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Summary
Sharing methods and orientations of the interpretive paradigm, the contributors to this book sharpen our understanding of the school's differentiating function. They analyze issues and clarify persistent contradictions in traditional studies of curriculum differentiation and tracking by examining schools and classrooms and describing the processes and contexts in which curriculum differentiation produces both its intended and unintended effects.
Curriculum Differentiation focuses on student's creation of meaning from differentiated classroom ecperiences. It studies lower-track students, analyzes the experiences of students in alternative programs, and contrasts the experiences of honor students in two different schools. It also offers teachers' perspectives, and analyzes curriculum differentiation from a district or system perspective.
The authors challenge notions that curriculum differentiation is a neutral, necessary response to individual differences, or that it has an adverse impact on students. Professional educators interested in understanding and improving the means by which high schools carry out the nearly impossible mandate of equitably distributing "humanized" knowledge while accommodating diversity will find this book an important resource.
"It's a refreshing, qualitative discussion. I had difficulty putting it down." -- Kofi Lomotey, State University of New York, Buffalo
Reba Page is Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Riverside, and Linda Valli is Associate Professor in the Department of Education at Catholic University, Washington, D.C.
Table of Contents
1. Curriculum Differentiation: An Introduction
Reba Page and Linda Valli
2. A "Relevant" Lesson: Defining the Lower-Track Student
Reba Page
3. A Curriculum of Effort: Tracking Students in a Catholic High School
Linda Valli
4. The College-Preparatory Curriculum Across Schools: Access to Similar Learning Opportunities?
Susan Hanson
5. Real Teaching: How High School Teachers Negotiate Societal, Local Community, and Student Pressures When They Define Their Work
Annette Hemmings and Mary Haywood Metz
6. Curriculum Differentiation as Social Redemption: The Case of School-Aged Mothers
Nancy Lesko
7. Refugee Students' Perceptions of Curriculum Differentiation
Beth L. Goldstein
8. Following the Right Track: A Comparison of Tracking Practices in Public and Catholic Schools
Margaret Camarena
9. Modifying Values and Behaviors About Tracking: A Case Study
Carolyn Anderson and Rebecca Barr
10. Organizational Meanings of Curriculum Differentiation Practices
