**4. Knowledge versus experience**

**2. Curriculum ideologies**

40 Contemporary Pedagogies in Teacher Education and Development

into existence a better society [20, 21].

**3. Research site and methods**

in daily school curriculum.

*centered* (child study), and the *social reconstruction* ideology.

play an important role in the success of any reform movement [25].

According to Schiro [20, 21], a curriculum ideology is a practical philosophy that influences a teacher's day-to-day behaviors toward curriculum issues. However, other scholars use the phrase curriculum orientation (e.g., [14, 19, 22, 23]). In the current study, I draw on Schiro's [20, 21] framework, in which the beliefs about the purpose of curriculum (education) are divided into four distinctive ideologies: the *scholar academic*, the *social efficiency*, the *learner-*

The scholar academic ideology is concerned with maintaining "cultural literacy" by having students study the content and modes of inquiry of traditional academic subjects. The social efficiency ideology aims at efficiently carrying out a task for society, providing knowledge and skills that give students the ability to function in society. The learner-centered ideology places the student in the center of the educational endeavor and is concerned with helping each student grow into a unique individual who has a healthy self-concept. The social reconstruction ideology attempts to help students understand the crises facing society, develop a value stance toward those crises, and learn how to act to relieve the crises, thereby bringing

According to Schiro [20, 21], these ideologies are roughly parallel to the academic, vocational, personal, and social goals for education. Each curriculum ideology is more akin to a pedagogical subculture than to a goal; each has an impact on teachers' thinking about the nature of knowledge, the curriculum intent (aims, goals, and learning objectives), teaching strategies, learning, students, and evaluation methods (e.g., [19–21, 25, 26]). They also affect students because the underlying values and beliefs of each ideology not only influence what is taught but also how and why it is taught [20, 27]. It has also been shown that curriculum ideologies

In connection with two undergraduate courses entitled "Inclusive Education" and "Teaching Practicum," the current study was conducted at a multidisciplinary research university within the Primary School Teacher Education (PSTE) program in Finland. All participants were enrolled in both courses. The participants were 115 pre-service teachers who were completing their teacher qualification for primary school. The "Inclusive Education" course focused on discussing the theoretical underpinnings of student diversity (such as language, abilities, background, religion, and gender) and the current instructional support system as a means of enhancing inclusive school culture. The students were encouraged to work in small teams to construct a shared understanding and build new ideas of how to enhance inclusion

In addition, the course included a week-long field experiment that asked students to visit one school community and find out how the inclusion principle was implemented in accordance with the NCC [9]. They were encouraged to observe the school community and classroom practices, conduct interviews with the in-service teachers, special needs teachers, school Although the basis of scholarly academic ideology rests on the belief that acquiring an understanding of academic knowledge involves learning the content knowledge and ways of thinking [20], the learner-centered ideology focus is solely on the student. The student's educational needs and interests are central to learning and must be incorporated in the learning experience. In the following, two pre-service teachers make meaning and reflect on their experiences of the teaching practicum. The former episode refers to a scholarly academic ideology and the latter one to a learner-centered ideology:

*It is not enough that you have understood and your pupils have understood the subject matter; rather everyone should even understand the same matter by the same time and in addition together. (…) I have been wondering, indeed, how I know my subject matter of school so badly. I must concentrate on using the right terms. I fail even with my well-practiced demonstrations. My authority feels insufficient. If the students take the upper hand, it all ends up in chaos. The problem with questions is that you prepare a new topic with questions, that you ask children questions about things they cannot have enough information about. (…) My personal opinion is that it is the teacher's task to teach.* (PRAC 89).

*There was a one student labeled as receiving intensified support in the Finnish class. This student sat in front of the classroom, in the middle of two other students. The lesson proceeded through a common conversation into the writing task. The task was made independently. Most of the teacher's time was spent in assisting that one 'intensified support' receiving student. Writing was not easy for him, and he needed the teacher's help frequently. So, the teacher had to go through the text word by word with him. When assisting that student all the time, the teacher did not have any time to go around the class during the performance of the assignment. She shouted the instructions to other students while sitting beside the demanding student, and the instructions were essentially to ensure that the class was disciplined, and all behaved in an appropriate manner. The demanding student suffered from the situation as well as the class that remained ignored by the teacher* (PRE 26).

Curriculum Ideologies Reflecting Pre-Service Teachers' Stances toward Inclusive Education

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76326

43

*Some of us have obstacles that require more than normal enterprise and assistance, but despite that diversity is not an obstacle to moving forward or working together. This observation raised strongly during the field work. I looked at that so-called tomboy in the class, and I admired his way to see the world, in that case, the class, differently. I wondered, what kind of things he saw and felt. He was not cynical at all. I noticed that shared values were more important for him than the values of the individual. He gave his attention with a smile to the student sitting next to him, although he himself was in turbulent. He was empathic! I understood that the way how we usually differentiate learning and try to slick down these students' learning paths by taken them away from the mainstream classes, is not the way I believe in.* (PRE 101). The above episode refers to the preference of viewing the subject matter as the most valued property, which must be delivered to the students; as Schiro [20] stated, the curriculum is intended to acculturate children into a discipline. This inclination made pre-service teachers concerned about how they should accomplish goals regardless of the imbalance between mastering the subject matter and managing the classroom (cf. [32]). In turn, the latter episode illustrates that such a learner-centered ideology has the learning process as an end in itself. The view differs from an educational policy-driven paradigm of student centrality that emphasizes that curriculum should be characterized by "learning outcomes" describing the measurable skills or abilities that students should be able to do or demonstrate as a result of

This returns to a question about the focus of learning: should we pay attention to generic skills capacities instead of a detailed specification of content knowledge? Wheelahan [34] raised the view about the "crisis of curriculum," arguing that the worldwide education policy drives toward stripping knowledge out of the curriculum due to the shift in learning outcomes (cf. [34, 35]). But then, the current knowledge society and information overload within the explosion of digital technologies raise a critical question about the changing nature of knowledge and children's life worlds, meaning making, and learning as a whole. Accordingly, this leads to the question of which one is more valuable: the subject matter or generic skills. For example, there is literacy, which guarantees equal access to the most powerful forms of knowledge; literacy is crucial because it allows learners to gain these basic skills and builds students' discipline-specific understanding of how texts represent both the knowledge and the ways of knowing, doing, and believing in different disciplinary communities (cf. [36, 37]). Hence, the subject matter and generic skills are two sides of the same coin and should not be separated

learning (e.g., [33]).

from each other.

*A successful moment is when students are eager to learn new things and feel encouraged to use their new skills (…) when we experience a moment of flow together, when we experience joy and freedom. There was a kind of positive atmosphere in the classroom. I listened and gave them opportunities, and then I felt that I created security in a way that nobody laughed at anybody no matter what they said. It's important to stay positive.*

*All learning seems to be based on interaction (…) only in interaction first with another person and later with other persons will students get a mirror to look in and a frame in which he or she can develop.* (PRAC 08).

The episodes above illustrate the tension between knowledge and experience, which occurs between the traditional curriculum, developed to guide students on how to acquire knowledge and solve problems, and the learner-centered curriculum, advocated by constructivism as a way to emphasize an individual's activity and learning experience.

According to scholarly academic ideology, the meaning of knowledge is its ability to contribute to the extension of the academic discipline (cf. [20]). Thus, the subject matter is determined and selected from the knowledge bases of disciplines, such as biology or physics, by "specialist scholars" who are expected to bring down this knowledge to teachers and students. The impact on teachers is that they should also be specialists in the disciplines being taught, keeping the hierarchy between scholars at the top and students at the base.

In turn, the main idea of the learner-centered ideology is that learning is seen as an active process driven by the interest of the individual student. Schiro [20] exemplified the distinction to the previous ideology as "I have experienced" is more important than "I know," that is, the firsthand experience of reality is more important than the second-hand experience gained through a textbook. Curriculum is designed in line with Piagetian ideas about the stages of development, assuming that the construction of the learning process should be in harmony with students' cognitive stages (cf. [30, 31]). The impact on the teachers is that they are seen as facilitators of the discussion, debate, and interaction between students and their learning environment.

Although scholarly academic ideology prefers teaching methods such as Socratic questioning, didactic discussion and supervised practice, for the learner-centered ideologist, teaching is to be adapted to the individual student, and the student's authentic activity is seen as a prerequisite for education [20]. These distinctions between the stances on teaching are crucial in terms of inclusive education. The following episodes demonstrate two contrasting ways pre-service teachers observed and formed an attitude regarding the activities in the inclusive classroom. The first episode echoes scholarly academic ideology, even though the participant attempted to recognize the individual students, while the latter one refers to more learnercentered ideology:

*There was a one student labeled as receiving intensified support in the Finnish class. This student sat in front of the classroom, in the middle of two other students. The lesson proceeded through a common conversation into the writing task. The task was made independently. Most of the teacher's time was spent in assisting that one 'intensified support' receiving student. Writing was not easy for him, and he needed the teacher's help frequently. So, the teacher had to go through the text word by word with him. When assisting that student all the time, the teacher did not have any time to go around the class during the performance of the assignment. She shouted the instructions to other students while sitting beside the demanding student, and the instructions were essentially to ensure that the class was disciplined, and all behaved in an appropriate manner. The demanding student suffered from the situation as well as the class that remained ignored by the teacher* (PRE 26).

*It is not enough that you have understood and your pupils have understood the subject matter; rather everyone should even understand the same matter by the same time and in addition together. (…) I have been wondering, indeed, how I know my subject matter of school so badly. I must concentrate on using the right terms. I fail even with my well-practiced demonstrations. My authority feels insufficient. If the students take the upper hand, it all ends up in chaos. The problem with questions is that you prepare a new topic with questions, that you ask children questions about things they cannot have enough information about.* 

*A successful moment is when students are eager to learn new things and feel encouraged to use their new skills (…) when we experience a moment of flow together, when we experience joy and freedom. There was a kind of positive atmosphere in the classroom. I listened and gave them opportunities, and then I felt that I created security in a way that nobody laughed* 

*All learning seems to be based on interaction (…) only in interaction first with another person and later with other persons will students get a mirror to look in and a frame in which he or she* 

The episodes above illustrate the tension between knowledge and experience, which occurs between the traditional curriculum, developed to guide students on how to acquire knowledge and solve problems, and the learner-centered curriculum, advocated by constructivism

According to scholarly academic ideology, the meaning of knowledge is its ability to contribute to the extension of the academic discipline (cf. [20]). Thus, the subject matter is determined and selected from the knowledge bases of disciplines, such as biology or physics, by "specialist scholars" who are expected to bring down this knowledge to teachers and students. The impact on teachers is that they should also be specialists in the disciplines being taught, keep-

In turn, the main idea of the learner-centered ideology is that learning is seen as an active process driven by the interest of the individual student. Schiro [20] exemplified the distinction to the previous ideology as "I have experienced" is more important than "I know," that is, the firsthand experience of reality is more important than the second-hand experience gained through a textbook. Curriculum is designed in line with Piagetian ideas about the stages of development, assuming that the construction of the learning process should be in harmony with students' cognitive stages (cf. [30, 31]). The impact on the teachers is that they are seen as facilitators of the

Although scholarly academic ideology prefers teaching methods such as Socratic questioning, didactic discussion and supervised practice, for the learner-centered ideologist, teaching is to be adapted to the individual student, and the student's authentic activity is seen as a prerequisite for education [20]. These distinctions between the stances on teaching are crucial in terms of inclusive education. The following episodes demonstrate two contrasting ways pre-service teachers observed and formed an attitude regarding the activities in the inclusive classroom. The first episode echoes scholarly academic ideology, even though the participant attempted to recognize the individual students, while the latter one refers to more learner-

discussion, debate, and interaction between students and their learning environment.

*(…) My personal opinion is that it is the teacher's task to teach.* (PRAC 89).

*at anybody no matter what they said. It's important to stay positive.*

as a way to emphasize an individual's activity and learning experience.

ing the hierarchy between scholars at the top and students at the base.

*can develop.* (PRAC 08).

42 Contemporary Pedagogies in Teacher Education and Development

centered ideology:

*Some of us have obstacles that require more than normal enterprise and assistance, but despite that diversity is not an obstacle to moving forward or working together. This observation raised strongly during the field work. I looked at that so-called tomboy in the class, and I admired his way to see the world, in that case, the class, differently. I wondered, what kind of things he saw and felt. He was not cynical at all. I noticed that shared values were more important for him than the values of the individual. He gave his attention with a smile to the student sitting next to him, although he himself was in turbulent. He was empathic! I understood that the way how we usually differentiate learning and try to slick down these students' learning paths by taken them away from the mainstream classes, is not the way I believe in.* (PRE 101).

The above episode refers to the preference of viewing the subject matter as the most valued property, which must be delivered to the students; as Schiro [20] stated, the curriculum is intended to acculturate children into a discipline. This inclination made pre-service teachers concerned about how they should accomplish goals regardless of the imbalance between mastering the subject matter and managing the classroom (cf. [32]). In turn, the latter episode illustrates that such a learner-centered ideology has the learning process as an end in itself. The view differs from an educational policy-driven paradigm of student centrality that emphasizes that curriculum should be characterized by "learning outcomes" describing the measurable skills or abilities that students should be able to do or demonstrate as a result of learning (e.g., [33]).

This returns to a question about the focus of learning: should we pay attention to generic skills capacities instead of a detailed specification of content knowledge? Wheelahan [34] raised the view about the "crisis of curriculum," arguing that the worldwide education policy drives toward stripping knowledge out of the curriculum due to the shift in learning outcomes (cf. [34, 35]). But then, the current knowledge society and information overload within the explosion of digital technologies raise a critical question about the changing nature of knowledge and children's life worlds, meaning making, and learning as a whole. Accordingly, this leads to the question of which one is more valuable: the subject matter or generic skills. For example, there is literacy, which guarantees equal access to the most powerful forms of knowledge; literacy is crucial because it allows learners to gain these basic skills and builds students' discipline-specific understanding of how texts represent both the knowledge and the ways of knowing, doing, and believing in different disciplinary communities (cf. [36, 37]). Hence, the subject matter and generic skills are two sides of the same coin and should not be separated from each other.
