The purpose of this study was to describe the meaning of curriculum implementation from the perspective of the teacher. The two cases were elected in order to uncover the ways in which a new reading curriculum was actually used at the classroom level....
The purpose of this study was to describe the meaning of curriculum implementation from the perspective of the teacher. The two cases were elected in order to uncover the ways in which a new reading curriculum was actually used at the classroom level. In doing so, first, the three major theoretical and empirical approaches were introduced. Second, by taking a phenomenological approach to the daily interaction between the teachers and the curriculum developers` texts, various meaning-making processes were qualitatively investigated. Third, the two cases were represented in favor of van Manen`s phenomenological view and mel;hodology. Implementation phenomena of the elementary classrooms were dramatically different from each other. The different meaning-making processes that the teachers constructed over the two years were described in terms of implementation as a change process. Lastly, the three overarching issues regarding theory building in the areas of curriculum implementation were discussed. Some reflection on the Korean educational change practice followed.