Researching the interdisciplinary curriculum: The need for ‘translation devices’

Abstract

This paper discusses the conceptual and methodological challenges facing two researchers investigating the development of interdisciplinary curricula in two new secondary schools, one in the UK and one in New Zealand. It is a discussion of research in progress that will be of interest to readers because of both the methodological challenges discussed and the research area itself. The key issue we identify is one for both researchers and teachers: how might the concepts and perspective of one discipline be brought into a relationship with another to enable deep learning? This question in turn highlights a key methodological challenge: developing the means to describe and evaluate new forms of curricular design and implementation where a traditional discipline‐based curriculum has been rejected in favour of interdisciplinary ones. The integrative aims of interdisciplinarity are also examined. We employ Bernstein's (2000) concept of knowledge structures and languages of description to theorise a continuum of approaches to curriculum integration, from functional to principled. This methodological manoeuvre is made possible by the development of a translation device. This procedural mechanism makes accessible to analysis the organising principles that are in play in the interdisciplinary curriculum design practices we have observed. We conclude with recommendations for the interdisciplinary curriculum researcher.

Crossing boundaries: Exploring the theory, practice and possibility of a ‘Future 3’ curriculum

“…Thus, the work of teachers in making the curriculum at XP can be seen to extend along the continuum of curriculum integration, from principled to functional, in which the context of an expedition can have a lesser or greater determining effect. This variation can be explained, and to some degree predicted, by the translation device for investigating integrated curriculum design developed by Pountney and McPhail (, p. 1078; see Figure ). It remains for our future research to examine how the consistency of expeditions is maintained throughout the secondary school phase into public examinations, and how the coherence between expeditions over a student's time in the school is developed.…”

“…The distinction here is not only in the academic level that learners achieve (and whether they outpace or exceed national expectations of learning), but rather whether learning is generative of novel insights—or more importantly, perhaps, if it enables learners to go beyond their contexts, as an example of powerful knowledge (Young, ), to extend what is presented in a subject context to identify and explore that which might be possible in an interdisciplinary perspective. Notable here is that the generic meta‐skills, such as problem solving, are developed in XP's integrated curriculum, but this is an outcome that is a welcome by‐product of the curriculum, not its raison d’être ; the result of a form of curriculum integration that is principled rather than functional (Pountney & McPhail, , p. 1078).…”

“…These are discussed below. Moreover, we apply our own translation device, developed from the analysis of a range of approaches that schools take towards curriculum making, to distinguish schools along a continuum from functional/pragmatic to principled/conceptual (Pountney & McPhail, ; see Figure ).…”

“…In this article, we utilise three key concepts derived from this work to elaborate an imaginary Future 3 curriculum: powerful knowledge , the curriculum–pedagogy distinction and teachers as curriculum makers . In concert with these key ideas and applied more directly to the data, we utilise a realist conceptual methodology (Popper, ; Lourie & Rata, ; McPhail & Lourie, ; Sayer, ); a methodology in which key concepts are brought into dialogue with the data, enabling the development of what Bernstein () terms languages of description (Maton & Chen, ; Pountney & McPhail, ). The 3 Futures model provides an external language of description , a generalised and somewhat abstract conceptualisation of a social practice.…”

“…The classification and framing of curriculum knowledge itself—how knowledge is selected, assembled and sequenced into a curriculum (Bernstein, )—offers the means to develop an internal language of description ; a more concrete means of making generative principles visible. This methodological process of creating a ‘language of description’—a form of translation device or conceptual rubric—provides a means for theory and data to interact (Bernstein, ; Pountney & McPhail, ). Drawing on a model of the integrated curriculum (McPhail, 2017a), we elaborate this further, as a translation device to examine curriculum making at XP School.…”