Understanding Curriculum: An Actor Network Theory Approach

Abstract

This paper, attempts to use Actor Network Theory to describe a university curriculum as a process in which human ‘actors’ (teachers, learners, administrators and others) interact with each other and with aspects of their environment considered to have agentive roles similar to those of the human participants (books, computers, desks, classrooms, physical spaces, online spaces and so on), to form the networks which embody curricula and curriculum change. As teachers or learners taking part in any curriculum process, the knowledge we enact, the identities we take on, and the beha-viours we engage in are all influenced by these networks. Put simply, this kind of approach is an attempt to understand why specific curriculum changes are successful or unsuccessful, and how we can go about initiating the process of change in rational and sensitive ways.