A Foucauldian genealogical analysis of backward design

Tomacruz, Elizabeth M. (2024) A Foucauldian genealogical analysis of backward design. Ed.D thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

The aim of this research was to understand how “backward design” emerged to shape the beliefs, attitudes, and practice of educators. Using Foucauldian genealogical analysis, this study looks at key educational figures and movements in the United States (Ralph W. Tyler, Hilda Taba, and Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe) to trace the ideas and practices that have shaped the curriculum process of backward design. Their seminal works are historized in relation to the economic, social, and political power dynamics that were a feature of their respective eras. Historizing their work aids in uncovering the sometimes incompatible conceptualizations of learning underlying backward design and how these conceptualizations reshaped behaviorist objectives-based curriculum design in response to social, economic, and/or political problems that education was tasked to solve.

Through the genealogical method, the rationality of the conceptualization of backward design, and previous iterations of it, are called into question and the subjugated knowledges and practices underlying these conceptualizations are unearthed. Bringing these subjugated knowledges and practices to the surface, uncovers the episteme many teachers are currently functioning within. The unsurfacing enables us to resist the dominance of backward design and consider alternative ways to frame our understanding of learning, assessment, and curriculum making. Genealogy shows that approaches to curriculum design, learning, teaching and assessment, were not always done this way, and so do not have to be done this way.

This research contributes to understanding how Foucauldian genealogy can be used as a research methodology. It also contributes to understanding how educational developments come into being, challenging ideas of linear progression and conceptual purity. Finally, this research contributes to educational theory by exploring theorists as the point of analysis of power. This study sees educational theorists as agents within a regime of truth that reorganizes existing knowledges to conform to the episteme of their time.

• Item Type: Thesis (Ed.D)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: L Education > L Education (General); L Education > LA History of education; L Education > LB Theory and practice of education
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Supervisor's Name: Patrick, Dr. Fiona and Enslin, Professor Penny
• Date of Award: 2024
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2024-84712
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 27 Nov 2024 09:50
• Last Modified: 27 Nov 2024 09:51
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.84712
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/84712