The Politics of Curriculum Design in Instructional Communication in Ghana

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a two-year ethnographic study that explored how institutional politics shaped the curriculum of a graduate program in instructional communication in a Ghanaian public university. Using Porter et al.'s (2000) idea of institutional critique, the research showed that the design of the program was not value-free. The analysis indicated that the curriculum as a textual material promotes preferred literacies that reflect ideologies and core values of its designers. The study found that the instructional communication curriculum is anchored on competencies in applied linguistics and educational psychology. The research advocates the opening of a space crucial for including "new" seminars such as instructional communication, composition studies, and critical theory to the curriculum. The paper makes the case that these new seminars are important for training communication educators to be abreast of the exigencies of the twenty-first century educational enterprise.

Curriculum Theories and Their Politics in Ghana’s Pretetiary Education System

“…The development of a curriculum is not as easy as it appears. A strong curriculum confronts the contradiction between consistency and change because it is a technical document that details educational material (Coker, 2018). In most cases, a program's curriculum becomes less adaptable the more it is portrayed as an official document outlining the results and demands that must be accomplished.…”

“…The decisions that go into choosing a program's structure, methods, and content are not made indifferently. These educational components are typically formed by the ideologies, power imbalances, mentalities, beliefs, and traditions of program administrators and designers (Coker, 2018). It is quite intriguing to note that, the rendition of the curriculum as espoused above is with recourse to the political orientation of the scholars.…”