Curriculum Differentiation

Book excerpt: 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.