Abstract:
The big barrier is time. Teachers at my school get between half an hour and three quarters of an hour release time per week. In my three quarters of an hour I have to : program, plan, correct, organise, clean, write up my day book, organise Mass for Friday, devise a liturgical dance for Wednesday's paraliturgy, plan the sports carnival, do some photocopying and go to the toilet! I'm just stating the sad fact that for many of us school based curriculum development is just another thing to do - however important. From this Primary teacher's point of view, participation in school based curriculum development (SBCD) is an activity which is expected of teachers, one which is important, but which must compete for time with other important priorities. The view expressed raises some questions about her behaviour, and the behaviour of other teachers. Why, for example, does she choose to continue to be involved in SBCD despite the apparently conflicting demands on time and energy? What view does she have of her participation? How is this point of view related to the methods and extent of her participation in SBCD? The case study reported in this paper was part of a larger study which sought answers to some of these questions, and in particular those related to teachers' views of their participation in SBCD. The significance of addressing this teachers' point of view is that there is considerable agreement among writers using this frame of reference that "what teachers do is affected by what they think" (Clark and Yinger, 1977). Teachers' subjective viewpoints have been shown to be important in research into areas such as classroom practice (Woods, 1977), school autonomy (Reynolds and Sullivan, 1982), innovation (Fullan, 1982), and teacher socialisation (Mardle and Walker, 1980). In this paper, the way in which teachers view themselves and their situation will be referred to as teacher perceptions. It seems reasonable to expect that these perceptions would have particular applications in the case of participation in SBCD. For example, two teachers in similar situations with objectively the same abilities may have more or less positive perceptions of self and situation, leading to different levels of participation in SBCD. Research to date on teacher participation in SBCD has focussed largely on the decision-making dimension of that participation. This study takes a somewhat broader view, where, based on a review of the literature, and a process of consultation with experts (Bezzina, 1989), participation in SBCD is viewed as being made up of five groups of behaviours: gathering background information, planning, implementing, evaluating and working with others. SBCD itself is defined as a process in which some or all of the members of a school community plan, implement and/or evaluate an aspect or aspects of the curriculum offering of the school. This may involve adapting an existing curriculum, adopting it unchanged, or creating new curriculum. SBCD is a collaborative effort which should not be confused with the individual efforts of teachers or administrators operating outside the boundaries of a collaboratively accepted framework. In analysing the objective factors which influence teacher participation in SBCD, the significance of organisational variables is apparent, and well documented (e.g. Cohen and Harrison, 1982). It is at the subjective level of perceptions, however, that the importance of the individual factors emerges, because these perceptions are unique to the individual, may be independent of notions of objective reality, and have been demonstrated in a range of fields to be significant influences on action, although the way in which they operate in influencing teacher participation in SBCD is not fully understood (Bezzina, 1988,1989). Wilson (1977:247) argued that human behaviour cannot be understood without understanding the framework within which "subjects interpret their thoughts, feelings and actions". As part of the process of addressing the questions which have prompted this study, a need clearly exists, therefore, to determine the nature of teachers' perceptions of their participation in SBCD within a particular context. This paper discusses some aspects of a case study which takes up this focus. The paper has two purposes. The first is to describe SBCD practices in a particular school, and teachers' perceptions of their participation in SBCD in that context. The second is to explore possible relationships between perceptions and actual participation.