ABSTRACT
In the opening chapter, we drew attention to the connectedness of our increasingly global world. The theme of connectedness underpins Clark’s ( 1997 ) suggestion that, to help students cope with their futures, our educational vision should be one that enables students to become functionally literate, to become people who are fl exible, self-disciplined and can anticipate and solve problems. Such a vision, Clark argued, would require a learnercentred, integrated curriculum. Proponents of an integrated curriculum view connectedness as a central tenet, as is evident in the writings of Drake ( 1993 ) and others. The nature of curriculum integration, as described in the educational literature, is quite diverse, and we begin this chapter with a synthesis of some of the signifi cant issues. In our research, we also found considerable diversity in the kinds of curriculum integration implemented by the schools we visited. From an exploration of participants’ perceptions of the purposes they serve and the programmes that resulted, we devised a framework into which our experiences of curriculum integration could be structured. In this chapter we use a case study to illustrate each element of this framework. With this framework as a base, the factors that affect the implementation and outcomes of the various forms of integrated curricula are explored in the subsequent chapter.
