Curriculum, environment and postcolonial antinomy: a Taiwanese case and its Asia-Pacific implications
Other Title
[课程、环境与后殖民二律背反：台湾案例及其亚太启示]
Journal
Comparative Education
ISSN
03050068
Date Issued
2026
Author(s)
Abstract
Curriculum reform across the Asia–Pacific region increasingly emphasises standardisation and coherence, yet such reforms often intensify the disconnection between curricular abstractions and children’s lived environments. This paper examines that tension through a qualitative study of the National Taiwan University Kindergarten (NTUK), a preschool embedded within a socio-ecologically rich university campus. Observations, interviews, and curriculum document analysis conducted in 2024 show that children display strong environmental awareness whilst official curriculum activities remain largely enclosed within classroom routines. I conceptualise this contradiction as a postcolonial antinomy–the simultaneous coexistence of standardised curricular forms and situated environmental experience. Teachers’ improvised outdoor pauses, campus-based architectural tours, and retroactive lesson reinterpretation reveal forms of hybrid curriculum enactment that navigate policy demands whilst responding to context. The discussion extends this argument to early childhood systems in Singapore and Hong Kong, proposing antinomy as a regional condition of curriculum governance in the Asia–Pacific.
Subjects
Asia–Pacific education
early childhood education
environmental learning
Postcolonial curriculum
Taiwan
teacher agency
Publisher
Routledge
Type
journal article