JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES (J.C.S.)
Year:2017 | Volume:12 | Issue:46 |Papers Count:7

“ Islamic Curriculum” is one of the newly-emerging concepts and areas in the curriculum studies. It mainly focuses on islamization of the curriculum based on the monotheistic worldview. However, no clear and defensible theoretical framework has been offered on the nature of Islamic curriculum and its boundaries. This paper aims to present an initial idea and framework for the Islamic curriculum and its boundaries. For this purpose, the content of existing works on Islamic curriculum was described, analyzed and criticized in the three stages. In the first stage, after identifying individual related works, the author's purpose of the Islamic curriculum and his/her intended dimension(s) for islamization of the knowledge dimensions of the curriculum were analyzed. In the second stage, the nature of author's activity – theorizing or applying current Western theories-were analyzed in the works. In the third stage, the works were criticized with regard to their content and conceptualization. Based on the current status, two main trends could be identified in this perspective: enriching Islamic curriculum with Islamic values, based on the theoretical framework of curricula design and development dominated in the West; and Islamic curriculum as a major philosophical-valued theory. Due to the insufficiency of these trends and their ignorance toward different knowledge dimensions of the Islamic curriculum, this study proposes a third alternative trend and seeks to call upon the specialists to consider the production of the Islamic curriculum knowledge by expanding theoretical discussions in all its related dimensions. Undoubtedly participation in the production of appropriate Islamic curriculum knowledge needs some so-called theorizing, as the only way of creating new knowledge.

The concept of null curriculum was first introduced by Eisner (1979). In his view, what is deleted from the school curriculum leads to educational defects in learners. The incidence of educational defects is not primarily due to the omission of some of the educational components, but there are other causes for null curriculum, such as neglected, demoded, distorted, and sterilized curricula, which also lead to shortcomings in the education process of individuals (Marzooghi, 2015). The present study investigates and validates conceptualization of various types of null curricula in both intentional and unintentional dimensions and also at the intended, implemented, and learned levels of curriculum. In this regard, the case analysis was used for determining the, and Cronbach's alpha coefficient was employed for obtaining the validity of the findings. The findings indicated the reliability and validity of the types of null curriculum.

The verification of a mathematical statement is normally difficult for students; and they often face difficulty realizing its relevance and necessity. The hidden complexities in the valuable nature of reasoning and proof signal to the significance of the way of presenting them in textbooks. The aim of this study is to determine the role of reasoning, especially deductive reasoning in 7th and 8th grades mathematics textbooks which was fulfilled though a content analysis method. The results show that the highest amount of reasoning, including different kinds of deduction, is allocated to the geometric content, although unexpected findings are obtained as well. Generally speaking, deductive reasoning has not been distributed uniformly in the chapters of mathematics textbooks under study. The deficiency of deduction could be observed in many chapters related to arithmetic, probability and statistics. In addition, the experimental argumentation has been increased by two times surprisingly in the 8th grade textbook compared to that of 7th grade. At the end of the paper, some considerations are discussed that should be taken into account when addressing the shift of attention from inductive to deductive reasoning in these grades.

The purpose of this study is to present a historical perspective of revisions in teacher education curricula in Iran. This study is a qualitative and historical research, and seeks to compare the revisions that the teacher education curricula have undertaken throughout times. The finding from the historical analysis of documents, reports, library resources and personal interviews with experts of teacher education, has evolved four periods: the first period as the disciplinary curriculum (from 1918 to 1933); the second period as multidisciplinary curriculum (from 1934 to 1983); the third period as disciplinary curriculum (from 1984 to 2013) and the fourth period as disciplinary curriculum (from 2014). Studying and analyzing the political, social and cultural conditions in each of these periods and recognizing the major approaches toward the revision of the teacher education curriculum helps educators to enrich their understanding of the current situation through gaining awareness of the historical context and it facilitates designing fruitful programs for the future.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the mental habits of secondary school students in Tehran's 9th district. 359 students were selected using stratified sampling method. The research method was descriptive and it was a cross-sectional survey. The Mindful Habits Questionnaire used )Abdolmaleki, 1391), with a reliability coefficient of 0. 78, and content validity of it was approved by experts. . The findings showed that the changing status of habits of minds and its dimensions were favorable in female and male students. There is a significant difference in the ranking of mental health variable across students at the level of0. 05. The highest rank among the students was related to the"Computation and Estimation"dimension with the average rating of 3. 40, the lowest rank was observed in the dimension of"manipulation and observation"with the average rating of2. 23. In male students, the highest rank was related to the"Computation and Estimation"dimension with the average rating of3. 79and the lowest rank was in the dimension of"manipulation and observation"with the average rating of2. 03. In female students, the highest rank was related to the values and attitudes dimension with the average rank of3. 40and the lowest rank was in the dimension of"manipulation and observation"with the average rating of2. 36.

This study aims to assess alignment of curriculum in Thinking and Research Course of 6th grade during 2013-2014. There research method was descriptive and a sample of 50 principals, 100 teachers and 250 students were selected through random sampling. The corpus for this study included the Transformation Document, National Curriculum, the Thinking and Research Textbook and the Teacher’ s Guide. The data was collected through content analysis, observation of implemented and achieved programs by questionnaires. The obtained data were analyzed by t-test, Chi-square, and Pearson correlation. The Results of the study indicated that there is a weak congruity and 37 percent the inappropriate design and there were problems during implementation including unfamiliarity with the theoretical foundation, negative attitude and lack of professional qualifications of teachers, inaccessibility of facilities and equipment and time for training. The highest level of congruity was observed in the achieved curriculum regarding knowledge section with the final exam scores; however, the portion of achievement to the theoretical and performance goals is low.