이 연구에서는 주요 학술지에 게재된 특수학교 교육과정 관련 논문 113편을 분석하여 교육과정 연구의 동향을 분석하고 앞으로 특수학교 교육과정 연구에서 지향해야 할 방향을 제시하고자 하였다. 이를 위해 ① 우리나라 특수학교 교육과정 연구의 일반적 동향(시기별, 장애범주별, 연구방법별, 학술지별), ② 특수학교 교육과정 개발의 참여자, ③ 특수학교 교육과정의 내용, 경험, 환경, ④ 교육과정의 종류 등을 분석하였다. 연구 결과, 특수학교 교육과정 연구는 최근 제6차 교육과정의 적용시기부터 본격적으로 이루어졌으며, 교육과정 참여자의 부조화, 교육환경에 대한 연구의 미흡, 특수교육대상 특히 중증장애학생을 위한 교육과정에 대한 연구의 미흡 등이 문제점으로 밝혀졌다.This study is to suggest a future direction of the special education curriculums with the trends analysis of research on the curriculums. The subject of the study is the 113 special education curriculum related articles from the main academic journals.
The research questions of this study are: (1) How different are the trends of research of the academic articles by eras, lesion types, and research methods? (2) What is the trend of research for the developers of special education curriculums? (3) What are the trends of research for the contents and experience(method) of special education curriculums, and education environment? (4) What is the trend of research for types of curriculums?
The results of the study showed that main articles for the curriculums were written from 1990s, the era of the 6th curriculum. From the era of the 7th curriculum, the number of articles noticeably increased. In terms of the research methods, ethnographic studies dominated among articles, thus it seems to be desirable as the studies considered the characteristics of students who need the special education. In terms of the research on curriculum developers, the results showed that the articles did not include various classes and employee among them. The research for participants also inclined toward a part of them. Though the education environment (i.e. educational place) is very important to the students who need the special education, the research for the environment was insufficient. For the research on the types of special education curriculums, this study classified into the developmental, ecological, and functional curriculum models. Among the educational types, although the main subject in the special education is the severely handicapped students, the research for them was insufficient. In developed countries on special education, the curriculum research for the students has flourished based on the ecological and functional curriculums, but the research in Korea have not been sufficient.