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This paper focuses on the lived curriculum from the vantage of the students in a case study of a Sino-Canada transnational education programme in China. The programme consisted of subject area curricula transplanted from Ontario, Canada, and taught in English, as well as subject area curricula from Mainland China that was taught in Mandarin. The study’s methodology capitalized on nine student participants’ creation of multimodal texts that were designed to articulate their identities and experiences within the programme. The paper reflects on the affordances and constraints of multimodal data collection and analysis with the goal of illuminating the participating students’ literacy learning opportunities and identity options as they experienced them in the programme. Key findings include that students experienced the curriculum and the programme in sometimes contradictory ways. The programme seemed to allow students to interact with imagined global others and the curricular learning opportunities seemed to expand students’ literacy and identity options. SCS’s Canadian/Chinese literacy curriculum, however, seemed to be bifurcated along linguistic and cultural lines and did not seem to promote syncretic literacy practices where students were encouraged to create new forms of meaning making. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the nature and socio-political functions of Hong Kong's 'Chinese history curriculum' during colonialism and since decolonization and argues that these functions have resulted in a curriculum characterized by rote-learning and geared towards social control. Students are initiated into the traditional, orthodox view of Chinese history and prescribed moral judgements. Consequently, there is little chance for independent thinking on the part of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School-based curriculum development has been a highlight of China's new curriculum reform since 1999. This reform introduces a curriculum policy change towards devolving partial power in curriculum decision-making to teachers, and invites their active involvement in transforming their role from being book-knowledge transmitters to curriculum developers. This paper describes an action-research project based on a school-university collaborative effort to build teacher's practical, personal reflective experience, and understanding of both the new concept of school-based curriculum development and the wider curriculum reform. How such Western concepts as school-based curriculum development and reflective practice can be adapted and transformed in the Chinese context is examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum developers and scholars in China are facing a set of inter-related issues around the goals and the strategies of curriculum reform. This paper argues that there are, as in every process of curriculum development, seven goals to be addressed within China's curriculum reform: (1) the establishment of a new curriculum philosophy or ideal; (2) the development of educational objectives; (3) the renewal of educational content and experience; (4) the reconstruction of a model of curriculum organization; (5) innovation in curriculum materials; (6) the establishment of an active mode of teaching and instruction; and (7) the establishment of a new system of curriculum evaluation. Six strategies are needed for China to reach these goals: (1) improving the system of curriculum management; (2) redeveloping the mechanisms of curriculum reform; (3) promoting school-based curriculum development; (4) integrating information technology with curriculum; (5) emphasizing teachers' professional development; and (6) encouraging the whole nation's participation in the reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]