Curriculum Inquiry, Didaktik Studies and L1 Education: Framing and Informing the L1 Subjects

This chapter takes as its reference point an important debate in recent times addressed to the possibilities for dialogue between (Anglo-Saxon) curriculum inquiry and (European) Didaktik studies. At issue is the significance and value of the concepts of ‘curriculum’ and ‘didaktik’, respectively, for understanding and informing educational practice. In this chapter we provide a review of this debate, and hence the fields in question here and their organising concepts – curriculum inquiry and Didaktik studies – and then consider some of the challenges and implications that this debate presents for (re)thinking L1 education and the L1 subjects. In this account, the need for attention to the notion of ‘pedagogy’ is highlighted, based on recent arguments for the revalorisation of this concept in curriculum inquiry. Also relevant here is the distinction between general didactics and disciplinary didactics in the Didaktik tradition. A further focus is on questions of knowledge (and ‘content’), and the manner in which this issue manifests itself in L1 as a school subject.
The case is made that L1 education – otherwise known as national mother-tongue education, or education in and for the national standard language – presents a unique context for engaging (in) the debate. As such, this chapter is particularly timely, given the changing circumstances of education and schooling worldwide and new social imperatives.