made by shah nawaz unar- snjamunar@gmail.com

1. By shah nawaz unar
02-11-2017

2. Introduction
 Born in 1926 Stenhouse was a British Educational Theorist
who was credited to reshaping the curriculum
What is his theory?
Lawrence Stenhouse (1975) produced one of the best-
known explorations of a process model of curriculum
theory and practice.
 After teaching for a number of years, Stenhouse worked at
Durham University in the mid-1950s before moving to
Jordanhill College in Glasgow. Then, in 1967, Stenhouse
became Director of the Humanities Curriculum Project
(HCP), which Elliott and Norris consider his ‘greatest
achievement’

3. Stenhouse theory
 He defined curriculum tentatively: "A curriculum is an
attempt to communicate the essential principles and
features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is
open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation
into practice."
A curriculum, like the recipe for a dish, is first seen as a
possibility, then the subject of experiment. The recipe
offered publicly is in a sense a report on the experiment.
Similarly, a curriculum should be grounded in practice. It is
an attempt to describe the work observed in classrooms.
Finally, within limits, a recipe can be varied according to
taste - so can a curriculum.

4. Stenhouse theory
 Stenhouse likens curriculum to a recipe in cookery......
Stenhouse process theory promotes:
• More student choice.
• Looks at curriculum not as a physical thing but as the
interaction of lecturers, students and knowledge.
• Content and means are developed as teachers and
students work together.
• There is a clear focus on learning, rather than teaching –
lecturers and students as partners in meaning-making.
• Curriculum as an active rather than technical exercise.

5. Stenhouse and research
 It was in Stenhouse’s work with the Humanities Curriculum Project
(1967-72) that he first started to question the role of academic research
in improving education. Questioning the power relationship that put
teachers in a position of authority over students let to a questioning of
the power structure that placed academic researchers, who were
influencing the ways teachers taught and students learned, in a
position of authority over teachers and schools. Stenhouse believed
that studying, developing, and experimenting with curricula was the
task of teachers, not academic researchers.
How does this demonstrate in today's practice?
* Group discussions
* Evaluation of our lessons
* Promoting Independent Learners
* Team meetings
* Self-assessment and peer assessment


6. Stenhouse and research
 Lawrence Stenhouse, for those who don’t know, based
his thinking on an epistemological thesis that
emphasised the provisionality of knowledge and
research. He believed, however, that this thesis had
implications for teaching in so far as a curriculum is
itself an object of enquiry that is tested in the
classroom and seminar by both teachers and students.
A curriculum is nothing more than a series of
hypotheses that can be refined but never perfected.

7. Stenhouse and research
 Consequently, Stenhouse stressed that education is a matter of
process rather than the achievement of prescribed objectives: the
aim of education is itself enshrined in the process of enquiry.
Moreover - and this is crucial - he never believed that enquiry
could only be conducted by the most able. He held strongly to
the view that young people of all abilities and backgrounds could
be encouraged to think of their learning in terms of enquiry.
Behind Stenhouse’s educational theory was a firm and generous
democratic conviction that was thoroughly optimistic about
what human beings could achieve. Moreover, he viewed this
achievement not as the mere fulfilling of individual potential but
as sharing in and participating in a democratic culture. What is
striking about Stenhouse the person, however, is that he found
the energy and purpose to try and make these ideas actually
happen in the classroom. He was an intellectual all right, but one
with strong pragmatic abilities as well.

8. Stenhouse on reflective practice
 In England we have a rich history of practitioner enquiry,
embodied in the notion of teacher-as-researcher,
accredited to Stenhouse (1975) and indicated in more
recent discussions of practitioner enquiry (Menter et al.
2011; BERA-RSA, 2014; Leat et al. 2014).
 “As a starting point I shall define research as 'systematic
inquiry made public'. Like all such definitions this is too
simple. However, it alerts you to my point of view and puts
research in a particular perspective, and I hope this will
serve to relate my argument to your own posi ti on”.
(stenhouse,1975)

9. Stenhouse on educational research
 “Inquiry is a teleological pattern of action whose purpose is
satisfaction, and it is related psychologically to curiosity, a
disposition to explore the environment in order to assess its
potential for yielding satisfactions”.
 “Whon I address the problem of the application of research
to education, I conceive it in terms of research lodged
within the broad tradition of scholarship which I have just
sketched. And, of course, the crucial issue in education, as
in other applied fields, is that of the relationship of
scholarship and research to action”.
(stenhouse, 1975)

10. Conclusion
 Research can be adequately applied to education only when it
develops theory which can be tested by teachers in classrooms.
 Research guides action by generating action research (or at least
the adoption of action as a systematic mode of inquiry). Action
research in education rests upon the designirr of procedures in
schools which meet both action criteria and research criterion,
that is, experiments which can he justified both on the grounds
of what they teach teachers and researchers and on the grounds
of what they teach pupils. A systematic structure of such
procedures 1 call a hypothetical curriculum. Such a curriculum is
the appropriate experimental procedure through which research
is applied by testing, refining, and generating theory in the
laboratory of the classroom.