ABSTRACT
The impact on curriculum development of the educational change model of RDD (research-develop-disseminate) has been debated over several decades. From an early interest in development conceived as research-related and leading to change through the systematic dissemination of curriculum products and processes, the curriculum agencies set up teams of specialists to implement the model. However, other factors and forces intervened. Not only were there criticisms of the relevance of this style of thinking and acting to school curriculum change, but the agencies responsible for promoting and supporting curriculum development were not, on the whole, research centres and they lacked the resources needed to undertake serious RDD on a substantial scale, appropriate to the size and complexity of their client school system.
The focus of curriculum development has shifted, over time, from the central team approach embracing research and development in specific topics and areas of the curriculum to more diffuse, local or ‘grass roots’ forms of school improvement. The quest for improvement in the quality of learning in schools, in student participation and in the effects and outcomes of learning, like the team-based research and development approach, is faced with serious challenges. Still lacking are comprehensive strategies and, no less important, goals, criteria and values for assessing ‘improvement’. How, then, is improvement in the curriculum to be effected?
The Schools Council has been a major national curriculum development centre during a period of unprecedented growth and activity in educational research and development. Its experience, aims and dilemmas are explored and reference is made to other curriculum agencies to illustrate the central argument of this chapter: that the older version of RDD needs to be revised and reconstructed in order to meet the requirements of teacher professionalism, local initiatives, school autonomy, and participatory decision making, and in response to new social and cultural demands. The chapter argues for a transition from RDD to what is termed RED (review-evaluate-develop): that is, to a situation where local groups, working collaboratively and within broad policy frameworks, themselves participate in the basic processes of research and development in the curriculum.
