This study sought to understand how curricular knowledge at the program level was selected and organized at the University of Liberia. The research questions were: (1) what was the historical context of the University of Liberia; (2) what programs were created, modified or deleted; and (3) which groups of actors and dynamics at the institutional, national and global levels influenced the selection and organization of knowledge?
Data were collected from interviews and documents. Interviews were conducted with seventeen people who had been at the University of Liberia between 1951 and 1985 as students, faculty, and administrators.
The study examined the political and economic history of Liberia as well as the history of the University of Liberia, focusing on its academic program development. Five case studies were used to provide a more in depth examination of how curricular knowledge was selected and organized at the University of Liberia.
The findings of the study indicated that the debates and decisions about what knowledge to select and how it should be organized were shaped by the complex interaction among actors and dynamics at the institutional, national, and global levels. Faculty, administrators, trustees of the University of Liberia, political and economic elites in Liberia, along with representatives of international organizations and bilateral agencies, sometimes in consensus and sometimes in conflict, shaped the curriculum. National and global political and economic dynamics constrained and enabled the strategies pursued by these actors.
The final chapter also addressed the implications of the study with respect to ways in which curricular changes might be instituted in the future.
