MANAGING CURRICULUM CHANGE IN PUBLIC HEIs
a literature review
Keywords:
curriculum reform, academic management, public institutions, ProKnow-CAbstract
Curriculum reforms in public higher education institutions (HEIs) are complex arenas of political, pedagogical, and organizational contestation. This study aimed to analyze the high-impact scientific literature on the management of curriculum change in public HEIs, drawing on a predominantly international bibliographic portfolio, and to discuss its theoretical contributions and the limits of transferring it to the Brazilian context. To this end, a systematic literature review was conducted using the Knowledge Development Process – Constructivist (ProKnow-C) method. From an initial pool of more than 120,000 publications, 24 cited articles aligned with the research scope were selected for the final bibliographic portfolio. The results and discussion were organized around three analytical axes: curriculum reforms as nonlinear and multidimensional processes; academic management as a locus of strategic mediation of change; and the limits to the transferability of global models in the face of local particularities. The study concludes that the success of a curriculum reform depends less on the technical rigor of the approved regulations than on institutional support for putting it into practice, with respect for the everyday realities of people at the university. In view of challenges such as the integration of university extension into the curriculum and chronic resource scarcity, the mapped categories serve as a guide for pedagogical management in Brazilian public universities.
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