythe contents, as perhaps no other curricular component, which provide animportant channel for transmitting different perspectives on the reality ofdifferent cultures (Popkewitz, 1977). This transmission means choosingwhich materials are more important for education and which are less so; itlikewise means deciding whether only the practical side is really essentialfor achieving a socially suitable education or whether education should gobeyond what is pragmatic, whether the vision of each discipline is mono-lithic and objective or whether on the contrary it requires the expressionof particular, or even different, points of view that reflect different valuesand ideologies. This aspect has another complementary side which refersto the importance that socioeconomic factors should have when selectingcontents. The sociocultural levels of many children are sometimes a hin-drance to working on certain contents, but it should also be a challenge toconvert these contents in such a way that they can be assimilated withoutthere being deficiencies and basic gaps.

Having defined the criteria, we began to wonder what type of questionswould enable us to evaluate whether these criteria were used by the teach-ers or not when selecting, sequencing or organizing the contents for theSchool Curricular Projects. A result of this was the elaboration of questionsprior to the definitive design of the questionnaire. In subsequent analysesof these rough drafts the questionnaire was gradually defined; it was stud-ied by a series of teachers from the different educational levels to which itwould then be applied. With this study our aim was to obtain differentopinions on the comprehensibility of the questions included in our survey

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as well as on other questions of form. Comprehensibility affected not onlythe writing of the items but also their pertinence, the unambiguous natureof the terms employed, etc. Questions of form affected the format of thequestionnaire, the total number of items, the appropriate number of ques-tions relating to each of the criteria, etc. Once all the observations andsuggestions of the teachers were collected, we drew up the initial question-naire, which wasvalidated in schools in Salamanca and in some of the ruralschools of the province.The final version of the questionnaire was distributed to a total of 218schools, both private and public, infant and primary, selected from all theprovinces in Castile and Le6n5 in the following way:towns with fewer than2,000 inhabitants-106 schools; towns with between 2,000 and 10,000inhabitants-56 schools; and townswith more than 10,000 inhabitants-56schools. The number of surveys sent was 2,363, out of which 715 wereprivate schools and 1,648 public schools. There were 896 replies, repre-senting 38% of the total sent (this percentage is totally satisfactoryaccord-ing to Cohen and Manion, 1989).This questionnaire, included in the Appendix, is made up of 40 itemswith a total of 46 questions, 24 of which are yes/no questions, 17 aremultiple choice and 5 are open-ended (the latter were not taken intoaccount for the present analysis).The Appendix also lists what criteria eachquestion is related to. Some of the questions include several possible re-sponses which can be given simultaneously and therefore each possibilitywas treated as an individual answer in the statistical analysis.3.2. Analysis of ResultsWe shall now analyze the data, commenting on each criterion in detail, tothen reach conclusions of a general nature. But first we must clarify andjustify the type of quantitative analysiscarried out. Given the measurementscale on which the responses to the items are obtained (nominal scale), themost suitable type of descriptive statisticalstudy is an analysisof the relativefrequency of the responses (i.e., percentages). This descriptive study offerssufficient guarantees of generalization to the whole population due to thehigh number of questionnaires received (N= 900). With such a high N, thestandard error in the estimation of the parameter relating to the differencein percentages is small enough to guarantee that the differences are notthe product of chance. Therefore, these differences found at the descrip-tive level will be reproduced in the population with a high level of confidence.The data and the commentary below refer to a firstexploratorystudybasedon the representativity of the sample. In the future, more profound studieswill be carried out on the relationships between the criteria by looking forrelated groups of responses using multivariantstatisticaltechniques. (See Fig-ure 1 and Table 1.)Epistemological Criterion. This criterion is of little importance to teach-ers; it is penultimate among the six considered. Internally we can empha-size that almost all the affirmative replies reached low or medium levels.

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EPIST FACT PEDAG PRAGPIST FACT PEDAG PRAG PSIC SOCIO

O Yes E No NoAnswerFIGURE1. Average percentage of replies according to the criteria in Castile-Le6n.

When asked whether, when selecting themes, they are concerned aboutdeveloping them historically or reflecting the latest theory of scientificresearch, the replies are divided fairly evenly between those who do notreply (45.8%) and those who do (54.2%). When the affirmative replieswere analysed in more detail, no differences were observed in favour ofdeveloping themes historically (16.6%) or reflecting the latest theory ofscientific research (16.9%), or of considering both aspects (20.8%).Factual Criterion. According to the teachers' replies, this criterion has theleast weight in the selection of content. Mention must be made of the re-

TABLE 1Average Percentage of Replies According tothe Criteria in Castile-Le6n

Yes No No AnswerEPIST 39.7 -60.2FACT 34.5 5.4 60.0PEDAG 53.9 13.8 32.2PRAG 40.7 14.9 44.2PSIC 73.3 1.0 25.6SOCIO 45.2 39.4 15.3

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plies to the question on the influence of the School Ideology, or the Edu-cational Project, because they seem to be of some importance. The result isthat 46.4% of the replies indicate a strong influence of the EducationalProject, as opposed to 17.2%and 2.7%which indicate, respectively, only anaverage or small effect of this Project on the selection of contents for theSchool Curricular Project. These indices include all the categories ana-lysed, but actually, the results derived from these data can be attributed tothe private schools where the weight of the Educational Project is 81.35%.One datum that we would like to emphasize in this section is that we haveobserved that in some public schools the distinction made by the Ministrybetween Educational Project and School Curricular Project was misunder-stood, since they answered this question although the Educational Projecthad not been elaborated at the time when the surveywas carried out. More-over, the teachers do not seem to have a single publisher as a source for theelaboration of their Project, nor do they say that the Basic Curricular De-sign determines what they do. These findings differ from those reported bySchwille et al. (1983) in their case study,where they conclude that teacherswere operating as administrators of politico-administrative decisions, per-forming a kind of balancing act between their own priorities and those de-riving from external policies.Pedagogical Criterion. As a strategy for carrying out their projects, theteachers use the order established in the technical model; they alwaysstartfrom some objectives which are the central theme of a programme and therest of the elements of the curriculum are shaped from them, and thecontents, activities, etc. selected. This is clearly seen when the teachers areasked if they bear in mind the expressed objectives when selecting thecontents, since the percentage of affirmative replies represents 97.5% ofthe total replies and only 2.1% say they do not follow this order. The samecan be seen in the replies referring to the sequencing of the contentsaccording to the progression marked by the objectives, with 92.1% of thereplies being affirmative and only 3.9%, negative.With regard to the question which analysed whether the teachers, whenselecting the contents, bear in mind those used in previous levels and/orthose which will be seen at subsequent levels, it is clearly affirmative in thesense that this aspect forms part of the decisions that the teachers makewhen selecting the contents. If we study in detail the tendencies of thereplies, it can be observed that generally both previous and subsequentlevels are taken into account. When establishing the order of selection ofcontents and activities, the reply is totally in favour of the contents.In replying to the question of whether the School Project is followedwhen sequencing the contents in the classroom, or whether this sequenceis improvised from day to day, the reply is clearly affirmative with respectto the former. If we carefully analyse the tendencies of the replies, weobserve that the sequence of the contents is largely determined by what isproposed in the School Curricular Project (53.6%), as opposed to dailyimprovisation according to the rhythms and problems arising in the class-

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room (16.4%) or the consideration of both aspects (24.6%). These data arecongruent with the nature of the task of sequencing the contents for theSchool Project, where a decision must be made as to the order in which thesubject matterwill be covered during the period established for the project.If the teachers have already determined this order when elaborating theproject, it seems logical that they should keep to it in general, althoughthey may, because of diverse circumstances, change it according to class-room rhythm and problems. Therefore, the implied criteria may have apedagogical or pragmatic nature depending on the reasons why they mod-ify the order of the contents, whether these are related to the teacher's ownexperience in the making of decisions according to what happens in theclassroom, or with the teacher's curricular idea regarding the influencethat the curricular project should exercise on his/her activity.

The results show a clear tendency towards exploiting the school's re-sources and the context in order to establish the sequence of the contents.Thus great importance is attributed to both elements when choosing thesequence. We should also note that, when questions are asked about dif-ferent ways of organising the contents, such as based on a spiral curricu-lum, centres of interest, or projects, the answersare only slightly affirmativeor left blank, which could indicate a certain lack of knowledge about theseforms of organising the curriculumin general and the contents in particular.Pragmatic Criterion. Educational practice seems to have little influencewhen selecting contents since the number of affirmative answers are lessthan half, and, in any case, few teachers subordinate the CurricularProjectto that which they have a better command of.In reply to the question of whether the sequence of contents foreseen inthe School Project is followed, a striking 94.5% of the answers were affir-mative, as we alreadycommented on more thoroughly when describing thepedagogical criterion above. Likewise, they state that they know, as a con-sequence of their own experience, which contents present difficulties forthe students and they bear this in mind when selecting contents. Fromtheir responses it can also be seen that the teachers vary the contents andthat routine does not exert excessive pressure.Psychological Criterion. This is the most important criterion for all theteachers in the autonomous region of Castile-Le6n. The almost completeunanimity in taking into account both the child's development and his/her capacity for the selection of contents is worthy of mention (cf. Schwilleet al., 1983), although they also take into account the Vygotskian principleof proposing a level of contents that the pupil can learn not alone, but withthe help of the teacher. Importance is also given to the principles of activelearning, with replies not quite so unanimous, but still important (72%)regarding the questions on this topic.Socioideological Criterion. This criterion is third in order of importance.However, we observed particular aspects of this criterion that are of littlerelevance to the teachers of Castile-Le6n as a whole; thus, few teachers say

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that they bear in mind the students' socio-ecomomic deficiencies whenselecting the contents since, although they do not answer with a definiteno but simply leave the question unanswered, the affirmative replies onlyreach 16.4%.The teachers in the community of Castile-Le6n seem inclined to includein their School Projects topics of social and vital interest which go beyondpurely disiplinary aspects, with topics such as ecology, education for peace,and so on. However, few believe that there are sexist contents, an aspectwhich is likewise not greatly considered when selecting contents.

4. CONCLUSIONSFrom the analysisof the results which we havejust presented, the followingconsiderations can be extracted:

It is necessary to emphasize the high degree of homogeneityn the teach-ers' replies in the different schools throughout the autonomous region,which detracts from the idea that the schools should select the contentsaccording to their own particularities and identity, although it must berecognized that the official documents (Basic CurricularDesign) which, asis known, are of a prescriptive nature, determine in detail thematic blocks,themes, sub-themes and even examples. Furthermore, this high degree ofuniformity could be explained by the fact that the development of theseschool projects was required by the educational authorities by a set date,hence it acquired a somewhat bureaucratic profile and was not the fruit ofa process of reflexive, well-meditated and gradualelaboration at each school.Also, the Ministry itself wanted to facilitate the task by making available tothe teachers curricular material called redboxes, which were intended tobe examples of how to sequence the official curriculum and the teachersmay have followed them somewhat faithfully. Moreover, the publisherscontributed to this homogeneity by also publishing examples of curricularprojects and distributing them to the schools in different media. All thesefactors have already been brought to light in other works (Schwille et al.,1979) as inhibitors of teachers' decision-making possibilities.Another fact that we verified was a general and unequivocal tendency totake into account psychological spectswhen selecting, sequencing and or-ganising the contents. This is not surprising if we take into account thegeneral process of psychologisation that schools and society have under-gone. When we sayschools, we are referring strictly to those centres whereInfant and Primary Education is given, because it is quite likely that thisphenomenon is not observed in Secondary Education, where the episte-mological criterion would perhaps prevail over the others, as a conse-quence of the importance given to subjects of study or cultural contents.We believe that this process of psychologisation is basically due to threereasons: in the first place, the fact that psychology has become a maximumreference point for many teachers when considering their curricularprojects.The great influence exerted by psychology and psychologists during these

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recent years of reform in places of power and decision-making in educa-tional matters has had immediate practical consequences in relation to thecontinuous and mass teaching of retraining courses aimed at practisingteachers, with a strong psychological tendency. Of the four so-called sourcesof the curriculum (sociocultural, psychological, pedagogical, and episte-mological) that the administration itself established in its documents, psy-chology undoubtedly is the essential one, as we have seen in the differentcommentaries in this study, whereas the other three are clearly less ob-served by the teachers.Second, we have the influence that psychology, especially behaviouristpsychology, has exerted on technical curricular models. Since the 1940sand 1950s (perhaps in Spain, the 1970s and 1980s), psychology has beenthe fundamental source of inspiration for the different curricular modelsof a technical nature (Tyler, 1949; Taba, 1962; Johnson, 1968; Gagne,1977). Learning as a change in behaviour, the maxim of behavioural psy-chology and the basis of the models we have just mentioned, graduallycaught on with teachers, who elaborated their programmes helped bytaxonomies which classified types of tasksor thought processes which wouldthen become operative or behavioural objectives. All of this created theperspective that teaching should be nothing but a series of manifestationsof students' skills, strategies, thought processes, etc. This brings to mindBloom's taxonomy, which describes spheres of objectives which are osten-sible forms of knowledge, or that of Gagn6, which speaks clearly of typesof learning. If we emphasize this, it is because the projects were modelledon these ways of expressing objectives, thus entailing at least two relevantconsequences. On the one hand, the objectives are considered of primeimportance in the programme and the contents are only a mere excuse fortheir achievement; on the other hand, and in a complementary way, thepurely procedural nature of the abilities and skills of the objectives, asopposed to the cultural value of the contents, is emphasized.Third, from a totally different perspective, genetic psychology had asimilar effect. The importance attributed to action, learning by discovery,and constructivist learning establishes that what is important is that thestudent should learn to learn, construct his/her own knowledge, redis-cover what science already discovered in order to achieve an authenticunderstanding of knowledge. The exacerbation of these principles favoursthe conversion of what we could call abstract procedures into the realobject of school education, as opposed to the cultural contents which losethe value and the place they held in the traditional curriculum. It alsofavours the probably erroneous interpretation that these processes can bedeveloped empty of knowledge (Gimeno, 1992).This predominance of the psychological aspect contrasts with some ofthe aspects that make up the socioideologicalriterion,which are upheld toonly a small degree by the teachers. In spite of the fact that the program-matic lines of the Basic Curriculum establish the sociological source as afoundation equivalent to the psychological source, this does not seem tocarry over into the Curricular Projects of the schools, when it would be

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precisely within this sphere of design that the social and cultural aspects, ifthey were considered important, would make the most sense. The teachersdo not seem to take into account the socioeconomic deficiencies of thestudents. This fact can be interpreted in several ways. On the one hand, afirst impression could lead us to conclude that the teachers are not verysensitive to social problems; however, even though this explanation is tempt-ing in its simplicity, it is probably inexact. On the other hand, psycholog-ical explanations are sought for aspects such as the students' performanceor school failure instead of, or besides, socio-economic reasons. Finally,thepressure exerted by some school levels over others means that teacherstend to look forward in order to avoid creating gaps that could be prob-lematical for the students in subsequent years, attempting to complete theestablished levels in spite of the sometimes deficient sociocultural condi-tions of the students.As to the more clearly pedagogical criterion, the model underlying therealisation of these projects clearly reflects a technical vision of planning.The teachers always carryout the selection of contents based on previouslyset objectives and from there they mark out the rest of the components.This may lead to a failure to select contents of great educational value ifthey do not have to do with the attainment of specific objectives, whichusually could be formulated in terms of more or less concrete behaviour.In short, the contents are not selected for their educational-cultural value,but as a function of previously defined objectives, in what we believe is anunderestimation of the cultural role played by contents in the school. Ouridea is that the selection of the contents may be important enough to bethe core which would permit a particular cultural selection or option for aschool. We are not against having the objectives mark the beginning of aproject, but we are against their predetermining it. The contents can beequally relevant as the source of inspiration of a School Project and per-haps objectives may come out of this which would otherwise never havebeen proposed.One datum which we consider worthy of comment is the slight impor-tance which the teachers say they afford their educational preparation andexperience when selecting contents. This is noteworthy if we bear in mindthat in a teacher's activity it is characteristic to feel secure with routines, tocarry out tasks because experience has shown them whether they are in-teresting or not, or even because experience has enabled them to masterthose tasks. An explanation for this could be that the development ofschool projects is a completely new mission for teachers and it is preciselywithin the project that the selection of the contents is the main objective.It is possible that teachers have not yet created the mechanisms and habitsfor reflecting on the contents based on their own experience since, neitherin their initial training nor in their continuous training has this beencontemplated as a strategy of interest; this only occurred through ex-changes of experiences in the meetings of groups devoted to pedagogicalrenovation (a teachers' movement which began in the 1970s and whichplayed an important role in the educational changes of the 1980s).

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The resultspresented above do not go beyond what is reflected in the dataof the questionnaires, although it is possible that what the teachers mani-fested in the surveywas more a matter of their wishes than of their reality.We would also like to emphasize that the teachers were not trained in a cul-ture of this type and their preparation was by no means directed towardsthe development of school projects, which are collective and participatoryin nature; rather, the object of their training was the mastery of a specificarea of knowledge, and, in any case, a certain preparation in concrete skillsand strategiesfor the classroom, for dailywork with their students. Althoughthis particular experience is educational and enriching, and the teachergleans much knowledge from it, the elaboration of group projects, such asthe School Project, undoubtedly requires practice and habits formed in thissphere, as the projects are meant to be the result of participatory,and aboveall, continuous reflection on the part of all the members.Moreover, the idea of elaborating curricularprojects for a school, to giveit coherence and solidity, connects with proposals for practical teachertraining, with the formation of reflective teachers (Sch6n, 1983; Sten-house, 1985) who can extract from their own experience proposals forimproving professional competence, who can find means of self-training,who can also, through this reflection, be capable of detecting the lacunae,gaps, and defects in their preparation, in their capacity as teachers. All ofthis aims at proposing coherent and realistic ways of training. It must beemphasized that all this cannot be achieved only by means of legislation,i.e., neither groups of reflective teachers, nor integrated teaching teamscan be improvised by demanding that a school project be prepared by apredetermined date. The development of School Curricular Projects re-quires certain conditions, some having to do with a view of the school as aspace of collective effort and a place where the curriculum is graduallybuilt, and others which would affect how teachers are trained to be reflex-ive practitioners. As to the former conditions, some of them would be thefollowing: time for the development of well-meditated and contextualizedprojects; an atmosphere of understanding within the teams and a certaindegree of autonomy; stability of the teams in the school itself; sufficientmaterialmeans; the creation of mechanisms of exchange with other schools;change in the functions of the organs of management, so that they willdynamize strategies of innovation and reflection in practice and not bemerely administrative. Without foundations of this type, we may fall intothe repeated habit of giving bureaucraticsolutions to educational problems.With regard to teacher training, and as a consequence of our study, wewould also like to venture certain proposals aimed at improving the com-petence of teachers in making decisions about the curriculum of theirschools, all within an approach of training for reflection.On the one hand, it was pointed out in our analysis of the pedagogicalcriterion that the majority of teachers seem to have been trained along aclearly technicist line that is excessively saturated by psychological aspects;for this reason, their initial training should not be so much a matter ofpreparing the teacher mainly in the technical sense about how to plan acurriculum, but rather a more reflexive approach which would serve as a

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basis for teachers to question the significance of their actions, their deci-sions, their motivations, the role of the school in society, what the schooltransmits, what is worth transmitting, and how to develop school cultureadequately; in short, a teacher who does not think exclusively as a techni-cian but rather as an intellectual (Giroux, 1988). We have also detectedthe slight attention paid by teachers to sociological aspects, which couldbe explained by their deficient initial training in this sense; this leadsus to believe that they need to receive content along these lines whichwould give them a better and deeper understanding of society, of theschool's role in the transmission of culture and in the interpretation oftheir own professional performance within their social context. We mayrecall in this respect the long tradition of so-called social reconstructionismstarted at the Columbia Teachers' College in the 1930s and 1940s, headedby Kilpatrick and Rugg, and which was continued at the University ofIllinois during the following decades and is currently the line followed bythe University of Wisconsin at Madison, among others (Liston & Zeichner,1990).Moreover, continuous training in schools which have the same reflex-ive philosophy could become specified in aspects such as: the creationof work groups for reflecting on individuality and needs, thus enablingthe teachers to carry out realistic and specific curricular options fortheir schools, from which lines would be derived for improving theirtraining in accordance with their needs. In addition, exchanges andcommunication between teachers should be encouraged by creating di-verse means of communication, such as journals of experiences, summerschools, seminars, etc. It would also be interesting to favour the creationof work groups capable of preparing material and quality projects, andwhich would serve to provide teachers with examples and an exchangeof ideas (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992).These elements of training for reflection are expressed in what we couldcall models of permanent training from the bottom up, which will give riseto contextualized and realistic demands from the schools or school com-munities; this would go hand in hand not so much with the bureaucrati-zation of the permanent training of teachers and their connection witheconomic and administrative affairs as with an idea linked to the enrich-ment of their professional practice. In short, it would be a matter of avoid-ing the use of rationalist models that require the performance of taskswhich are often neither assumed nor, on occasion, understood by theteachers and therefore are not of great effect on the improvement of thequality of teaching (Elmore & Sykes, 1992).

NOTES1. This researchwassupportedbyfunds from the GeneralDirection of Scientific

and TechnicalResearch(DGICYT)dependent on the SpanishMinistry f Sci-ence and Education.2. OrganicLaw or the GeneralOrderingof the Educational ystem LeyOrganicade Ordenaci6nGeneraldel SistemaEducativa-LOGSE).

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MARIACLEMENTETAL.3. Spanish Ministryof Science and Education (M. E. C). 1989, 27.4. Resolution of the 21st June, 1993-Official State Bulletin (B.O.E.) 30th June1993.5. The new administrativestructure of the Spanish state comprises 17 autonomouscommunities. The Community of Castile and Le6n is situated in the center andnorthwest of the Iberian peninsula. This Community, unlike some others, hasnot yet been delegated all legislative and administrative powers in matters ofeducation.

REFERENCESBenavot, A., Cha, Y, Kamens, D., Meyer, J., &Wong, S. 1991. El conocimiento paralas masas: Modelos mundiales y curricula nacionales, Revista de Educaci6n295,317-344.Bordieu, P., & Gros, F. 1990. Principios para una reflexi6n sobre los contenidos dela ensenanza, Revista de Educaci6n292, 417-425.Chervel, A. 1991. Historia de las disciplinas escolares. Reflexiones sobre un campode investigaci6n, Revista de Educaci6n295, 59-111.Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. 1992. Teacher as Curriculum Maker. InHandbookof Researchon Curriculum, d. by Ph.W.Jackson, 363-401. New York:Macmillan.Clemente, M., Bueno, J. J., Dominguez, A. B., & Ramirez, E. 1994. Analisis de losPCC en Educaci6n Infantil y Primaria en Salamanca. Estudio de opciones a laselecci6n de contenidos de etapa. Aula deInnovaci6nEducativa, 31, 63-68.Cohen, L., & Manion, L. 1989. ResearchMethods n Education.London: Routledge.Cuesta, R. 1997. Sociogenesise una disciplinaescolar:a Historia.Barcelona: EdicionesPomares-Corredor S.A.Eggleston, J. 1980. Sociologiadel curriculum scolar.Buenos Aires: Troquel.Elmore, R. and Sykes, J. 1992. Curriculum Policy. In Handbookof Research n Cur-riculum,185-215. Ed. P. W.Jackson. New York: Macmillan.Gagn6, R. 1977. TheConditionsofLearning,Third Edition. New York:Holt, Rinehartand Wiston.Gimeno Sacristan,J., & Perez G6mez, A. 1992. Comprenderyrasformara ensenanza.Madrid: Morata.Giroux, H. 1988. Teachers s Intellectuals.Granby, MA:Bergin & Garvey.Goodson, I. 1991. La construcci6n social del curriculum. Posibilidadesy ambitos deinvestigaci6n de la historia del curriculum, Revista deEducacion295, 7-37.Goodson, I. 1995. Historiadel curriculum.Barcelona: Ediciones Pomares-Corredor

S.A.Hirst, P. 1977. La educaci6n liberal y la naturaleza del conocimiento. In Filosofiadela Educaci6n,161-205. Ed. R. Peters. Mexico: F.C.E.Johnson, H. T. 1968. Foundationsof Curriculum.Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill.Kirk,G. 1986. The CoreCurriculum.London: Hodder and Stoughton.Liston, D. P., & Zeichner, K. M. 1990. Teacher ducation and the Social ConditionsofSchoolings.New York:Routledge, Chapman and Hall.McCarthy,C. 1993. Race and Curriculum.London: Taylorand Francis.Popkewitz, T. 1977. The latent values of the discipline centered curriculum. Theoryand Research n Social Education5(1), 41-59.Popkewitz, T. 1987a. La producci6n del conocimiento escolar y los lenguajes cur-riculares. Cuestiones institucionales en el seguimiento de las matematicas esco-lares. Revista de Educaci6n282, 61-85.Popkewitz, T. 1987b. Critical Studies in TeacherEducation. Its Folklore,TheoryandPractice.London: Taylorand Francis.Schon, D. 1983. TheReflectivePractitioner.London: Temple Smith.

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SELECTION F CONTENTSN SPAINSchwille, J., Porter, A., & Gant, M. 1979. ContentDecision-Making nd the PoliticsofEducation,Michigan: The Institute for Research on Teaching, Michigan StateUniversity.Schwille, J., Porter, A., Belli, G., Floden, R., Freeman, D., Kuhs, L., Knappen, T., &Schmidt, W. 1982. Teachers as policy brokers in the content of elementary schoolmathematics. In Handbookof Teaching ndPolicy.Ed. G. Sykes& L. Shulman. NewYork:Longman.Snyder,J., Bolin, F. & Zumwalt, K. 1992. Curriculum implementation. In HandbookofResearch n Curriculum, 02-435. Ed. P. W.Jackson. New York: Macmillan.Stenhouse, L. 1975. Introduction o CurriculumResearchand Development.London:Heinemann.Stenhouse, L. 1985. El profesor como tema de investigaci6n y desarrollo. RevistadeEducacion277, 43-53.Stodolsky, S. 1988. TheSubjectMatters. ClassroomActivity n Math and Social Studies.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Taba, H. 1962. CurriculumDevelopment:Theoryand Practice.New York: Harcourt,Brace and World.Tyler, R. W. 1949. BasicPrinciplesof Curriculumand Instruction.Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press.Wong Fillmore, L. & Meyer,L. M. 1992. The Curriculum and Linguistic Minorities.In Handbookof researchon curriculum,626-658. Ed. P. W. Jackson. New York:Macmillan.

APPENDIX

QUESTIONNAIRENo. of inhabitants in the town:D Over 10,000 O Between 10,000 & 2,000 O Under 2,000Type of School: El State o RuralO Private/State assisted El UrbanStage: l Infants [ PrimaryCycle: o First O Second O ThirdYear: O 1st O 2ndYears of service: E 0-5 O 5-10 O 10-15 O 15-20 O over 20Sex: O Male O Female

All the questions on this questionnaire refer exclusively to the SchoolCurricular Project (S.C.P.).

SELECTION OF CONTENTS1. Do you take into account the objectives that were set up when se-

lecting the contents? Yes D No [2. When you choose contents, do you choose those that are easy toassess?

Yes D No o

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13. You choose contents by thinking about:A) O previous academic needs of the pupilsB) O socioeconomic needsC) E deficiencies of a psychological nature

14. When selecting topics, do you take into account whether they areuseful, vital and practical in the pupils' lives?Yes O No O15. Do you exclude any topic because it is not considered scholastic oracademic enough? (For example, the topics of human rights, sex-uality, road safety, etc.). Yes O No O16. Does your selection of contents for the S.C.P. conform to those

prescribed exclusively by the Official Curriculum or do you broadenit with others?It conforms exclusively: Ifother contents were added, why?:A) E for reasons of avail- F) O those prescribed wereability insufficientB) O because we knew of G) O those prescribed notno other possibility suitable for this schoolC) E due to requirements of H) O other reasons (statethe Inspectors which ones)D) O for convenienceE) O for other reasons (state which ones)17. Is there a School Ideology or EducationalProject at your school?A) Yes O No OIf the answer is yes, how much did it affect the selection of contentsin the S.C.P.?

B) O a great deal O a fair amount O a little18. Do you believe that there are educational contents which are sexist?A) Yes O No ODoes this affect your selection of contents?B) Yes O No O19. Do socioideological values (e.g., democratic as opposed to authori-

tarian values) play a part in the selection of contents for the S.C.P.?Yes O No l20. Do you include new tendencies (e.g. ecology, education for peace,consumerism) whenever you have the opportunity?Yes O No O21. When choosing the topics of an area, you are concerned about:A) O a) developing them historically,B) O b) reflecting the latest theory developed by scientificresearch.Indicate in which subjects you use either criterion (or both)

a)b)

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33. When you sequence contents you tend to follow one or more ofthese possibilities: (you may select more than one option)A) O the proposals of a particular publisherB) O the proposals of several publishersC) E you don't take any publisher into accountD) O you tend to use another type of source.State which34. You agree with the following: the sequence is conditioned by thetime available for developing the contents .Yes [ No [

ORGANIZATION F CONTENTS35. Do you organize the contents in such a wayas to make them suitableto the pupils' wayof knowing/ learning processes according to theirage ? Yes O No O36. How have you organized the contents in the S.C.P.?A) O Around the important questions in each areaB) O Based on one of the types of contents appearing in theOfficial Curriculum. (procedures, concepts...)C) O Based on one of the transverse topics proposed by theMinistryD) O In a linear fashion, one after the other.E) O In a spiral, such that the organization used in one year isalso used in higher and lower levels, the differences beingat the level of profundityF) l Around broad topics, which may be centres of interest,projects, etc.Have you used any of these proposals in different curricular areas?State in which areas you have used each one of them.37. Do the publishing houses determine your proposal for the organi-zation of the contents in the S.C.P:?

A) Yes O No OIf yes, please give an approximate percentage:O < 25% O > 75%O 25-50% E None1 50-75%38. As a result of your years of experience, have you organized thecontents taking into account the students' difficulties?Yes O No O39. Has the organization of the contents of the S.C.P.been very condi-

tioned by the possibilities or limitations of the teaching staff and/orinfrastructure of your school?Yes O No o

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40. Do you organize the subject matter by trying to get the pupils tolearn and participate as researchers in the discipline, for example,by assigning them small research projects?Yes D No D

OBSERVATIONSINTERPRETATION F THE RESULTSEpistemologicalCriterion:ITEMS Y N No Answer6C Y N21 A+B+C D27A Y N27B Y N27C Y N27D Y N27E Y N36A Y NPedagogicalCriterion1 Y N NA2 Y N NA3 A+B+C D4 Y N NA5 Y N NA6A Y N6B Y N7 Y N NA9 A+B+C D12B A+B+C+E D12C A+B+C+E D12D A+B+C+E D12E A+B+C+E D12F A+B+C+E D16F Y N16G Y N28 Y N NA29 Y N NA30 A+B+C+E D31 A+B+C D36D Y N36E Y N36F Y N39 Y N NA40 Y N NAPsychologicalCriterion13A Y N13C Y N16F Y N

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INTERPRETATION F THERESULTS continued)PsychologicalCriterionITEMS Y N No Answer22 Y N NA23 Y N NA24A Y N24B Y N24C Y N24D Y N24E Y N27E Y N35 Y N NA38 Y N NASocioideologicalCriterion13B Y N14 Y N NA15 Y N NA18A Y N NA18B Y N NA19 Y N NA20 Y N NAFactual Criterion__A Y N16C Y N

16G Y N17B A+B+C+E D33A Y N36B Y N36C Y N37A Y N NAPragmaticCriterion8 Y N NA10 Y N NA11B Y N12A A+B+C+E D16A Y N16B Y N16D Y N30 A+B+C D33B Y N34 Y N NA36D Y N38 Y N NA

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Documents

The Selection of Contents in School Projects in Spain