On Qualitative Curriculum Research

The field of curriculum research has long been called methodological dispute between qualitative research and quantitative research, which became two developing lines of methodology of curriculum research since the beginning of 20* century. Influenced by the trend of scientism, quantitative research took the leading position in research methodology for quite a time and this led to a tendency of positivism, technologization, absolutization. Since 1960s, with the reflection of the limit of quantitative research, the qualitative research in curriculum attractive more and more attention. This paper discusses will discuss several theoretical and practical issues in qualitative curriculum research with the purpose of finding out new approaches to introduce the idea in qualitative research to the field of curriculum research, so as to enrich the methodology of curriculum research and provide reference for developing curriculum research both into wider and deeper areas.This paper is divided into nine parts:The first part is introduction, which clarify the definition of "qualitative research". On the bases of features of methodology of qualitative research, the author stresses the value of qualitative research in curriculum research. The conception of the paper is briefly introduced.The second part reviews the history of qualitative curriculum research. Through the description of traditional development of both positivism and hermeneutics in the field of education, the author exposes the background of emergence of qualitative curriculum research and arranges the separated periods of the history of qualitative curriculum research.The third part focuses on the theoretical bases of qualitative curriculum. From the aspects of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, curriculum theory, the papers analysis the subject background and ideological base of qualitative curriculum research, reveals the source of its theory.The fourth part discusses the criterion and principle of qualitative curriculum research, illustrates the significance and characteristics of qualitative curriculum research, analysis the specific contents of the canonical methods of qualitative curriculum research, and proposes several principles of methodology for qualitative curriculum research.The fifth part discusses the important factors and relationship concerning qualitative curriculum. The author respectively discusses features of the main body, object, context, method for qualitative curriculum research, analysis the complex relationships possibly existed among them and finally takes theoretical characteristic analysis on the reflecting, syncretic and ethnic aspects.The sixth part focuses on the design and execution of qualitative curriculum research. It discusses the goals, questions selection, background, sampling, information collection and analysis, the check-up of the result concerning the design and execution for qualitative curriculum research from the view of combination of theory and practice.The seventh part discusses the theory construction of qualitative curriculum research. On the basis of analysis of patterns of traditional theoretical construction, the author introduces the unit methods for the construction of qualitative curriculum research-the assumption of grounded theory and initially describes specific process and methods for grounded theory of curriculum construction.The eighth part discusses the application of qualitative curriculum research. The author selectively analysis the strategy and methods for the application of qualitative research. The cases "the development of research studies" and "classroom teaching for the application of new textbooks" in two experimented schools are cited as the reference for the execution of qualitative curriculum research.The ninth part is the conclusion. The author stresses again the positive significance of qualitative curriculum research in solving the problems concerning the separation of curriculum theories and practice. In this part the author proposes the...