Reconceptualizing the teacher education curriculum: Changing views of subject-matter knowledge and preparation in teacher education reform, 1983-1991

This dissertation discusses conceptions of subject-matter knowledge and preparation in the Teacher Education Reform Movement from 1983-91. This period begins in 1983 when A Nation at Risk challenged the balance between content and pedagogy courses in the baccalaureate teacher education curriculum, and a flood of subsequent reports abandoned the undergraduate education major and its longstanding pedagogical focus. The discussion ends in the present as reformers translate their philosophical models of subject-matter knowledge from the first round of reports (1985-89) into curriculum plans for the new subject-matter preparation programs (1990-91). Specifically, it reviews competing conceptions of subject-matter knowledge in four key reform projects (AAC, Boyer, Holmes, Project 30), and identifies three generic conceptions of subject-matter knowledge currently in use by reformers: epistemic, social context, and curricular.;The curriculum reform questions raised by this study concern the definition of subject-matter knowledge. Subject-matter knowledge has been a longtime concern of teacher educators, vying periodically with pedagogy for most-favored status in teacher education. Today, reformers' competing models of subject-matter preparation do not provide a unified direction for the reform effort. In the absence of a definition to guide subject-matter preparation reform, the dissertation derives criteria from curriculum theory to evaluate the reform models. Based on criteria developed from the writings of five philosophers (Schwab, McPeck, Scheffler, Dewey, and Conant), an epistemic conception of subject-matter knowledge is proposed as the strongest view for teacher education. This view counteracts the fact-oriented conceptions of subject-matter knowledge which have repeatedly troubled American schools, and most recently have been the target of nationwide reforms in baccalaureate teacher education.;Curriculum trends and gaps in reform thinking are identified, and a model of subject-matter preparation for elementary teachers is proposed as an alternative to current reform thinking. The model proposes a lexicon of discipline knowledge, a psychology of learning based on theories of adult epistemological development, and a rigorous definition of interdisciplinary studies and pedagogy for teaching interdisciplinary methodology. Elementary Teacher Subject-Matter Preparation in all school subjects is abandoned by the model in favor of a two-subject interdisciplinary preparation in a broad liberal arts field (humanities, natural sciences, or social sciences).