Enacting a learner-centred curriculum policy reform in state middle schools in Malta

Significant research has been focused on policy implementation which is mostly concerned with how well policies are realised in practice. However, this study maintains that, in the Maltese context, not enough attention has been paid to policy enactment, where issues of power need to be investigated and where the creative ways of policy interpretation and recontextualisation, in specific settings, are explored.

Drawing on the Foucauldian concepts of discipline and governmentality, this study attempts to explore the enactment of a learner-centred curriculum policy reform in three state middle schools in Malta. It employs a critical-interpretative methodology, based on qualitative research methods. Through the application of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), combined with multimodal elements, it investigates the ways in which learner-centred education is discursively constructed within two policy documents: National Curriculum Framework (NCF) and English Learning Outcomes Framework (ELOF), as one of the NCF supporting policy documents.

The enactment of these policy texts is examined through individual semi-structured interviews with school leaders and teachers. Focus group interviews were also carried out to examine critically students’ perspectives of learner-centred practices, whilst obtaining a deeper understanding of teachers’ enactment of learner-centred policies.

The CDA findings reveal that the dominant learner-centred discourses contained within the NCF and ELOF revolve around cognition, emancipation and preparation. These texts were found to be largely influenced by neo-liberal ideologies. Similarly, findings from individual and focus group interviews demonstrate that enactments of learner-centred policies not only gave rise to disciplinary technologies, but were also driven by neo-liberal modes of government, resulting in self-governance of school leaders, teachers and students.

This study is significant since it makes a number of contributions to the field of learner-centred policy and practice by shedding further light on the complex ways in which policy becomes enacted. It also makes several recommendations to improve current learner-centred policy and practice within the local and global context.