Abstract:
This qualitative study addresses the question of how teachers negotiate meaning
of new curriculum to better understand how curriculum is transformed from a theoretical
construct to a practical one. Through interviews with 5 teachers, their experiences were
examined as they negotiated the process of implementing new curriculum. Three
theoretical constructs provided the entry point into the study: epistemology, teacher
knowledge, and teacher learning. Using inductive analysis, 4 points or attributes of
negotiation emerged: reference, growth, autonomy, and reconciliation. These attributes
provided a theoretical framework from which a constructivist conceptualization of
teacher learning and teacher knowledge could serve to understand the process of how
teachers negotiate meaning of curriculum. Studied and theorized in this way, teacher
knowledge and teacher learning are seen to be inextricably linked in a relationship that is
dynamically changed by forces of stability and instability. Theorizing the negotiation of
meaning from a constructivist epistemology also strengthened the assertion that
negotiating meaning is a unique structural process, and that knowledge construction is
therefore unique to each knower and subject to experience in a particular time and place.
The implications for such a theory are, first, that it questions the legitimacy of privatized
teacher practice and, second, that it calls for a renewed conceptualization of collegial
network and relationship to strengthen the capacity for negotiating meaning of curricular
initiatives. Understanding the relationship of curricular theory and negotiating meaning
also has implications for curriculum development. In particular, the study highlights the
necessity of professional discretion and the generative process of negotiating meaning.
