Shaping Curriculum Identity and Agency through Currere: Lived Experience in Democratic Curriculum Making
Posted 18th August 2026
Guest post by Gisselle Tur Porres
What this blog is about?
This blog traces how an autobiographical reflective exercise during a Currere Cymru retreat in Powys (January 2025) revealed curriculum as something lived rather than simply designed. It explores how currere (as an autobiographical inquiry and reflective methodology) supports early childhood/practitioners to develop democratic, agentic curriculum identities, and invites EECERA participants to engage with this work and its implications for practitioners’ agency.
Who shapes curriculum (and how)? Across early childhood education these questions are fundamental to navigate complex ethical, relational and political landscapes. This teaching‑led research initiative explores currere as a methodology that could support students/practitioners to reflect on their own identities as educators and develop democratic, agentic approaches to curriculum making.
Currere, first articulated by William Pinar (1975; 2012), positions curriculum not as a static plan but as a lived, unfolding experience. It invites educators to examine their histories, aspirations and commitments through four reflective moments: regressive, progressive, analytical and synthetical. In Wales, where curriculum reform emphasises agency, participation and ethical responsibility, Smith’s (2022) articulation of autobiographical inquiry offers a meaningful pathway for early childhood students to understand themselves as curriculum makers.
This project, embedded across undergraduate modules in a BA Early Childhood Studies programme, asks a simple but transformative question: What happens when students/practitioners explore curriculum through their own lived experience?
Curriculum as lived, relational and political
The initiative is grounded in theoretical traditions that view curriculum as relational, situated and deeply political. Freire’s (2005 [1970]) account of critical consciousness and Rancière’s (1991) conception of emancipation shape the project’s focus on agency, equality and ethical responsibility. Students/practitioners are invited to consider curriculum as a space where power, identity and possibility are negotiated.
As educators engage with children’s diverse cultural worlds, digital literacies and community histories, their own autobiographical understandings become central to how they interpret and enact curriculum. Currere offers a structured yet personal way to explore these complexities, supporting practitioners to recognise how their lived experiences may shape their pedagogical choices.
A qualitative, exploratory journey
Through reflective writing and dialogic encounters, students/practitioners engaged with the four moments of currere:
- Regressive: revisiting formative experiences that shaped their views of childhood, learning and care
- Progressive: imagining future professional selves and educational possibilities
- Analytical: examining tensions, assumptions and contradictions within their narratives
- Synthetical: weaving insights into emerging curriculum identities
These activities encouraged students/practitioners to move beyond surface reflection and into deeper autobiographical inquiry. They explored how personal histories (family, culture, schooling, community) informed their professional values and curriculum decision‑making.
Ethical considerations were central. Reflective journals remained private, and only anonymised evaluations were used for analysis, following the EECERA Ethical Code (Bertram et al., 2025). Students/practitioners were supported to engage critically and safely with their own stories.
Emerging findings: agency, identity and democratic practice
Preliminary findings reveal that currere enabled students to articulate emerging agentic professional identities. Many described a shift from seeing curriculum as something given to something co‑created. They recognised curriculum as an ethical and political endeavour, one that requires attentiveness to children’s voices, community contexts and democratic participation.
Students also reported increased confidence in navigating the relational dimensions of curriculum work. Through autobiographical inquiry, they began to understand how their own experiences shape the ways they listen, respond and design learning environments. This awareness is particularly relevant in early childhood settings, where curriculum is enacted through everyday interactions, shared meaning‑making and collaborative exploration.
In rapidly shifting digital and policy landscapes, such reflective capacity is essential. As practitioners encounter new technologies, diverse family experiences and evolving expectations, autobiographical curriculum inquiry helps them remain grounded, intentional and ethically responsive.
Why currere matters for early childhood education today
This study argues that integrating currere into early childhood programmes strengthens critical awareness and supports democratic curriculum making. It positions future students/practitioners as agentic, thoughtful and reflective co‑creators of educational practice.
For early childhood educators, this approach offers:
- A deeper understanding of personal‑professional identity
- A framework for ethical and political reflection
- A pathway to agentic, democratic curriculum work
- A method for navigating complexity with confidence and care
Join the conversation at EECERA 2026
This presentation invites EECERA participants to explore how autobiographical curriculum inquiry can transform professional identity, deepen agency and support democratic curriculum‑making in early childhood education. If you are interested in reflective practice, practitioner agency or innovative approaches to curriculum, this session offers a rich space for dialogue, insight and shared learning.
If you’re interested in this, you may also like:
Bodin, U. L. (2026). Understanding preschool teachers’ pedagogical leadership through individual and collective reflection. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 34(1), 106–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2025.2490181.
McNair, L. J., Bateson, S., Kustatscher, M., & Ravenscroft, J. (2024). Practitioner inquiry: troubling certainty. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 32(2), 220–235. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2023.2247591.
Campbell-Barr, V. (2026). Early childhood education – a unique and quasi-hidden curriculum. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 34(4), 571–583. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2025.2532557.
References
Bertram, T., Pascal, C., Lyndon, H., Formosinho, J., Gaywood, D., Gray, C., … Whalley, M. (2025). EECERA ethical code for early childhood researchers. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 33(1), 4–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2024.2445361
Freire, P. (2005 [1970]). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniversary ed., M. Bergman Ramos, Trans.). Continuum.
Pinar, W. F. (Ed.). (1975). Curriculum theorizing. The reconceptualists. McCutchan Publishing Corporation.
Pinar, W. F. (2012). What is curriculum theory? (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Rancière, J. (1991). The ignorant schoolmaster: Five lessons in intellectual emancipation. Stanford University Press.
Smith, K. (2022). Ambulare. Currere Exchange Journal, 6(1), 107–115.
About the author
Dr Gisselle Tur Porres is a Lecturer and Programme director for the BA Early Childhood Studies at Swansea University. Her research centres on emancipatory learning-teaching practices, with a commitment to work with children, families, educators, and communities. She has a particular interest in creative and participatory methods that honour agency, and relational ways of knowing across diverse educational and cultural contexts.
This contribution is one of a series of short blog posts by presenters who will be sharing their work at the upcoming annual conference in Funchal, Madeira. Any views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of their affiliated institution or EECERA.