Curriculum making as relational practice: a qualitative ego-network approach

Abstract

Professional networks of teachers have been well documented in education studies but there is still a need for a fine‐grained analysis of teachers’ ego‐networks in the context of curriculum making. It is important to understand the nature and dynamics of teachers’ connections and how teachers mediate their practices accordingly. This study employed a qualitative approach to examine eight secondary school teachers’ ego‐networks from Scotland and Wales, which were constructed to talk about curriculum making. The aim of this study is to explore curriculum making as relational practice and to examine the structure, composition and the content of teachers’ networks by drawing upon a critical realist perspective. Findings suggested that the qualities the relationships possess (relational goods & evils), context (national and organisational) and teacher agency are the three mechanisms to understand how teachers‐mediated curriculum making through their ego‐networks.