Teachers’ Curriculum Making as Relational Practice: The Mediatory Role of Reflexivity and Networks

Teachers often find ways to mediate their curriculum making practices, even in most centralized contexts. In order to delve into this mediation process, this chapter offers a philosophical and methodological framework to investigate the role of reflexivity and networks. Following a critical realist approach, I argue that there are three generative mechanisms underlying teachers’ curriculum making practices that can help us to understand why teachers act in different ways. First, teachers’ modes of reflexivity, distinctive ways of projecting actions, based on teachers’ concerns and by means of their environment, offer strong explanations of why teachers take certain standpoints, follow particular reasoning processes, and act upon curriculum reforms in various ways. Second, relational assets (relational goods and evils) that emerge from teachers’ curriculum making relationships offer explanations as to why certain practices might be enhanced or inhibited. Finally, the national and organizational context, more particularly, schools’ formal organization, curriculum reform as a chain of organic interactions, and performativity culture, explains teacher mediation of curriculum making.