On Curriculum Criticism

With the transformation of curriculum inquiry paradigm from "development mode "to "understanding mode", the field of curriculum study shows diversity and openness to all researchers, who have different values. Those researchers began to absorb advanced ideas and methods of other various Social Science or Humanities to understand the curriculum, which is considered as a kind of cultural phenomenon rather than a set of behaviour control. It is in this context of a pluralistic inquiry, some scholars draw nutrition from the aesthetics. Concepts as "connoisseurship", "art criticism" and so on are borrowed into the field of curriculum studies. These scholars make an analogy between curriculum and art, and use the way of art criticism and methods from anthropology to analyse and understand the "static text" and "dynamic text" of curriculum phenomenon.In 1969, the U.S.curriculum researcher Mann pointed out the concept "Curriculum Criticism"directly, and regarded it as an aesthetic-oriented qualitative curriculum evaluation method. Since then, a number of scholars began to explicit the method and put it into practice. As the result, curriculum criticism has become a unique perspective of curriculum studies, and many researches on such object have been done at overseas. However, in our country, "Curriculum Criticism," is till a strange and abstract concept for most of persons, and also because of the term "criticism" itself has the negative meaning, it easily leads to misunderstanding on this concept. Therefore, the author believes that there is a urgent need to do a comprehensive study on the concept of "curriculum criticism", so that to enrich our discourse of curriculum and provide a new perspeception and method to do curriculum study. This dissertation includes nine components:The first part is introduction, which briefly describes the origin, purpose, significance and research methods of this study, and to sort out relevant researches at home and abroad, to define the main concepts in this article.The second part is about the emergence and development of curriculum criticism. The section places "Curriculum Criticism" in the overall context of curriculum research to see its development process in historical perspection. Through the discussion on the course of transformation of curriculum inquiry paradigm from scientific research mode to diversified understand mode, the background of curriculum criticism will be presented. And to make a better understanding of curriculum criticism, the development status of the curriculum criticism abroad are discussed here.The third part is about the connotation of curriculum criticism. This part begins at the interpretation of its basic assumption-"curriculum is a work of art", to understand the connotation of curriculum criticism from four aspects, which are considered like this: "curriculum criticism is reeducation of perceptions of life", "curriculum criticism is based on curriculum connoisseurship","curriculum criticism is a process of encouraging reflection and creation" and last, "curriculum criticism is a unity of aesthetics and science".The fourth part is about the theoretical basis of curriculum criticism. This part discusses the academic background and ideological foundation of curriculum criticism from phenomenology, hermeneutics, anthropology and critical curriculum theory to understand the rationality of curriculum criticism itself.The fifth part talks about the role and quality of curriculum critics. The author believes that the curriculum critics should be an observer with rich insight of curriculum phenomenon, a meaning interpreter with good use of theory and a responsible man who would do the value judgement. In order to behave well their role, curriculum critics should have extensive knowledge and practical experience of the subject, should be insightful to the classroom affairs and analyse those affairs effectively, and also should have excellent communication skills.The sixth part is about the process and methods of curriculum criticism. The whole process are divided int two parts. The first is classroom observation, which is to do data gathering. The second is the presentation of criticism, which including description, interpretation, evaluation and making themes. The seventh part is something about the validity, generalizability and research ethics of curriculum criticism. To ensure the effectiveness of curriculum criticism, some principles and issues are emphasized here.The eighth part is the critique on curriculum criticism itself. The critiques are focus on two aspects. The one is on the basic assumption of curriculum criticism, and the other is on the role of curriculum critics. These critiques are hoped to make researchers see the curriculum criticism more comprehensively and intelligibly.The ninth part is the conclusion. Suggestions have been made to consider the curriculum criticism comprehensively and intelligibly and to study the curriculum issues with multiple methods according to the local condition.