Educational expertise as prestige: research-intensive curriculum change

Abstract

Institution-wide curriculum change is a costly, time-intensive and politically fraught undertaking. It is a challenge identifying who has responsibility for the curriculum and who is empowered to change it. The unbundling of the traditional tri-partite academic role of teaching, research and service leaves a gap of who in those communities decides what features in the curriculum. Using discourse analysis of curriculum change documentation, this paper analyses the experience of departments in a research-intensive institution undergoing a holistic, large-scale curriculum review. Departments engaged to varying degrees, with associated integration of educational and disciplinary perspectives. Landscapes of practice are used to explore different communities within departments coming together, or not, in the process. The acknowledgement and appreciation of educational expertise alongside disciplinary research-based knowledge is highlighted as a marker for successful adoption of the curriculum review intentions. This paper contributes to the underdeveloped field of curriculum change in higher education.