The Need for Analyzing Culture in Planning Curriculum

Abstract

The need for considering cultural elements in the curriculum has
been an important issue in many countries. Even though, there is a will to
consider culture in the curriculum, the way.how it should be put into practice
is one of the bottlenecks. Obviously, cultural consideration in curriculum
requires a theoretical framework. To do so, reviewing curriculum practices
and theories/models in relation to a particular culture of a country is very
helpful for better undersfunding and action. Hence, the purpose of this
article is to review the practices of plar+lmng curriculum particularly in relation
to culture and come up with some suggestions and recommendations that
take in to account cultural elements in a curriculum. In this study, qualitative
study particularly literature review and personal experiences were ' used.
The findings indicate that although emphasis is given for culture, there is no
systematic way of incorporating it in t~ curriculum. Furthermore, there is a
lack of common understanding on the concept of culture and selection
criteria among curriculum developers. The main body of this article
includes concepts of culture, Curriculum planning, Cultural analysis and
practices of this analysis 'to plan curriculum in Ethiopia