Purpose
Studies on new curriculum guidelines have often overlooked the crucial role played by curriculum supervisors, who are high school teachers, often former academic deans, appointed to the city or county-level department of education to oversee high-school level education policies. Compared with other power players, curriculum supervisors often lack a recognizable formal authority, official jurisdiction, or resources. The research question for this research is: given the non-official role of curriculum supervisors, how are they capable of effectively enacting the new curriculum?
Main Theories or Conceptual Frameworks
This study adopts the perspective of actor-network theory, and related concepts of the sociology of translation and the sociology of association. Actor-network theory sees society as a heterogeneous network of humans and non-humans connecting, enacting, and translating each other. Seen this way, curriculum implementation is the result of humans and non-humans connecting, enacting, and translating. Power is also exercised through a network, a connection between humans and non-humans. In particular, this study makes use of the “free association” concept in the sociology of associations to understand how curriculum supervisors and non-humans generate network effects.
Research Design/Methods/Participants
This study employs a multi-site ethnography to examine the work of curriculum supervisors. The ethnography took place from 2018 to 2025, covering the first seven years of the implementation of the 108 curriculum in Taiwan. For the eight curriculum supervisors studied, three types of data were collected: interviews, participant observation, and various documents relating to curriculum policies. The analysis is conducted through a four-step analytical framework derived from actor-network theory: identifying matters of concern, selecting objects for tracing, tracing enactment, and tracing associations. Triangulation and member checking were done to ensure reliability and validity of this study, respectively.
Research Findings or Conclusions
Unlike supervisors in elementary and junior high schools, who are often selected from principals-in-training, high school supervisors tend to be former academic deans who are most familiar with curriculum practices. These curriculum supervisors mediate and negotiate the relationship between local governments and schools. In particular, three practices of curriculum enactment are identified: advising team building, teaching and curriculum onboarding, and open observation of course viability. As actors without formal administrative power, curriculum supervisors connect human and non-human actors, resulting in network effects of much important course implementation. These effects were generated by a hybrid of humans and objects including official documents, laws, subject advisory centers, course observation forms, workshop handbooks, professors, and pilot schools. Curriculum supervisors and many non-human actors enacted and translated each other, resulting in the network effects of the new curriculum.
Theoretical or Practical In-sights/Contributions/Recommendations
This article outlines a view of networking that transcends the typical three-layer division of labor across the central government, local governments, and schools, providing a rich understanding of the role of curriculum supervisors. They are neither merely transmitters of policy, nor administrators with executive power. Rather, they are expert street-level bureaucrats who develop strategies for mobilizing and channeling human and non-human actors to enact new curricula. High school curriculum supervisors possess the ability to connect institutional needs and personal networks. Notably, this view of network effects considers the contribution of non-human actors, which has often been neglected by past research.