Paradigm Debates in Curriculum and Supervision: Modern and Postmodern Perspectives

Paradigm debates in the educational research community are a frequent if not common occurrence. How do paradigm debates in other educational fields, such as curriculum and supervision, shape educators' understanding and practice? In this volume, it is suggested that educators' adherence to particular views of curriculum and supervision is influential in guiding their beliefs and subsequent actions. For example, a widely accepted belief is that if an individual adopts a mechanistic view of the curriculum, then s/he is likely to deliver a curriculum grounded in pre-established objectives and evaluate student achievement in relationship to formulated objectives. Postmodernists contend that such educators are bound by rigid bifurcation and a constrictive linear logic. In supervision, educational leaders who favor leadership styles comprised by autocratic behaviors, tend to create school climates that favor a top-down approach to human relationships. Autocratic leaders rely on hierarchical organizational structures and styles that seek to instill compliance and subordinance. Yet prospective administrators who want concrete proposals put in practice find modern perspectives of supervision helpful. In contrast, postmodern supervisors allege that such leaders disallow the emergence of relevant and authentic relationships that might occur when conventional hierarchical structures are diminished and open lines of communication between teachers, students, administrators become normative. The chapters in this book present an in-depth analysis of how an individual's predisposition towards modern and postmodern views of curriculum and supervision are likely to influence: (1) curriculum development, (2) teaching styles, (3) leadership styles, (4) teacher and student evaluation, and (5) the missions intrinsic to the creation of professional preparation programs that serve to promulgate existing practice or create a new order of teachers and administrator.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Robert J. Starratt Preface Modern Conceptions of Curriculum and Supervision Introduction Can the Modern View of Curriculum be Refined by the Postmodern Criticism? by Linda S. Behar-Horenstein Shifting Paradigms: Implications for Curriculum Research and Practice by Edmund C. Short The Common Unity and Progressive Restoration of the Curriculum Field by Peter S. Hlebowitsh Supervision: Don't Discount the Value of the Modern by Jeffrey Glanz Supervision Practices: Building a Constructivist Learning Community for Adults by Sally Zepeda Collaborative Supervision: Implications for Supervision Research and Inquiry by Martha N. Ovando Postmodern Conceptions of Curriculum and Supervision Postmodernism as a Challenge to Dominant Representations of Curriculum by Patrick Slattery Informing Curriculum and Teaching Transformation through Postmodern Studies by James G. Henderson Postmodern Visions in Multicultural Preparation and Practice by Geneva Gay and Pamula Hart Complicity in Supervision: Another Postmodern Moment by Duncan Waite and Margarida Ramires Fernandes Possibilities of Postmodern Supervision by Patricia Holland and Maryalice Obermiller Communicative Action: A Postmodern Bridge for Supervision in School Organizations by Edward Pajak and Karen K. Evans Practitioner Responses Modern and Postmodern Perspectives on Curriculum and Supervision: A View from the Top by Osborne F. Abbey, Jr. Paradigms of Curriculum and Supervision: A Practitioner's Viewpoint by Frances M. Vandiver Student Empowerment Through the Professional Development of Teachers by Eric Nadelstern, Janet Price, and Aaron Listhaus Afterword: Closing Reflections Index