Influences on the Enacted Curriculum

The framework shown and described below was developed by CSMC associates at a conference on researching the enacted curriculum in November, 2010. It is currently undergoing revision by Janine Remillard and Dan Heck and will be published in a forthcoming issue of ZDM. Curriculum design, designation, and implementation are all part of a complex process by which curricular intentions are conceptualized, adopted, substantiated, and enacted in the classroom (Ben-Peretz, 1990; Stein, Remillard, & Smith, 2007; Valverde, et al., 2003). This process is influenced by a variety of mediating factors and forces that shape and reshape what is considered the curriculum along the way and influence its outcomes. Our aim is to develop a conceptual framework of the enacted curriculum that provides a map of the terrain, describes and defines key constructs, and identifies critical relationships among these constructs that together make up the phenomenon. Doing so, we found, required that we situate this work within the entire, multi-phase process. Our goal in mapping and conceptualizing this complex set of relationships is to offer the field a shared language to guide research design and allow for comparison and combining of studies to accumulate knowledge and generate new hypotheses