Doll's Postmodern Paradigm

The postmodern paradigm is the modern paradigm’s mirror image. Where the modern one sees an orderly world that can be measured and engineered, the postmodern one sees a world that resists all of that. It holds a complex and multifaceted worldview, and it builds a very different kind of curriculum from it.

The worldview

Three claims set the frame. First, the world is not orderly but complicated and unpredictable. Second, history is not linear and segmented but evolving and contradictory; it does not march in a straight line. Third, and most important for curriculum, knowledge consists of multiple truths rather than one.

Because there are multiple truths, it becomes important to interpret individuals’ personal experiences and to take in a multiplicity of perspectives. The postmodern paradigm reads knowledge through many lenses: race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and sexual orientation. What looks like a single truth from one position may look different from another, and the paradigm treats those differences as real and worth attending to.

Flashcard

What is the postmodern paradigm's view of the world and history?

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Answer

The world is complex and unpredictable; history is evolving and contradictory

It rejects the modern paradigm’s orderly, linear picture. Knowledge consists of multiple truths, read through perspectives like race, class, and gender.

What it emphasizes in curriculum

The postmodern worldview leads to a distinct set of curriculum emphases:

1. Social construction of knowledge: knowledge is built by people together, not simply found.
2. Integrated curriculum: subjects woven together rather than kept in separate boxes.
3. Authentic assessment: judging real performance rather than only standardized tests.
4. Education for understanding: depth over coverage.
5. Dialogue and interaction: learning built in conversation.
6. Perspective taking: seeing through others’ eyes.
7. Creativity and playfulness: room for the open-ended and the inventive.

Set against the modern paradigm, the contrast is sharp. The modern paradigm prizes standardization, measured outcomes, and segmented disciplines. The postmodern paradigm prizes integration, authentic assessment, and dialogue. They are not small differences of method; they grow from opposite pictures of what knowledge is.

Flashcard

Name three things the postmodern paradigm emphasizes in curriculum.

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Answer

Integrated curriculum, authentic assessment, and dialogue

It also stresses the social construction of knowledge, education for understanding, perspective taking, creativity, and playfulness, all flowing from its view of knowledge as multiple truths.