Chapter 8 Conceptualizing Curriculum Making as Interwoven with Identity Making and Assessment Making

Abstract

The interim research text shared at the beginning of this chapter was composed from field notes and other field texts created as we lived alongside Ji-Sook in her school and home places and through conversations with Ji-Sook and with Mrs. Han. The interim research text shows something of ways in which we recognized Ji-Sook's curriculum making as interwoven with her assessment making and identity making. By tracing Ji-Sook's assessment making in this interim research text, we see that before our coming to know Ji-Sook, she and her parents were already engaged in this process. At the centre of the family's assessment making was Ji-Sook's life, the life curriculum she was composing in Korea. As described in earlier chapters, Mr. and Mrs. Han were concerned about the competitive aspects of schooling in Korea. As Ji-Sook's parents, they wanted Ji-Sook to be deeply engaged in learning in school. In part, Mr. and Mrs. Han did not want Ji-Sook's life to be shaped by the dominant social and cultural plotlines of competition for the highest grades in schools in Korea. However, they did want her to attend university. Mr. and Mrs. Han had experienced long years of studying and testing as they competed for grades that would guarantee their acceptance into a Korean university. This was not what Mr. and Mrs. Han wanted for Ji-Sook's life, for her identity making. It was their dream of a “happier” childhood for Ji-Sook that shaped the family's immigration to Canada.

Citation

Huber, J., Shaun Murphy, M. and Jean Clandinin, D. (2011), "Chapter 8 Conceptualizing Curriculum Making as Interwoven with Identity Making and Assessment Making", Huber, J., Shaun Murphy, M. and Jean Clandinin, D. (Ed.) Places of Curriculum Making (Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 14), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 119-137. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3687(2011)0000014010