@article{ART003351013},
author={Hyeok-Jin, Cheon},
title={Competing Conceptions of Competency: Epistemological Tensions in Ontario’s Grade 9 De-streamed English Curriculum},
journal={Asia-Pacific Journal of Canadian Studies},
issn={2951-0619},
year={2026},
volume={32},
number={1},
pages={41-56}
TY - JOUR
AU - Hyeok-Jin, Cheon
TI - Competing Conceptions of Competency: Epistemological Tensions in Ontario’s Grade 9 De-streamed English Curriculum
JO - Asia-Pacific Journal of Canadian Studies
PY - 2026
VL - 32
IS - 1
PB - Korea Association For Canadian Studies
SP - 41
EP - 56
SN - 2951-0619
AB - Although competency-based curriculum reform has become a global orthodoxy, the term competency carries divergent theoretical meanings that a shared policy vocabulary can obscure. This paper examines Ontario’s Grade 9 de-streamed English course (ENL1W, 2023), a reform that consolidated previously streamed Academic and Applied courses into a single competency-based course, to inquire what conceptions of competency the document inscribes and whether they cohere. Using a critical document analysis informed by Bacchi’s What’s the Problem Represented to Be? approach and treating three theoretically derived conceptions of competency as analytic categories, the study reads ENL1W against the policy texts that shaped it. The analysis finds that ENL1W inscribes three distinct and not fully compatible conceptions: a functional-technical conception grounded in the cognitive science of reading and concentrated in the structured literacy mandate; a critical-emancipatory conception grounded in sociocultural and critical literacy theory and distributed across the comprehension, composition, and transferable-skills strands; and a decolonial conception grounded in Indigenous education scholarship and expressed through the structural integration of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit perspectives and Indigenous Storywork. These three conceptions rest on incompatible assumptions about literacy, learning, and human capacity, generating tensions that are epistemological. ENL1W’s sophistication, the analysis suggests, lies in its refusal to reduce competency to any single conception; recognizing this layered structure is therefore essential to interpreting and enacting the curriculum.
KW - English curriculum;competency;sociocultural theory;critical literacy theory;Indigenous education
DO -
UR -
ER -
Hyeok-Jin, Cheon. (2026). Competing Conceptions of Competency: Epistemological Tensions in Ontario’s Grade 9 De-streamed English Curriculum. Asia-Pacific Journal of Canadian Studies, 32(1), 41-56.
Hyeok-Jin, Cheon. 2026, "Competing Conceptions of Competency: Epistemological Tensions in Ontario’s Grade 9 De-streamed English Curriculum", Asia-Pacific Journal of Canadian Studies, vol.32, no.1 pp.41-56.
Hyeok-Jin, Cheon "Competing Conceptions of Competency: Epistemological Tensions in Ontario’s Grade 9 De-streamed English Curriculum" Asia-Pacific Journal of Canadian Studies 32.1 pp.41-56 (2026) : 41.
Hyeok-Jin, Cheon. Competing Conceptions of Competency: Epistemological Tensions in Ontario’s Grade 9 De-streamed English Curriculum. 2026; 32(1), 41-56.
Hyeok-Jin, Cheon. "Competing Conceptions of Competency: Epistemological Tensions in Ontario’s Grade 9 De-streamed English Curriculum" Asia-Pacific Journal of Canadian Studies 32, no.1 (2026) : 41-56.
Hyeok-Jin, Cheon. Competing Conceptions of Competency: Epistemological Tensions in Ontario’s Grade 9 De-streamed English Curriculum. Asia-Pacific Journal of Canadian Studies, 32(1), 41-56.
Hyeok-Jin, Cheon. Competing Conceptions of Competency: Epistemological Tensions in Ontario’s Grade 9 De-streamed English Curriculum. Asia-Pacific Journal of Canadian Studies. 2026; 32(1) 41-56.
Hyeok-Jin, Cheon. Competing Conceptions of Competency: Epistemological Tensions in Ontario’s Grade 9 De-streamed English Curriculum. 2026; 32(1), 41-56.
Hyeok-Jin, Cheon. "Competing Conceptions of Competency: Epistemological Tensions in Ontario’s Grade 9 De-streamed English Curriculum" Asia-Pacific Journal of Canadian Studies 32, no.1 (2026) : 41-56.
