Author: Catherine Broom. Catherine is fascinated with understanding the roots of the present through investigations of the past. She is currently conducting a historical study of BC’s Ministry of Education curriculum guides for social studies, focused on citizenship education. This research is particularly relevant as much interest has currently been fostered in academia regarding citizenship education and as the Ministry of Education in BC has just released a new Civics 11 course. [The new guide is found at: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/civic11.pdf] She has completed research into the founding of this controversial subject and linked its emergence in BC in 1930 to the American progressive movement. She has discovered 6 major curriculum revisions to the curriculum guides over the twentieth century.

Catherine’s work explores change and continuity in these curriculum guides, with a focus on philosophy and methodology and conceptualizations of good citizens and how these are to be educated. Sears and Hughes (1996), Osborne’s (1996) and Evans’ (2004) frameworks are used to investigate citizenship. She argues for major revisions to underlying philosophies of education in social studies curricula in the 1930s and 1960s, and for major transformations in the understanding of curriculum making throughout the century. The later will be the theme of her paper presented at IERG’s conference this summer. It explores the roots of the rationalized “science” of curriculum making, which Catherine argues, have forestalled the possibility of educating for excellence and of engaging students in learning through the imagination. A discussion of her findings includes links to the work of Foucault and Wertsch.

Click here to access her IERG bio: http://ierg.net/people/index.php?bio_id=107