Designing A Curriculum To Achieve Social Justice

Equity in education is the essential requirement of socialism.To develop socialism and gradually realize the common prosperity of the people,equity in education is the foundation.Educational opportunities directly affect the possible outcomes of the future development of educatees.Therefore,equality of educational opportunities is crucial to the realization of educational equality.Since the educational opportunity lies in the contact of certain specific curriculums,it is necessary to study the curriculum equity which is the core of educational equity.This research puts geography curriculum on the foundation of curriculum equity and adopts the theoretical perspective of social realism to examine geography curriculum.Based on the investigation of the turn of social realism in the sociology of curriculum,this research establishes the relationship between curriculum knowledge under the knowledge view of social realism and curriculum equity.Taking secondary school geography curriculum as an example,this research attempts to systematically discuss the geographical knowledge types and geography curriculum forms under the knowledge view of social realism.And with the support of empirical research,it adopts grounded theory to further explore the geography teaching mode that enables the equal geography curriculum to be transmitted.It is expected that this research can enrich the research and understanding of curriculum equity and expand the thinking and imagination of secondary school geography curriculum.Specifically,this research discusses the influence of social realism on the construction of a geography curriculum to achieve social justice from the following six chapters: The first chapter illustrates the necessity and possibility of the study of curriculum equity,and on the basis of literature review points out that social realism knowledge view provides the possibility of having the epistemological basis of knowledge equally.Therefore,the selection,organization and transmission of geography curriculum knowledge under the knowledge view of social realism formed the possibility of providing students with an equal geography curriculum,and the specific research problems,research ideas and research methods are further clarified.The second chapter analyzes the development course and research object of the sociology of curriculum,and finds out the problems brought by social constructivism.On the basis of acknowledging the sociality of knowledge,social realism,as an alternative to the research of the sociology of curriculum,guarantees the objectivity of knowledge by acknowledging the knowledge criterion advocated by the discipline community,thus building a bridge between curriculum knowledge and curriculum equity.The third chapter clarifies the definition of "powerful knowledge",and based on the explanation that the powerful knowledge can give power to the knowledge owner,identifies four categories of powerful geographical knowledge which constructs the equal geography curriculum.These four categories of powerful geographical knowledge include: geographical knowledge that provides new ways of thinking,geographical knowledge that provides new ways of understanding,geographical knowledge that provides new ways of acting,and geographical knowledge that provides new ways of participating.Taking the boundary function and social differentiation of knowledge as two principles,the fourth chapter proposes three possible educational scenarios for the future curriculum.The geography curriculum for educational equity is presented in the form of Future 3 curriculum,that is,the geography subject formed by the "recontextualization" of the discipline of geography is still the basic form,with powerful geographical knowledge with objectivity and historicity as the main content,and emphasizes the continuous function of the discipline boundary.The fifth chapter uses the grounded theory and the software NVivo 12 which based on the grounded theory,to deeply explore six senior secondary school geography teachers' classroom teaching videos through open coding,axial coding and selective coding.Furthermore,the visible geography pedagogy mode which makes the equal geography curriculum transmitted is generated.The sixth chapter six firstly expounds the research conclusions which are: curriculum knowledge from the perspective of social realism can promote the realization of curriculum equity;the equal geography curriculum is composed of powerful geographical knowledge and will be presented in the form of Future 3 curriculum;visible geography pedagogy mode can guarantee the effective transmission of equal geography curriculum.Then,due to the view that "education cannot compensate society",the curriculum equity in this research can only be limited to a relative sense.Finally,it is pointed out that further research on knowledge differentiation and school education with knowledge rights as its target can be carried out.