Reconsidering the technologies of intellectual inquiry in curriculum design

Costa, Cristina; Harris, Lisa

Abstract

© 2017 British Educational Research Association. This paper reports on the design and delivery of classroom pedagogies and students’ engagement with it in two different UK universities. Under the banner of curriculum design and Bourdieu's curriculum principles, the study set out to create modules that provided students with an interdisciplinary perspective on how the web is changing the way citizens live, interact and learn. Focusing on the idea that the web is becoming a tool of intellectual inquiry and an instrument of reproduction of knowledge inequality, the goal of this research was to transform knowledge practices by encouraging a learning habitus that relies on knowing how to learn rather than becoming ‘knowledgeable.’ The paper concludes that the Bourdieuian perspective on curriculum design still holds currency in the digital age, given that it shares an epistemology of practice similar to that advocated by a digital participatory culture. We also offer a critique to our approach, using Bourdieu's logic of practice to examine how education as a field displays (hidden) rules that students embody as their learning habitus. As students’ learning practices become doxified through their educational trajectories, learners find it difficult to engage with a curriculum that aims to diversify pedagogical structures and reflect a changing society.

Citation

Costa, C., & Harris, L. (2017). Reconsidering the technologies of intellectual inquiry in curriculum design. Curriculum Journal, 28(4), 559-577. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2017.1308260

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 15, 2017
• Publication Date: Oct 2, 2017
• Deposit Date: Mar 15, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 1, 2018
• Journal: Curriculum Journal
• Print ISSN: 0958-5176
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-3704
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 28
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 559-577
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2017.1308260
• Keywords: Pierre Bourdieu, curriculum design, learning habitus, participatory culture, higher education, the web
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/901587
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2017.1308260
• Related Public URLs: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/60211/
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in The Curriculum Journal on 31st March 2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2017.1308260.