The Design of Integrated Curriculum in High School Civics and Society Textbooks

This study explores how integrated curriculum in the textbooks of Civics and Society in senior high schools were designed and how textbook editors responded to integrated curriculum reforms by adopting a two-stage research design. In the first stage, the researchers analyzed learning content structure, and in the second stage, conducted semi-structured interviews with textbook editors to explore their considerations for designing an integrated curriculum and the dilemmas of textbooks’ organization and integrated design. The main findings of this study are as follows. First, integrated curriculum in the Civics and Society textbooks of senior high schools were designed from a multidisciplinary perspective, which placed two or more disciplines side-by-side and was not a sufficient condition for interdisciplinary approach. Second, the editors believed that the definition of integrated curriculum in curriculum guidelines were ambiguous. Third, editors avoided dramatic changes in the curriculum organization with concerns to textbook marketing. Fourth, there existed a vast difference between editors and the review committee in the conception of integrated curriculum. Finally, editors did not have enough time to adjust disciplinary-based to interdisciplinary design.