Subject: Concept and Meaning
What is a subject?
Education is a deliberate human process to influence individuals behaviour. Behaviour is to be understood broadly as including attitudes, knowledge and skills (ASK). Further, the behavioural change process is initiated and carried out along socially desirable norms.
Knowledge is central to all educational processes of behavioural change or learning. However, knowledge itself has a vast domain and a wide range of forms. It is therefore necessary to classify the vast domain and wide ranged form of knowledge into subdomains. Such classification of domain of knowledge into subdomains makes it more manageable for pedagogical and organization purposes.
Each sub-domain of knowledge that arises out of this classification of knowledge domain for organisation and pedagogical purposes is a subject. It should be remembered that such classification is a purely artificial human creation for specific purpose.
What are the defining attributes of Subject?
There are certain key attributes that define the term subject and explains the meaning associated with the term. Such key attributes are:
A. Subject id defined by its specific Knowledge Domain
* The subject is a category or a theme in the classification of human knowledge.
* As a category or sub-domain of knowledge, subject represents some specific aspect of worldly affairs. The knowledge included in a subject are considered valuable since they have some social, cultural, and individual significance.
* The specific knowledge represented by Subject is important because it has the potential to influence individual's capabilities and attitudes as desired by the society/nation.
* Thus Subject is a representation of predefined knowledge and skills.
Deng (2012) qualifies subject as "human constructions in response to social, economic, cultural, political, and educational realities and needs" (p. 51)".
B. Subject has specific Pedagogical Purposes
* Subject represents human creation of some specific sub-domain of knowledge. This subdomain of knowledge has specific social/cultural and individual value.
* The specific interrelated knowledge (and skills) are organized into a subject for some specific pedagogical purpose at some specific level of education.
* Thus every subject is characterised by some set of specific educational goals and purposes. In other words subjects have some well defined educational purposes that justify the creation of that particular sub-domain of knowledge (Subject).
C. Subject represents Instructional translation of Knowledge
* Subject represent specific subdomain of knowledge. It also represents the way that knowledge can be translated pedagogically in the classroom.
* The pedagogical aspect of the subject enables translation of the knowledge (and skills) embodied in the subject into meaningful experiences for the learners.
* The subject, thus, sheds light on the different aspects of instruction related to the specific knowledge domain for a specific educational purposes in specific educational context.
Summary
In a nutshell a subject is such a human classification of knowledge that has
1. A specified domain of knowledge (i.e the content aspect),
2. A specific pedagogical purpose (i.e the objectives aspect)and
3. A specific means to achieve those purposes through the content (i.e the instructional aspect)
Karmon, 2007; Deng, 2012.
Subject is defined as some specified domain of content organised to make the content translated into pedagogical form and thus serves as a means to achieve broader social, economic and political desires of the society/community. Additionally, the subject includes an explanation of the criteria for selection and organization of the content on the one hand and for pedagogical representation of the content in a particular way on the other hand.
Figure: Representation of the concept of "Subject".
Thus we can say that school subject is the end product of a creative development process and is nothing but an embodiment of the designers’ intentions containing educational potential in form of some content with some particuar way of translating it in the classroom (see Deng,2011)
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