Professor Elizabeth Rata presentation to research seminar, Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University 2 July 2015

1. Two Curriculum Models: ‘Progressive
Knowledge’ and ‘21st Century learning’
Graham McPhail
Elizabeth Rata

2. A research project examining two
curriculum design types
1. Type One: Cross-disciplinary curriculum,
student-inquiry pedagogy
2. Type Two: Subject-based curriculum, teacher-
led pedagogy

3. Aims
To examine the claims made by two different types of
school curriculum design:
Each type claims:
• The design promotes academic learning for all students
• The design uses an engaging pedagogy
• The design rejects a ‘gradgrind’ pedagogy

4. Methodology
1. Theoretical framework
2. Empirical Studies
Theoretical Framework
Constructed idealised models with which to analyse
the two types using theories of knowledge drawn
from the literature.
Model One: 21st Century Learning
Model Two: Progressive Knowledge

5. Empirical Studies
• A case study of Type One: A 21st Century
School with a inter-curriculum design; student
inquiry and teacher facilitation and student-
centred pedagogy (2014 ongoing)
• A case study of Type Two: Subject-based
curriculum, student-centred pedagogy
(literature study only to date)

6. The theoretical framework
The purpose of the idealised models is to identify the
distinctive features of each type and to identify and analyse
the theory of knowledge (epistemology) underpinning each
type.
The theory of knowledge drew on philosophers and
educational sociologists: e.g. Kant, Durkheim, Vygotsky,
Popper, Bernstein, Collins, Muller, Winch et. al.
Publications informing the models:
McPhail, 2012, 2013, 2015 in press
Rata, 2012, 2015
Barrett & Rata, 2014
McPhail and Rata, under review

7. What does a theory of curriculum
knowledge require?
A coherent explanation of:
• How knowledge is created, developed and disciplined
• How knowledge is constituted, structured and
disciplined (its episteme)
• How knowledge is altered for teaching at school (as
subjects from the disciplines or in an inter-disciplinary
approach using projects, themes or topics) and the
effects of such alteration?
• How knowledge is acquired (conceptual progression/
epistemic ascent or student constructed)

8. What ‘knowledge’ are we talking
about?
Distinguish between knowledge drawn from experience and
the abstract knowledge developed in the disciplines and
altered for teaching in schools as subjects
1. Experiential knowledge (social, culture . . .)
2. Abstract knowledge (disciplinary, objective, science . . .
Theorised the acquisition of abstract knowledge as ‘epistemic
ascent’ (Winch, 2013) or ‘conceptual progression’ or ‘moving
from lower order to higher order understanding’ (Vygotsky,
1962)
(These ideas are from the philosophical literature)

9. Abstract knowledge
A key question
• “How do children learn to think about what is
not encountered in experience by using
concepts that themselves are not known in
experience?”
Rata, 2015

10. Common Feature
Both curriculum design types emphasise
academic achievement for all
Our questions:
1.How does this occur?
By conceptual progression (from the literature)
2. Is conceptual progression found in both
curriculum design types

11. What is conceptual progression?
• The coherent integration of concepts into
structured systems of meaning – disciplinary
building blocks
• “The process of systematisation by which a
concept is defined as the set of relations that it
maintains with other concepts, not by direct
connection with a referent. Being able to think in
systems of connections is to understand the
internal structure of subject disciplines such as
Mathematics, Physics and History.” (Gamble,
2014, p. 173)

12. How does conceptual progression
occur?
In order to identify conceptual progression we
needed to identify the internal mechanisms
which extend concepts from lower order to
higher order meanings? (i.e. conceptual
progression)
Evidence that it has occurred (e.g. academic
success) doesn’t explain how it occurs

13. How?
The ‘how’ is the basis of difference between the two
curriculum types
• Type One (21st Century) claims CP occurs as students
construct their understanding as they pursue their interests
– with teacher facilitation and technological resources
• Type Two (PK) claims that CP occurs as students are taught
concepts by knowledgeable teachers using sequencing,
pacing, and evaluating pedagogical techniques to maintain
the integrity of the systems of meaning, i.e. subjects (also
supported by motivational resources)

14. By what mechanisms?
Conceptual progression occurs
1. By relating concepts to other concepts
sequentially (rather than to an object) in order
to maintain the subject’s internal epistemic
structure. This recognises the internal
constitutive relation of concepts.
1. By using techniques of language co-extension so
that the symbolic representation of concepts
matches the conceptual meaning

15. Co-extension
Language needs to match the acquisition of concepts in the building of
systems of meaning in order to represent the concept. This occurs as
‘vertical co-extensions’ are produced by 4 types of meaning relations:
• Synonyms (similarities that evoke meaning)
• Antonyms (differences that evoke meanings)
• Hyponyms (classification of concepts; sub-types from a general
class)
• Meronyms (part-whole composition relations, e.g. fingers as part of
a hand)
(Halliday and Hasan, 1991; Naidoo, 2012)

16. A second distinction between the two
types
A second distinction is a pedagogical one -
between the two curriculum design types comes
from the different views about whether CP is
student initiated or teacher led.
• Student led: experiential knowledge comes
first
• Teacher led: abstract knowledge comes first

17. Implications for pedagogy
How should learning proceed then?
• Abstract knowledge which can be applied to
experience
• Or
• Experience as the basis for knowledge
construction
A fundamental distinction between the two types
of curriculum design types

18. “Concepts form and develop under entirely
different inner and outer conditions, depending
on whether they originate in classroom
instruction or in the child’s personal
experience.”
(Vygotsky, 1962, p.86)

19. From concepts to experience
Vygotsky contends that learning proceeds from contact with
abstract concepts and then engages with the everyday
concepts that are acquired from experience.
‘In the scientific concepts that the child acquires in school, the
relationship to an object is mediated from the start by some
other concept. Thus the very notion of scientific concepts
implies a certain position in relation to other concepts, i.e. a
place within a system of concepts. It is our contention that the
rudiments of systemisation first enter the child’s mind by way
of his contact with scientific concepts and are then transferred
to everyday concepts, changing their psychological structure
from the top down.’ (Vygotsky, 1962, p. 93)

20. Research Question
We wanted to know:
• Which type has the stronger claim to develop students’ academic learning
(i.e. conceptual progression) given the strength of the case for direct
teaching to enable conceptual progression?
A case based on:
• The differentiation between experiential and abstract knowledge
• The epistemic constitution of abstract concepts into systems of meaning
that are bounded or disciplined into disciplines and altered for teaching as
school subjects
• The universal nature of abstract knowledge – Bourdieu quote
• The cultural nature of experiential knowledge. (NB. Even Dewey cautions
against what experience is used)

21. Type One: The Case Study
A 21st century New Zealand secondary school
Also known in NZ as:
• ‘future-oriented education’
• ‘future-focused’
• ‘future-oriented learning’
• ‘21st century learning’
In the progressive pedagogic tradition (more
recently ‘constructivism)

22. References
• Barrett, B. & Rata, E. (2014). (Eds.), Knowledge and the future of the curriculum: International
studies in social realism. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
• Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity. Oxford: Rowman.
• Halliday, M.A.K. & Hasan, R. (1991). Language, context and text: Aspects of language in a social-
semiotic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• McPhail, G. (2012). Knowledge and the curriculum: Music as a case study in educational futures.
New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 47(1), 33-46.
• McPhail, G. (2013). Mixed pedagogic modalities: the potential for increased student engagement
and success. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 48(1), 113-126.
• McPhail, G. (in-press). The fault lines of recontextualisation: the limits of constructivism in
education. The British Education Research Journal.
• McPhail, G. & Rata, E. (under review) Two Curriculum Models: ‘Progressive Knowledge’ and ‘21st
Century Learning’
• Muller, J. (2009). Forms of knowledge and curriculum coherence. Journal of Education and Work,
22(3), 205-226.
• Naido, D. (2012). Analysing pedagogy: Visibility and Meanings. Journal of Education, 53, 37-54.
• Rata, E. (2012). The politics of knowledge in education. London & New York: Routledge.
• Rata, E. (2015). A pedagogy of conceptual progression and the case for academic knowledge. British
Educational Research Journal. DOI: 10.1002/berj.3195