Sylvan Blignaut

Teachers' Interpretation and Enactment of Curriculum Policy: the Role of Teacher Epistemologies Sylvan Blignaut

Over the last few years various scholars have examined the policy-practice dichotomy by focusing on different issues that make the translation of policy into classroom practice problematic. Few of these studies however, have considered the crucial role that teacher epistemologies play in the translation of curriculum policy into classroom practices. This book reviews the literature on a topical issue in education generally and curriculum implementation in particular, namely, why is it so difficult to translate policy into practice. The book tackles the question of how teachers make sense of, and enact, curriculum policy. It hones in on on teacher epistemologies and suggests that teachers' prior understandings and beliefs about knowledge and what constitutes effective teaching, combined with the contexts in which they work frame their classroom practices to a large extent,explaining the disjunction between policy and practice. The book is compelling reading for policy analysts, researchers, academics, teachers and postgraduate students.