فهرست مطالب m. amin khandaghi

As a possible way of improving curricula, it was hypothesized that the role of religion in curriculum development needs to be revisited. To this end, experts’ views on religious foundations of curricula were sought, identified, analyzed, and conceptualized. The results show that the experts’ views on religious foundation of curricula is mostly affected by their standpoint on both curriculum and current perceptions of its religious foundations. This was taken to be the experts’ reaction to their understanding of the very concept of curriculum. Some consider this concept to be equivalent to curriculum development, while a very few think of curriculum as a field of study and as a result includes curricula’s religious foundations. The former limited view of curriculum and its dimensions has led to a limited impact of religion on curriculum. Therefore, both understandings of curriculum and its religious foundations need to change in order to maximize the role of religion in curriculum. Considering curriculum development as a science could lead to the identification of fundamental roles that religion, as a semantic network of reasoning, can play.

The present research has aimed to find out how authorities see the boundaries of student involvement in the curriculum. To do so, first viewpoints of authorities on student involvement in the curriculum were described and categorized using documentary, library and conceptual analysis research methods. Subsequently, while criticizing the points of view provided, the aspects of student involvement in the curriculum which authorities agreed upon and had overlooked were indicated. Then, having examined the status quo, authorities' views on the boundaries of having students participate in the curriculum were pointed out. The participants in this research were thirteen authorities and policy-makers on curriculum who were selected purposefully based on their attitude toward student involvement in curriculum. The results obtained by analyzing authorities' points of view showed student involvement in the curriculum to be possible in all aspects of the curriculum. However, the theoretical and practical mechanisms required for students' actual involvement in the curriculum have not been prepared yet. Having conducted various studies, the negotiated curriculum model was determined to be an appropriate approach for students to participate in the curriculum, based on which a fundamental change in attitude toward students as "aware and effective individuals" who can be involved in the process of curriculum improvement has been pointed out.