Curriculum Studies and Practice
Program Overview
This four-course topic provides educators working in a range of contexts the opportunity to undertake an in-depth examination of the varied ways they might conceptualise and engage in the practice of curriculum making. The program creates spaces for educators to make linkages between their practice and various themes in the field of curriculum studies. Major course themes include, but are not limited to, the often-unacknowledged importance of place in curriculum making, possibilities for creating more dialogic and equitable classrooms, and the potential for new forms of meaning making in response to shifting cultural, political, and environmental realities.
Program Details
- To understand the historical roots and contemporary themes of curriculum studies
- To critically reflect on the ways that curriculum both shapes and is shaped by contemporary public discourses
- To provoke dialogue on the political nature of curriculum, pedagogy and education
- To understand curriculum’s relationship to significant social and political movements and concepts, including colonialism, resistance, Indigenous resurgence, democracy, social justice and public protest
- To apply course materials, discussions and activities to students’ own experiences, scholarly work and/or work in educational settings
Experiential learning is learning by doing that bridges knowledge and experience through critical reflection. This program offers the following kinds of experiential learning opportunities:
- Relating course readings, discussions, and activities to relevant experiences in schools, other sites of learning, and communities
- (Re)Creating a sample curricular document / model
- Selecting and analyzing existing programs in educational settings through the concepts / ideas / theories presented in the courses
- Designing a detailed plan for a program to implement in professional context
- Applying concepts to authentic teaching and learning contexts
This certificate will be relevant to individuals located within a range of settings, including K-12 and higher education across disciplines, community-based and informal education, educational leadership, media and the arts, and the not-for-profit sector.
A registration package will be sent to new students after they have been admitted. Registration for the summer term will be available in late winter. Fall and Winter registration opens in the spring. Your Graduate Program Administrator will send more information about registration to you.
Fee details are available through the University Calendar. An explanation of fees is available on the Faculty of Graduate Studies' website.
The University of Calgary offers multiple ways to meet the cost of your education. Please refer to the Awards, Scholarships and Bursaries page to learn more about options available to students. For additional information, please contact Student Financial Support.
Please refer to Admission Requirements for Master's Programs.
The flexibility of online Masters degree opportunities, combined with dynamic topics that met my interests drew me to the program at Werklund. Moreover, the opportunity to ladder my program meant that I could work around my growing family and professional commitments while still completing milestones.
Chelsi Ryan, MEd
Curriculum as Divergence
Chelsi graduated with her MEd in 2023. Read more about Chelsi's journey
Program Schedule & Course Descriptions
Program begins each Summer term (refer to the Academic Schedule for specific dates)
Outlines are normally available 1-2 weeks prior to the start of term in D2L
3 units per course
Term 1 - Summer
Introduction to Curriculum Studies
This course will introduce students to the contested terrain of curriculum inquiry. Students will reflect on the politics of curriculum scholarship and practices, and examine the many ways that curriculum has been conceptualized throughout curriculum studies’ history. These conceptualizations may include considering curriculum as planned, emergent, permeable, hidden, enacted and lived. Students will also be encouraged to explore new possibilities for understanding curriculum that respond to contemporary life.
Term 1 - Summer
Learning in Place
Students in this course will examine the often under-acknowledged importance of place in curriculum research and practice. Drawing on Indigenous, Euro-Western and other culturally rooted scholarship and practice, students will inquire into the relationships between knowledge, people and the more-than-human world. Topics to be considered may include: place-based learning; ecological ways of knowing; responsibility to land and place; wisdom and intergenerational ways of knowing; and schools and classrooms as places.
Term 2- Fall
Curriculum Dialogue and Democracy
Curriculum studies has a long tradition of examining the relationships between education, dialogue and democracy. Students in this course will consider the power dynamics that occur in educational settings, and the possibilities for creating dialogic and equitable spaces and practices. Topics to be considered may include: student voice; classroom discourse and power relations; collective knowledge creation; the child as a legitimate source of knowledge; teachers’ and students’ mediation of the curriculum; and democracy, citizenship and education.
Term 3 - Winter
Social and Cultural Politics of Curriculum
Shifting social, cultural, political and environmental realities have given rise to new forms of protest, resistance and counter-narration. Such practices of “talking back” to power are deeply pedagogical and inform who we are and who we might become, both individually and collectively. In this course, students will consider the potential for activism, protest, meaning-making and the arts to address social injustice and assert agency in everyday life and educational settings. Topics for exploration may include: art-making as resistance; education and environmentalism; youth activism; learner disengagement as protest; critical literacy and counter-narratives; education for social justice; and feminist, queer, Indigenous, anti-colonial, anti-racist and anti-oppression perspectives on curriculum.