Epistemology and Educational Experience

This chapter addresses what a dialectical conception of consciousness implies for how we conceive of curriculum. The author begins with an overview of some definitions of curriculum and makes the case that, based on a dialectical materialist conception of consciousness, curriculum can be defined as a form of a complex environmental design. This chapter further develops Huebner’s conception of curriculum by incorporating both Vygotsky’s work on using tools for human development and learning and Bernstein’s work on the classification and framing of knowledge in pedagogic discourse. The author concludes the chapter by using high-stakes, standardized testing as an example of the ways that the shaping of educational environments exerts some level of control over learning and consciousness.