مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - The Role of Philosophy in Developing of Curricula

Abstract :

Education is shaped by the adopted school of philosophy constitute a whole of planned activities that will take the society to the future in the way guided by philosophy. Any society wants to educate the youth in the direction of the adopted ideological philosophy and guarantee its future without leaving up to chance. The founders of the Republic of Turkey adopted pragmatism which, in essence, centralizes reason and science, emphasizes learning through experience and practice, and aims democratic way of life, and headed to construct an educational system in accordance with this school of philosophy. The purpose of this study is to explore interaction between philosophy and curriculum along with its all elements by working through curriculum transforming education into a “deliberate enculturation” processes, and role of the philosophy in determination, planning and implementation of the elements related to curriculum. That is because factors that influence the educational aims, goals and objectives and the way we approach all the elements of curricula stem from philosophical ground. In addition, our philosophical stance and attitudes determines where should we look at and what we should prioritize while examining all the data regarding the society, individual and the subject area. Accordingly, taking a philosophical stance and putting this stance at the centre of curricula after criticism are two things required to take a scientific and systematic educational approach. This being the case, it becomes obvious that every educational system needs a philosophical movement at its very centre. All designed curricula; in determining of candidate aims to be gained by the students, in gathering valuable knowledge indicated by these goals, in organizing learning experiences in order to gain those knowledge to students and at the end in the stage of evaluation to specify the effectiveness, needs guidance of philosophy. It is thought that this study will provide an important contribution in terms of discovering service of philosophy in the process of program development. In the frame of this aim, the study is conducted according to this research question: In the development of curriculum and elements of it, what are the contributions of philosophy?