JOURNAL OF CURRICULUM STUDIES (J.C.S.)
Year:2009 | Volume:13 | Issue:11|Papers Count:9

This study was focused on necessity of learning about the concept of love as part of the null curriculum and an inevitable experience of the youth. Using descriptive and interpretive methods, this study aimed to portray love from adolescents’ views and examine its compatibility with scientific findings and scriptural texts. A sample of 384 from all high school students in Tehran, in 1386 participated in the study. Results indicate that 1) the concept of love among the youth is associated with empathy, passion, perfectionism, and obsession; 2) The meaning of love among the youth is so exhaustive and may include expression of their love. towards the Almighty, the Infallible Imams, the nature, and everything; 3) love is considered to be impulsive, natural, intentional, transcendent, unique, spin-off, and affectionate; and 4) the sources of information include peers, parents, society and the mass media. Finally, it was concluded that a holistic approach toward love, compared to univocal approach, is prevailing among the participants.

This paper examines the importance of having a multicultural curriculumin amulticultural society. It focuses on the theory of “recognition” and its application in multicultural educational contexts. Recognition is an important social mechanism that needs to be practiced at both personal and social levels. In the public place of school, students of different race, gender, class, and ethnicity need to be recognized for their individuality and distinctness from everyone else so that their identity is not glossed over by the identity of the majority group. Meanwhile, students should be treated all equally as human beings no matter where they are coming from or what their differences are. This is what Charles Taylor calls ‘the politics of difference’ and ‘the politics of equal dignity’. Recognition, whether it is recognition of human differences or it is recognition of human equality, needs to be a central concern of educators and be practiced at schools. This paper examines Taylor’s politics of recognition as well as Charles Bingham’s idea on “mirroring” which is very much related to the concept of recognition. In addition, using Vivian Paley's teaching experiences, some practical examples will be given to explain recognizing students for who they are and celebrating their heterogeneity in classroom.

Secondary education is a gate to both higher education and job market. Also, it is important due to its role in fulfilling the needs of society and empowering graduates in line with societal expectations and aims. In this survey study, a questionnaire was administered to a randomly selected sample of 629 parents and educators to explore their views regarding the extent to which the aims and objectives of secondary education are achieved. Results indicated differences between views of parents and educators in terms of ideological, ethical, academic, cultural, and physiological objectives whereas no difference was found regarding political, social, and economic objectives. Compared to educators, interestingly parents found secondary education more satisfactory. No difference was found between men and women.

Mathematics is an integral component of school programs. It has been of so remarkable importance that mathematics education arguably is equated with formal mathematics curriculum. On the other hand, Math teachers assume that the nature of the subject is twofold: 1) abstract and 2) concrete. Unfortunately, the latter is ignored in favour of the former in the formal curriculum. Therefore, students are mainly exposed to one side of Math which has nothing to do with their actual experiences. Consequently, students become averse to mathematics and this, in turn, has made a serious o\stac1e to learn the subject. Math education specialists as well as curriculum developers, even in Iran, have realized this duality and tried to integrate the two sides of the subject. This paper focuses on concrete side of the curriculum through the framework of informal mathematics. Then, based on a case study on revised math curriculum in middle schools this paper tries to explore how informal math could facilitate learning opportunities of the subject.

The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of relevant literature in the past decades as to the nature of entrepreneurship capability as an inherited trait or an acquired competence. If the latter is the case, what objectives, content, and teaching strategies should be considered. Having reviewed the literature it was concluded that entrepreneurship could be learnt and taught in schools. In general, entrepreneurship has a well defined framework at international level that facilitates an overview of its objectives, definitions, typology, content, and teaching strategies as well as characteristics of entrepreneurs. Also, on the basis of current evidence and factors at international and national levels the necessity of entrepreneurship education in the Iranian schools was justified. Finally, some suggestions were made as to the implementation and enhancement of entrepreneurship education in schools.

This study was aimed at examining the current place of values in Religious Education (RE) textbooks compared to the desired situation. This is a survey study carried out in two stages. In the first stage, the relevant literature and conceptual framework for values education along with objectives of middle schools in Iran were reviewed in order to find out the essential areas and factors regarding Islamic values. Consequently, values were classified into five categories: ritual, ideological, economic, social and ethical. In the second stage, using content analysis all RE textbooks being taught at middle schools were examined. Results indicate that ideological values account for % 45.43 of the RE texts, followed by ritual (%24.9), social (%13.51), ethical (%10.28) and economic values (% 5.8) values. Statistical analysis yielded differences between the RE textbooks in terms of attention given to each category. Finally, it was concluded that values education is currently far from the comprehensive and thorough Islamic values and therefore, a serious attention is required to revise the RE textbooks.

This study aimed to explore how confident students at both middle and high schools are in terms of life skills. Statistical population included all boys and girls studying at middle and schools in Kordestan. A randomly selected sample of 700 students participated in the study. Data were collected using a questionnaire developed by the researchers with a Cronbach’s alpha of %90. Results indicated that participants were generally about average in terms of life skills. However, the participants demonstrated high competence in decision making and problem solving skills and low competence in human relations skills. In terms of gender, girls stood higher than boys in general. Parent’s qualifications had no effect on life skills acquisition. Apart from human relations skills, significant differences were found between high school students of different fields. Significant differences were found between middle school and high school students in both decision making and citizenship skills whereas no difference was evident in other areas of life skills.