Who Should Develop School Curriculum: Parents, Teachers & Community
This paper examines who should participate in developing school curriculum and why, arguing that parents hold the primary role as stakeholders, followed by teachers, students, and community leaders. Drawing on John Dewey's vision of utopian schools, Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, experiential learning theory, and constructivist frameworks, the paper builds a case for a collaborative, democratic approach to curriculum development. It also emphasizes the critical importance of character education as a foundation for producing ethical, responsible citizens, and considers critical theory's warnings about power structures in education. The paper ultimately calls for a holistic curriculum model that centers parental input while integrating diverse stakeholder expertise.
- Introduction: Dewey's primacy of parents in school curriculum
- Background: From Expert-Driven to Participatory Curriculum: Shift from expert-led to democratic curriculum models
- Dewey's Theory and Experiential Learning: ZPD, experiential learning, and playful learning theory
- Dewey's Theory, Character Education, and Constructivist Theory: Character education, constructivism, and critical theory
- Who Should Play a Part in Developing Curriculum and Why: Ranked stakeholder roles: parents, teachers, students, community
- Conclusion: Collaborative, character-centered curriculum development synthesis
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What makes this paper effective
- It integrates multiple theoretical frameworks — Dewey, Vygotsky, Freire, and constructivism — into a unified argument rather than treating them as separate topics.
- It anticipates and responds to counterarguments against both constructivist and critical theory perspectives, demonstrating intellectual balance.
- The paper moves logically from historical background to theory to practical recommendations, giving the argument a clear and credible arc.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper exemplifies theoretical synthesis: rather than defending a single framework, the author weaves together Dewey's experiential vision, Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, Freire's critical pedagogy, and constructivist theory to support a layered, nuanced position on curriculum stakeholders. This technique shows graduate-level ability to hold multiple scholarly perspectives in productive tension rather than simply choosing one.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a focused introduction grounded in Dewey's 1933 text, then provides historical context for the shift from expert-led to participatory curriculum models. Two substantial body sections apply theory — first experiential learning and ZPD, then character education and constructivism — before a dedicated section directly answers the titular question with a ranked stakeholder model. The conclusion synthesizes the argument and reinforces the centrality of character education. This structure effectively mirrors an academic argument essay: context → theory → application → recommendation → synthesis.
Introduction
One of the first things to leap out at the reader of John Dewey's description of schools in Utopia is the fact that he gives primacy of place to parents — meaning that only those married people who have had children of their own are allowed to hold positions of authority in the "schools," or assemblies where children learn from their elders. Dewey (1933) begins the section with the subtitle "Parenthood Required" and proceeds to state that "the adults who are most actively concerned with the young have, of course, to meet a certain requirement, and the first thing that struck me as a visitor to Utopia was that they must all be married persons and, except in exceptional cases, must have had children of their own." In short, Dewey holds that parents should occupy a special place in the education of children: they have been there with their own; they know what children go through and what they need. Parents, moreover, represent the authority in the home; they represent the family, and no school can exist without families.
Thus, when it comes to the central question of who should help schools develop curriculum, there can be no better answer than parents, as Dewey (1933) points out, first and foremost. When it comes to stakeholders in education, there are communities, businesses, educators, policy-makers, and more — but at the top of that list there are students and there are parents.
Background: From Expert-Driven to Participatory Curriculum
The historical approach to curriculum development was driven by experts — curriculum specialists, educational researchers, and policy-makers — who were seen as having the knowledge and expertise to design a curriculum that would best serve the needs of students. However, this approach was criticized for its lack of consideration for the needs and interests of the students, teachers, and communities who would be affected by the curriculum (Kliebard, 2004). A key criticism of the expert-driven approach is that it can lead to a top-down model of education that undermines the autonomy and creativity of teachers. Teachers are often treated as mere implementers of the curriculum, rather than as active participants in its development (Alnefaie, 2016). This can create a disconnect between what is taught in the classroom and the actual needs and interests of students.
As a result, there has been a shift toward more democratic and participatory approaches to curriculum development. This approach recognizes that students, teachers, and community members possess valuable knowledge and expertise that can contribute to the design of a meaningful and effective curriculum (Kliebard, 2004).
For example, participatory action research (PAR) is a collaborative approach to curriculum development that involves students, teachers, and community members in the process of identifying and addressing educational issues (MacDonald, 2012). PAR is based on the idea that the people most affected by a problem are best equipped to solve it. By involving all stakeholders in the curriculum development process, PAR can produce a curriculum that reflects the needs and interests of students, teachers, and community members alike.
Another example of a democratic approach is the community-based curriculum (Kliebard, 2004). This approach involves collaborating with local community members to design a curriculum that is relevant to students' cultural and social contexts. Community members can share their knowledge and expertise to create a curriculum that reflects the history, culture, and values of the community.
References
Alnefaie, S. K. (2016). Teachers' role in the development of EFL curriculum in Saudi Arabia: The marginalised status. Cogent Education, 3(1), 1240008.
Bada, S. O., & Olusegun, S. (2015). Constructivism learning theory: A paradigm for teaching and learning. Journal of Research & Method in Education, 5(6), 66–70.
Dewey, J. (1933). Utopian schools. New York Times.
Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
Kliebard, H. M. (2004). The struggle for the American curriculum, 1893–1958. Psychology Press.
Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT Press.
MacDonald, C. (2012). Understanding participatory action research: A qualitative research methodology option. The Canadian Journal of Action Research, 13(2), 34–50.
O'Loughlin, M. (1992). Rethinking science education: Beyond Piagetian constructivism toward a sociocultural model of teaching and learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 29(8), 791–820.
Pala, A. (2011). The need for character education. International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity Studies, 3(2), 23–32.
Rice, L. (2009). Playful learning. Journal for Education in the Built Environment, 4(2), 94–108.
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