Teacher education reform and 'didactical professionalism'. The written curriculum - between ideas and practice, in casu the music subject.

Project summary

Aim: The project is an historical and theoretical contribution to the debate concerning the 'didactical competence' of the student teacher, as related to the subject and the written curriculum. As a part of this, it aims to analyze some dilemmas connected to the written curriculum as 'compromise' between subject traditions and politics of educational reform. Theme: The project may be defined as teacher education research. The theme belongs to the area of curriculum history and development, 'didactics' (Norwegian: "didaktikk") sociology of knowledge and politics of State educational reforms: it focuses on understanding of what it means to develop teacher professionalism in our postmodern, pluralistic society and consequences of this for understanding the written curriculum in teacher education, widely conceptualized. Research type: This project is primarily of historical and theoretical kind: a concrete case of curricular reform (Bergen 1958 -) is the basis for analyses of how interpretations of teacher professionalism are influenced by inherited traditions and political reform intentions. As such, it will also be a kind of conflict research, constructively unveiling actual compromises between 'old' and 'new'. It is life history research, engaging with tensions between individual and institutional practice and State intentions. It also has something in common with biographical research, as the influence by certain central 'inspirators' are scritinized. As such, it is more hermeneutical than phenomenological. And finally, one might hope to give the project a teint of 'scenario-work', aiming to catch in some new possibilities for the subject in teacher education - in micro, meso and macro perspective.