For best experience please turn on javascript and use a modern browser!
You are using a browser that is no longer supported by Microsoft. Please upgrade your browser. The site may not present itself correctly if you continue browsing.

About RCCS

Research Centre for Curriculum Studies

The Research Centre for Curriculum Studies (RCCS) is a new collaboration between SLO, the Netherlands institute for curriculum development in primary, secondary and special education, and the University of Amsterdam. The Research Institute of Child Development and Education is affiliated from within the UvA. The aim of this collaboration is to make factors influencing curriculum decision-making processes transparent and to improve these processes.

Curriculum

Curriculum is a multiple and layered concept that is relevant at the micro, meso and macro level. That is, from the 
drafting of national curricula to their implementation in the classroom. These scale levels each have their own dynamics and issues, and relevant research questions can be asked in relation to all of them. In addition, they interact with and influence each other. For example, choices made at one scale level can impact another scale level. This interaction between scale levels provides additional starting points for research questions.

Practices in context

The RCCS will research how teachers shape their curriculum practices in relation to frameworks at school and national level. In this context, we see teachers as active actors who (consciously and/ or unconsciously) relate to their context: to frameworks at school and national level. We are interested in the ways in which teachers shape curriculum practices in terms of subject matter in primary and secondary education, as well as in different learning areas and school subjects. Our aim is to research the interaction between classroom, school and national scale levels and to assess how this interaction leads to a meaningful, coherent, inclusive and equitable curriculum for pupils.

By gaining better insight into factors facilitating and impeding the process of ‘curriculum making’ by teachers at different scale levels, the quality of curriculum practices can be improved. We hope to contribute to more insight in, and possible solutions for, current social issues through our research.

Common research agenda

The UvA and SLO have launched the RCCS in 2023. UvA and SLO each have their own expertise and focus. The common research agenda for RCCS will add value to the current expertise of each party. To this end, the professor to be appointed will draw up a multi-annual research agenda. The purpose of this initial memorandum, which is based on two content-focused sessions with UvA and SLO colleagues, is to outline the content of the playing field in the run-up to the completion of this research agenda. The UvA’s expertise in terms of the scale level of the curriculum is mainly focused on the micro level (subject-matter didactics) and meso level (education sciences). SLO’s expertise is primarily focused on the curriculum at the macro level.