Teacher Candidates' Policy Agency to Reframe the Meaning of Citizenship in the Ontario Secondary School Curriculum

Headnote

Abstract

Curriculum policy implementation occurs within a network of state, district, school, and classroom level policies that operate within and around educators' use of formal curriculum policy documents. Starting from this observation, we report a study of teacher candidates' policy framing activities in their use of citizenship education curriculum policy documents in the Province of Ontario, Canada. We use a frame analysis methodology to examine how four teacher candidates from one Teacher Education Program in Ontario (1) frame citizenship, (2) perceive their use of the curriculum policy document, and (3) perceive the influence of a network of curriculum policy influences in their schools. Findings reveal that the candidates each have unique ways of framing citizenship, which align to varying degrees with how the documents frame citizenship. Candidates portray themselves as able to work around policy requirements and pressures where those are misaligned with their own framings of citizenship. They needed to do this to foster student civic action. On balance, broader policy pressures appear to reinforce formal curriculum policy that does not explicitly encourage civic engagement. We conclude the formal curriculum should incorporate a specific requirement in this area to provide policy leverage to educators interested in teaching through student civic action. We also take up the issue of potential politicization of the citizenship education through teacher education programs, with our findings suggesting this is highly unlikely.

Keywords: curriculum, policy, politics, citizenship, citizenship education, frame analysis, Canada, secondary school, high school

Résumé

La mise en œuvre de politiques en matiere de programmes d'études s'effectue dans le cadre d'un réseau de politiques au niveau de l'État, du district, de l'école et de la salle de classe, grâce a et autour de l'utilisation des documents-cadres par les enseignants du programme d'études. Partant de cette observation, nous présentons une étude sur les activités de conception des politiques des futurs enseignants dans leur utilisation des documentscadres du programme d'éducation a la citoyenneté de l'Ontario, au Canada. Nous utilisons une méthodologie d'analyse de cadre (frame analysis) pour examiner comment quatre candidats a l'enseignement d'un programme de formation des enseignants en Ontario (1) définissent la citoyenneté, (2) perçoivent leur utilisation du document-cadre du programme, et (3) perçoivent l'effet d'un réseau d'influences des politiques de programme d'études dans leurs écoles. Les...