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The history of subjects is often told analysing notions of knowledge in historical reforms, policies, curricula, and textbooks. In this article, we analyse student papers from 1968, focusing on their responses to the topic 'Social distinctions and prejudices in Denmark'. The students present a number of concepts and categories of social differences and prejudices, depict a contemporary problem, refer to theoretical or categorical frameworks, provide a historical account, state bold claims and/or present conceptual definitions. Then, by giving different examples from their everyday life and by establishing some form of line or structure in their writings, they form an argument or narrative. They do this by using—we assume—information from their textbooks, from what have been discussed in teaching, in the public debate, and in the students' homes. The student papers not only passively reflect but are part of the ongoing constitution of the subjects and subject matter, during a period of tremendous educational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of powerful knowledge has received much international attention and has significantly influenced curriculum development in many countries, including South Africa, from where this paper is written. The paper’s argument begins with philosophical positions and tensions raised by both proponents and critics of the notion of powerful knowledge in curriculum contexts. In response, it then describes a knowledge model that incorporates, first, the value of specialized and systematic powerful disciplinary knowledge (described in this paper as potentially powerful knowledge). Second, the model describes the notion of kinetically powerful knowledge (its situated nature of contextualization, appraisal and transformation). This model is then translated into a tool for assessing curriculum (acronymised as D-CAT). The tool is illustrated by using it to probe two extracts from the South African curriculum. The implications are that the knowledge model and curriculum assessment tool can be used by designers in the official and pedagogical recontextualising fields either analytically or to inform curriculum development. This is with a view to maximize the power of curriculum texts for enabling epistemological access and developing at once the powers of abstract, positioned and judgemental rationality, each of which has an important role to play in understanding and changing the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Open schooling’ has become in recent years a burgeoning theme in the discourse on how to rethink education for the 21st century. This paper addresses a gap between calls for implementing an open schooling approach in policy papers and international reports and the scarcity of rigorous academic discourse on what open schooling theoretically means and practically entails in terms of school organization and curriculum. To this end, the paper presents an ecological model of school openness that is composed of eight interrelated dimensions: shared governance, ‘open’ curriculum, inner-school communities, learning communities, student participation, social engagement, parental involvement, and community collaborations. These dimensions are organized into three categories, accounting for organizational, pedagogical and communal aspects of school openness. The multidimensional nature of the model presented here provides a more intricate and nuanced account of open schooling that acknowledges the complexities and challenges that the movement towards greater openness yields for school communities. From an educational research perspective, this model functions to inform the understanding and examination of the multidimensionality of opening schools to their community. From an educational practice perspective, it can instigate in-depth and meaningful dialogue within school teams on what open schooling is and its ensuing merits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid debates about CRT in education, this paper critically analyses laws that have reportedly sought to expand ‘education on racism, bias, the contributions of specific racial or ethnic groups to U.S. history, or related topics’ with the hypothesis that there would be little evidence of anti-racist ideology in policies pertaining to curriculum. The research design thus leans on King and Chandler’s (2016) distinction between non-racist and antiracist stances, as well as Andreotti et al’.s (2015) social cartography that maps out ‘soft-reform’ and ‘radical reform’ spaces, to achieve a latent content analysis of 14 pieces of legislation across 13 states since 2020 to identify and analyse the ideological characteristics of these pieces of legislation. Only four of the 14 documents from four different states contain a significant anti-racist ideological leaning; the others express a liberal multicultural ideological position that celebrates difference and recognizes contributions, but does not examine systemic racism. Thus, among states that are legislating more ethnic studies, the vast majority do not legislate anti-racist positions. This paper concludes that there is little evidence of anti-racist ideas being legislated into primary and secondary education in the United States, and that most curricular reforms toe a non-critical ideological line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an exploratory study of the personal and systematic influences over the curriculum decision-making process of teachers of students with severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties in Australia. The way in which these influences impact teacher perceptions of the mandated curriculum and its day-to-day operationalization are discussed. The paper draws from both a national survey (n = 46) and in-depth case studies (n = 5) of teachers who work in government-funded specialist educational settings. Findings show that teachers have prominent levels of emotionality, a drive for creativity and dedication to inclusive practice, but ultimately work within a context perceived through conflict and dilemma. Previous related decision-making models are used to compare results, with some distinct differences emerging. Findings indicate that rather than enabling inclusion, standardized curriculums create an environment of professional (self)exclusion and reduce access to professional support. Increases in responsibility burden and negative emotional effects are explored. Although teachers view access to standardized curriculum programs as vital to educational inclusion and the enhancement of their professional expertise, the utilization of the current offering in Australia is makeshift at best and fraught with internal conflict. The implications of these findings are discussed, and future recommendations for research are prioritized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for reframing the subject matter of Religious Education in schools include the tricky question of how to select from a world of potentially interesting and relevant material. Pedagogues have long questioned the educational logic that takes so-called substantive knowledge as its starting point and imagines education to follow a linear path from simple to complex. Scholars of Religious Studies have addressed similar questions of how to bring the subject matter to life through taking a more disciplinary orientation , though this approach is problematized by RE's multi-disciplinary foundations This paper brings together pedagogical and disciplinary perspectives to the question of exemplification in the production of curricular subject matter. Taking as its context RE in schools, the paper assumes the didactic principle that there is considerable difference between putative disciplinary knowledge and school subject matter and that the production of school subject matter requires considered processes of pedagogical transformation and reduction. The paper explores the logic governing this transformation by drawing on the pedagogical analysis of exemplarity offered by Martin Wagenschein alongside the more disciplinary analyses of the place of examples from Jonathan Z. Smith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an analysis of Modern Studies, a school subject unique to Scotland. First taught in the 1960s, Modern Studies was originally conceived as an option for students discontinuing their studies in history and geography. Since then, though, Modern Studies has carved a distinctive curricular niche and has become one of the most popular subjects in Scottish schools.Despite this popularity—or, perhaps, because of it—Modern Studies has not received the same critical analysis as other subjects in the school curriculum. The subject remains one defined by its content (political literacy, social issues, and international relations), rather than by its disciplinary or epistemic underpinnings.This paper uses Toulmin’s (1990) conception of modernity to analyse course documents and examination papers. This analysis suggests that Modern Studies was imbued from the start with three foundational assumptions. First, a positivist ontology that believes certainty about the social world is possible. Second, a belief that Weberian means-end rationality is the most appropriate approach to evaluating and making sense of social relations. Third, a telos which positions liberal capitalism as the inevitable end-state of human affairs. Modern Studies is, therefore, not just ‘modern’ but modernist.The paper explores and develops these critiques with reference to specific examination questions and concludes by proposing a programme for renewing and reinvigorating the subject in an age of epistemic uncertainty and global environmental crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National curriculum statements found within the Official Recontextualising Field (ORF) provide an insight into how geography as a school subject is conceptualized in a country’s education system. National curricula can shape teachers’ agency in curriculum making and what, how and where children and young people study and learn geography. This paper engages with the lower secondary national geography curriculum for England, Finland and Sweden. We examine the structure and nature of the national geography curricula in each country, before drawing on the threefold arrangement of geographical knowledge as a tool for the analysis of the curricula. Our analysis found that deep and descriptive world knowledge forms the largest proportion of all three national curricula documents, and we argue that this can lead to a potentially limited conceptualization of geographical knowledge and representation of geography. We also suggest that the threefold arrangement could more actively engage with political dimensions when considering futures, and that there should be greater attention paid to the histories and geographies of the discipline (geography) in school geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ObjectiveMethodResultsConclusionThis study reviews the status of materials in curriculum and reform, as reflected in a network case study of curriculum in one kindergarten classroom in the United States. This paper focuses on the events leading up to and building upon one inquiry unit that became a focal point in promoting progressive curriculum reform at the school.Methods from Actor Network Theory are employed to attend to a wide cast of human and nonhuman actors, trace their mobilities, and map them into curricular networks. Data, collected over 9 months of one school year, included field notes, audio recordings of conversations, and images of classroom objects and arrangements.Three material assemblages—a closet, a bulletin board, and a curriculum timeline—are viewed as agents assisting in stabilizing the inquiry unit and sustaining further student-centred inquiries amidst competing curricular reforms and policies. Findings demonstrate how teachers may mobilize such assemblages to accomplish multiple objectives, as is necessary when navigating tensions from multiple parties or reform mandates.This study contributes to scholarship conceptualizing the status of curriculum materials, with particular attention to their functionality at the nexus of both the micro-interactions of curriculum enactment and the macro-politics of educational reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first re-visits the origins of the concept powerful knowledge and goes on to assess its mixed fortunes as of 2022. It assesses Basil Bernstein’s early interest in knowledge in the curriculum by examining his retrieval of Durkheim’s discussion of the Trivium and Quadrivium, going on to examine how the sciences and the Humanities each specialize knowledge but in different ways. It then discusses the recursive form of theorizing of pedagogy developed by Bernstein in his pedagogic device, distinguishing this form from that to be found in recent discussions of Didaktik and powerful knowledge, drawing out their complementarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ObjectiveMethodResultsConclusionEnvironmental education (EE) is an approach which should be activated immediately to address environmental injustice and catastrophe. Though broad agreement exists with the need for EE in the US, there is an implementation gap.This study offers a thematic analysis from qualitative interviews with 13 teachers and administrators who worked in a large, urban district in the Western United States, identifying how curriculum can address the implementation gap.We identify three themes emergent from the interviews: In the absence of formal training and curriculum, teachers meet student needs and interests in the environment through a complementary curriculum and ecological mindedness. Our participants’ recollection of their experiences with EE demonstrates the power of alignment thinking to move EE into classrooms now. Finally, greater attention to environmental justice would support teachers and students.The paper concludes with insights this project brings to education scholars, including encouragement for curricular interventions related to environmental justice and supporting preK-12 professionals for the healing of life on Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ObjectivesMethodsResultsConclusionIn this Paper, I examine how high school social studies content standards in the United States address fundamental concepts of American governance, particularly the concept of democracy.I conducted a qualitative textual analysis of government/civics content standards from all 50 states, Washington DC, and the Advanced Placement United States Government and Politics (AP Gov) course materials. I applied a framework that distinguishes between 'thick' and 'thin' democracy, drawing on theoretical insights from scholars like Michael Apple and John Dewey.My findings reveal how democratic ideals are framed and conceptualized within secondary government and civics education in the United States. I identified significant variations in how democracy is addressed in state academic content standards, with important implications for how democracy is taught in American schools.I advocate for curricular approaches that promote a more robust and participatory form of democracy, emphasizing critical engagement and collective well-being. This study underscores the importance of recognizing democracy as both a political and governmental concept in shaping educational discourse and policy as well as a practice and way of seeing society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher education quality and effectiveness have been at the centre of policy discussions in the last decades. As part of efforts to improve teacher preparation, law 20.903 requires Chilean universities to design and apply diagnostic tests assessing the construct of their choice to all first-year preservice teachers. Based on these results, universities must design strategies to support their students. However, universities are facing challenges in implementing these tests, primarily due to the complexity, time and cost associated with developing high-quality tests. In collaboration with three universities, we developed three diagnostic tests: Social Thinking Test, Attitudes Towards Diversity Questionnaire, and Mathematics test for Teaching in Primary Education. Unlike many of the tests currently used by universities, these instruments were specifically designed to measure core teaching skills and attitudes defined by the national standards for Chilean teachers. To collect validity and reliability evidence, the tests were piloted with over 850 Chilean preservice teachers. Reliability was analysed using Cronbach's alpha, with results ranging between 0.67 and 0.92. Validity was examined based on content and internal structure evidence. The analysis of content evidence indicated good coverage of the target domains as defined by the assessment frameworks, and internal structure results point towards the presence of multidimensionality in two of the three tests. This paper discusses the results of these pilot studies and how diagnostic tests that are constructed and analysed from the perspective of the standards (American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association y National Council on Measurement in Education, 2014) can provide valuable information to improve the effectiveness of teaching education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, following some brief introductory remarks, I provide a context to this Symposium by presenting a brief autobiographical account explaining how I became involved in curriculum theory and the idea of a knowledge-led curriculum and how I was led to write the paper under discussion. I then make brief comments on each of the six papers individually, concluding with some thoughts about the implications of the collection of papers as a whole for the future of curriculum theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many empirical studies about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) curriculum present problems for students to solve. This paper draws upon the data collected from the enactment of an integrated STEM curriculum to discuss problems as constitutive of problem spaces where four Grade 5 Singapore students engage with the materialities and relationships to generate solutions from these spaces. The study seeks to address the nature of the problem spaces in STEM inquiry. Derived from the emergent coding of 12 hours of lesson videos, the findings illuminated that problem spaces emerged from familiar and dissimilar contexts in the curriculum. These problem spaces embodied epistemic infrastructures and epistemic emotions within which students exercised agency to collaborate productively and learn. Implications for STEM curriculum making that foregrounded epistemic considerations, rather than outcome-based learning, were discussed. This paper helps to further the field of curriculum studies in STEM education by contributing to the theorization of STEM curriculum by applying a process lens to deepen understanding of problems as problem spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper comments on the arguments made in ‘knowledge without disciplines: a critique of social realism’s disciplinary fixation’, authored by Keith Barton. It is suggested that Barton has not fully grasped how social realism views disciplines and curricula and that this reflects a wider tendency amongst commentators to overlook some of the thinking underpinning social realism. A different, more generous interpretation of social realism is outlined in respect of disciplinarity, the constitution of knowledge, the relationship between disciplines and subjects and the socio-epistemic formation that make knowledgeability possible. Social realism is seen as having already made a substantive impact, with the potential to further extend its intellectual horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the IB-PYP curriculum and teachers' roles within IB-PYP. The Turkish national curriculum was used to contextualize the paper, and these two curricula have been presented comparatively. The comparison encompasses their respective scoping aims, models of curricular control, distinctive teacher roles, and assessment practices. Moreover, the study incorporates insights and viewpoints from PYP teachers who also had worked for long years in public schools following the national curricula, revealing their roles in the PYP system. Drawing from interviews with PYP teachers, this case study elucidates the contrasting approaches to establishing product-process control models within these educational frameworks, as seen through the lens of teacher roles. The analysis serves to enhance comprehension of the rationale behind the PYP programme and is anticipated to offer novel perspectives on the national curriculum. The findings from the study underscore notable disparities between the two curricula in terms of their scoping objectives, patterns of curriculum control, assessment methodologies, and teacher roles. Through the accounts and viewpoints of the interviewed teachers, it was deduced that the IB-PYP curriculum within the Didaktik perspective can serve as an inspiration for future Turkish national curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents an inquiry into the relevance of Bildung for students in (pre-) vocational education. While Bildung has seen a remarkable revival in international educational theory, its relevance for educational practice(s) remains under-investigated, particularly in vocational education. This paper presents the insights offered by a multi-method curriculum study, conducted as part of a larger project in which (pre)vocational teachers in the Netherlands experimented with their own role as a model of and for their students' Bildung. Building on a thematic analysis of teacher observations, teacher interviews and student focus groups, we explore how six teachers enacted and perceived their modelling role, and how their students experienced it. While all teachers modelled elements of what they found important for their students' Bildung, the teachers actually perceived as models of Bildung by their students were those who shared their own experiences and stories with students, and who related to them on a personal level by offering them support, trust and inspiration to pave their own paths in life. Based on our findings, we suggest implications for broadening common understandings of Bildung and modelling, as well as practical implications for teachers, teacher education and policy to foster vocational students' Bildung. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michael Young’s work has had a significant influence over UK education in recent years, both at a school and policy level, although, as Young’s contribution to this symposium notes, it has often been prone to misinterpretation. In this response, it will be argued that the work Young describes in his paper can be understood as part of a broader attempt to address three very real problems faced by teachers in their day to day practice: the problems of expertise, accessibility and motivation. Where the development of Young’s thinking since the 1970s is often characterized as a ‘turn’, the continuity between his earlier and later work will be highlighted. In the latter part of the response, Young’s use of the word ‘specialized’ will be analysed in order to highlight some of the conceptual confusion that remains around the process of specialization. It will be argued that the clearing up of such confusion is of crucial importance if Young’s vision of all students having access to specialized knowledge is to be realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of what role the historical discipline might play in informing the selection of substantive knowledge for school history curricula. In the process, it seeks to clarify the usefulness and limitations of Young's social realist theory of powerful knowledge in the case of school history. The paper proposes that assessing the potential of the historical discipline for informing substantive knowledge selection in school history requires a more thorough account of the historical discipline's horizontal knowledge structure. Having attempted such an account, it is argued that while the historical discipline offers no consensus on exactly what substantive knowledge to teach, it does offer resources for tackling political and ethical questions inherent in substantive knowledge selection in school history. This is exemplified through the case of environmental history. The paper concludes that realizing the potential of the historical discipline to contribute to questions of substantive knowledge selection in school history requires that history educators move beyond theorizing the distinction between vertical and horizontal discourses, central to Young's theory of powerful knowledge, and, drawing on Bernstein, consider the historical discipline's particular horizontal knowledge structure and its dialogic, often critical, entanglement with horizontal discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends the theory of powerful knowledge to school economics by articulating the nature of powerful disciplinary knowledge in the subject. In order to develop a framework for conceptualizing powerful knowledge in economics, the literature that identifies powerful knowledge in other school subjects is first explored. Then, follows an examination of the implications to the specific case of school economics regarding economic concepts and forms of economics knowledge that might be regarded as powerful according to Young's definition of powerful knowledge. I then proceed to develop a conceptual framework that identifies powerful disciplinary knowledge in the subject. This paper instigates the discussion about what constitutes powerful knowledge in school economics that enables epistemic access for young people that fosters their human development and flourishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central question of this paper is whether and how, from a virtue ethical perspective, teacher modelling and student emulation hang together in moral education. This matters, because philosophers have often focussed either on the moral psychology of emulation or on modelling as a moral educational method, neglecting the interplay between the two. It starts by analysing the conceptual framework underlying the influential Manner in Teaching (MiT) and Moral Work of Teaching (MWT) projects. It reconstructs how modelling is understood as ‘teaching morally’ or ‘teaching morality’. These two interpretations of modelling are developed further by drawing on additional literature on teacher education and moral education. Then, the conceptual framework is extended by focusing on how students may learn from modelling through mimicry, imitation or emulation. This results in several conceptual relations that illuminate the complex dynamics between teacher modelling and student emulation. For example, teacher modelling does not guarantee student emulation, which challenges the common advocacy for teachers as role models. At the same time, students may emulate teachers without teachers being aware of their impact. This results in a more nuanced understanding of what it takes for teachers to be moral role models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although research on the relationship between opportunities to learn (OTL) in teacher preparation and preservice teachers’ learning outcomes, including aspects of their knowledge, has significantly increased in recent years, the relationship between OTL and preservice secondary school teachers’ cognitive competence and, particularly, the situated aspect of competence, in Mainland China remain poorly understood. This paper examines this association based on a study involving 583 preservice teachers chosen from four preservice teacher education institutions. The results revealed that the preservice teachers received adequate OTL in various domains, such as tertiary-level mathematics and mathematics education pedagogy. However, mainly due to the influence of academically oriented teacher preparation models in Mainland China, there were quite weak overall connections between OTL and the four examined aspects of teachers’ professional competence (mathematics content knowledge, mathematics pedagogical content knowledge, a mathematics instruction-related perspective on noticing, and a general pedagogy-related classroom perspective on noticing). Comparatively speaking, relatively strong associations existed between OTL in teaching methods, school-based teaching practicums, and the situated aspect of competence (e.g. noticing). These findings show that, to a great degree, initial teacher preparation in Mainland China does not relate closely to preservice teachers’ professional competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue a new politics of ordinal differentiation and its instruments for governing education aims to make invisible a ‘low intensity civil war’ against the labouring classes. It does this through the elevation and ubiquity of actuarial and quantitative measures aimed at producing a new form of differentiated belonging: that of ordinal citizenship. These measures: elevate individual agency, erasing the idea of social class as a nominal identity; assert the importance of classification in a myriad number of instruments of imagination, including rankings, intended to spur individual self-improvement; and replaces social fairness with statistical fairness. These actuarial and quantitative measures, on the one hand reposition us as striving individuals in a new economy of worth and value, through the ways in which ordinal instruments govern a new politics of differentiation and legitimize the rise of ordinal citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of Critical Thinking (CT), as a set of central competences for future and present citizens and as a prerequisite for a participative democratic life, is today beyond question. However, teachers seem relatively poorly equipped to teach CT, having both theoretical and methodological needs.In this paper, we examine how teachers’ practices and conceptualizations towards the implementation of CT have evolved during the first three years of an EU-financed collaborative teacher development project named CLAE (Critical Literacies and Awareness in Education (2017–2022)). We investigate a series of two interviews with 5 primary school teachers working in Norway (grades 5–7).Research findings show that teachers consider pupils’ involvement as a central prerequisite for the implementation of CT in practice. They also highlight two different ‘teaching paths’ among teachers when implementing CT. The first one emphasizes the development of dialogical activities, whereas the second one facilitates the development of metacognitive skills and awareness. These respective teaching paths do not oppose each other but constitute real complementary strategies through which teachers try to shape the class (the group of pupils) into an effective dialogic epistemic space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual article is to problematize Western-centered comparative curriculum studies in South Korea, drawing on research related to postcolonial criticisms of comparative education and curriculum studies, and to suggest a decolonial research imagination for comparative curriculum research in South Korea and East Asia broadly, based on Kuan-Hsing Chen's idea of Asia as method. To this end, I elaborate on Chen's concepts of inter-referencing and critical syncretism for decolonizing the compliant research imagination. Additionally, I argue for the shift of the point of reference towards Asia, the extension of curriculum manifestation as a unit of comparison with curriculum conceptualized as a space for constructing cultural imaginary and subjectivity, and curriculum researchers' onto-epistemological considerations as a comparativist. I conclude the paper with a caution not to dismiss Western contributions to curriculum research in Asia and the possibilities of the existence of resistance to Western-dominant knowledge structure in South Korean curriculum scholarship in the forms of translation and/or hybridity. This study can contribute to decolonizing the intersection of comparative education and curriculum studies that has been Western-centered in South Korea and suggesting a transgressive onto-epistemological orientation for comparative curriculum studies in the contexts of South Korea in particular and East Asia in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been increased attention to the role of explicit pattern tasks in early mathematics learning, with growing recommendations to incorporate more pattern tasks in standards and curricula. One critical piece of this discussion is to consider whether the pattern tasks currently presented in formal curricula materials align with the research on the development of children’s early patterning skills. In the current paper, we quantified the prevalence of patterns and their core features in five early mathematics curricula used in the United States in kindergarten and first grade. Explicit patterns were rare—with one pattern every 20 pages in kindergarten and one pattern every 60 pages in first grade. Most of these explicit pattern tasks included repeating patterns (73%) instead of growing patterns (27%), though this trend was prominent in kindergarten texts and slightly reversed in the first-grade texts. The features of the pattern tasks were often misaligned with research recommendations; most tasks were simplistic, and there was little variability in the complexity of the pattern materials and structures. These findings highlight the need to pinpoint the specific features of pattern tasks that optimize children’s learning opportunities and how best to align these with real-world learning materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to posit a possible reason why non-Indigenous educators are seen to be 'cautious' in their pedagogic engagement with First Nations perspectives in curriculum, why interventions and programmess around reconciliation and truth-telling have limited traction in affecting change in school culture, and why the Australian education system is constructed to be, and remains, largely hostile to First Nations Peoples and perspectives. Despite several decades of studies exploring these phenomena and concerted efforts to 'fix the problem', there has been a systemic failure to shift discourses and practice beyond the completely absent, tokenistic, or superficial inclusion of First Nations narratives in Australian education. We argue that power-knowledge relations of settler-colonial discourses are fundamentally at play and that by examining how disciplinarity and settler-colonial frameworks of knowledge control operate in education, we conceptualize a possible reason to the pedagogical challenges faced in the decision-making and integration of First Nations narratives in curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given a peculiar sociocultural pressure for knowledge to reap immediate socioeconomic benefits in Africa, philosophy courses have gained a very low valuation by African students. They misperceive the courses not to be relevant to their future careers, leading to a lack of engagement with the courses. Focusing on South Africa, this paper proffers one way to bridge this relevance gap. The central claim is that this perceived irrelevance is fuelled by the construction of philosophy course syllabi solely from the instructor's perspective, such that the relevance gap is bridged by including African students' perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper puts forward the construct termed teacher curriculum competence, which is an amalgamation of theoretical or formal and personal practical teacher knowledge and orientations in relation to curriculum. We situate the competence in institutional, political, and philosophical contexts. Drawing on research related to mathematics curriculum at different stages (i.e. the official, intended, and enacted curriculum) and teacher competence frameworks, we elaborate on how a teacher interacts with curriculum informed by their knowledge and orientations. When working with curriculum, teacher curriculum competence refers to what teachers attend to and how they interpret curriculum, as well as why they make decisions, including when to introduce particular concepts or skills, based on their local students' needs. In addition, we argue that the process of interacting with curriculum helps shape teacher knowledge and orientations. This article is significant for the contribution it makes to conceptualizing teacher curriculum competence in a centralized curriculum system, that is a nationally mandated. Although we use the mathematics discipline as an example, implications for research in promising areas for future studies in this space are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author uses an AsianCrit analysis of US Department of War Educational Manual No. 42, Our Chinese Ally (EM42), a document of military curriculum from WWII. Their argues that EM42 demonstrates both a state-sanctioned [re]racialization of Chinese and Chinese Americans through simultaneous technologies of Sinophobia and Sinocentrism. Their analysis of EM42 has implications for the construction of Asian Americans as a 'model minority' in the United States, and highlights EM42's contemporary reverberations on the construction of Asian American identity, as well as how nation-states challenged stereotypes of Chinese people without decentring whiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the experiences of school history education and explores the impact this education has had on the development of young adults and their sense of identity in England. Adopting a qualitative approach, this study used semi-structured interviews with twenty young adults, aged 18–22, some from white backgrounds, but most from minoritized ethnic backgrounds.1 Four broad categories were identified in the data, namely 'values and value', 'identity development', 'curriculum connections' and 'narrative templates'. In the majority of cases, these young adults felt that history was important and had a role to play in addressing societal issues such as racism. However, the curriculum largely ignored the histories of minoritized ethnic groups, as the dominant narrative template favoured a white, Anglo-centric view of the world, and so served to fuel a sense of disconnection to the curriculum and to the state more generally. This paper suggests there is a need to pay closer attention to the place of history education in shaping a sense of belonging and personal identity, through a multiperspectivity approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the development of a comparative research framework in subject didactics and applies this in the process of analysing the transformations from academic disciplines across different school subjects. The theoretical framework builds on the concepts of 'powerful knowledge' and 'transformation' and 'epistemic quality' within which transformation processes from the classroom to the societal level are considered as 'trajectories of powerful knowledge and epistemic quality'. The framework is used to analyse the findings from recent empirical studies across school subjects that have been reported on in publications arising from the Knowledge and Quality across School Subjects and Teacher Education (KOSS) network.1 The paper then focuses on analysing the transformations from disciplines across school subjects, given that the first boundary in defining powerful knowledge concerns knowledge that is specialized in both how it is produced and transmitted. To analyse this boundary, the findings from the empirical studies are grouped into broad subject categories. These are then compared with the corresponding disciplines by using the widely cited Biglan classification scheme of academic disciplines in higher education. Finally, we consider the implications for curriculum planning and teacher education policy and reflect on the concept of subject-specific educational content knowledge (SSECK). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum reform was high on the agenda of South Africa's post-apartheid governments. Yet as time passed, the initial reforms were seen as increasingly problematic, especially when pedagogical realities met policy priorities. There was reluctance on the part of policymakers to give up what was seen as the democratic imperative behind the reforms. Yet as schools struggled, public responses blamed inadequate attention to practical issues as undermining the implementation of the reforms. This perspective on curriculum implementation, blaming teachers for the failure of policy reforms, is not uncommon. This paper argues, however, that such a perspective is very often misinformed because it deflects attention from the specific nature of policies and the role of policymaking in neglecting key issues that might have better facilitated implementation. South Africa's democratic curriculum reforms were essential for dismantling a key aspect of the apartheid state. The paper highlights this point arguing that an understanding of policies rather than a focus on the failure of schools provides a better lens for understanding the trajectory of curriculum reform processes in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to undertake a comparative investigation of school administration to understand further the frames of curriculum making. School administration is an under-illuminated aspect of curriculum research. The paper commences from the notion that, in mass education, a school system is operationalized by many schools, which are coupled to each other and to political decisions. Here is the curriculum vital. Building on the classic work of Stefan Hopmann, a curriculum is part of the administrational structure of the school system. The Article suggests several categories that can describe the nature and function of school administration in various contexts. There are external matters of schooling, such as school buildings, school food, etc. and internal matters of schooling, such as curriculum, pedagogy, and evaluation. Individual schools and school administration are coupled via licences, and programmatic, professional, and procedural supervision. The article employs these categories with a comparison of a decentralized Sweden and a centralized Germany. The comparison investigated 290 Swedish municipality school administrations and 45 state education authorities in 4 German federal states. In this comparison many interesting similarities between both contexts can be hightligthed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which there has been a shift towards disciplinary knowledge in recently developed curriculum documents in New Zealand and evaluates whether a new 'Understand, Know, Do' structure for the curriculum has the potential to facilitate coherent design of teaching programmes and 'deep learning'. Using a social realist lens, Bernsteinian theories on knowledge structures and recontextualization, and the principles of a Curriculum Design Coherence Model, the analysis identifies instances of both conceptual coherence and epistemic confusion which raises questions about the underlying principles upon which the curriculum documents are being developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diversifying impacts of global disasters such as climate change and COVID-19 call for systematic consideration of how disasters can be addressed in different school subjects. In this paper, we discuss how the relationship between disaster and science education has been codified and framed in South Korea through an analysis of national curriculum and policy documents from the 2010s, a period marked by several human-caused disasters with lingering social impacts. A genealogical reading of policy documents reveals how disaster emerged as a curricular theme at the intersection of two policy discourses: the discourse of safety and the discourse of integration. Further analysis of the documents points to three tensions about science education that underlay this process, as disaster, a non-traditional topic, was introduced into the science curriculum. Our findings provide insights into the tensions and conflicting ideas about what should be learned in school science. We contend that a stronger theoretical and empirical base is needed when introducing new curriculum topics such as disaster into the curriculum. More effort is needed to justify the new topic against the existing aims and structures of school subjects, to consider the unique social and political context, and to bridge the gap between curriculum policy and classroom practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Republic of Ireland there has been substantial investment in Early Years provision. The number of different types of settings for pre-school children and the associated research has grown significantly. This paper contributes to existing knowledge by reporting the findings of a qualitative participatory study carried out in the Republic of Ireland and involving a comparative analysis of the views of 90 pre-school children from three different types of setting. Within a conceptual framework that acknowledges the impact of neo-liberalism, the paper argues that despite the growing diversity of settings, provision is underpinned by three main dominant discourses, namely schoolification, risk avoidance and quality assurance. The influence of these on the lived experiences of young children is then explored focusing in particular on how, and in what ways, children exercise their agentic capacity. It is argued that young children's opportunities to exercise their social agency is at times constrained because of the influence of the combined discourses, which creates a sense of fear in staff (fear of parental complaint, fear of losing job, status and setting registration). Implications for provision and practice are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While learning a broad sense of compassion (feeling/being kind), students are seldom given a sustained opportunity to learn why they feel angry at the suffering of the other and what to do with that anger. Prosocial anger that adheres to compassion is not deemed as official affective knowledge in schools. While defining compassion as a virtue, this paper conceptualizes compassionate anger as a mobilizer for social justice. Becoming empathetic towards the suffering of the other is, and should be, one of the core educational goals in the era of a pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. To this end, by examining the interaction between compassion as an ontological virtue and anger as an emotion, which is a somewhat paradoxical relationship, this paper theoretically juxtaposes compassion with four prosocial angers (impersonal, defensive, Aristotelean, and political) to construct four curriculum approaches to social justice (conservative, experiential, rational, and emancipatory). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is our contention that we are in a crisis of curriculum that can be seen from calls to defund public education to the reduction of children to scores on annual assessments. We also point to a crisis in studies of curriculum that the critical tools necessary to consider and critique curricular practices have been intentionally removed from schools of education. Our argument begins with a discussion of the potential significance for curriculum studies that focuses on questions of history and voice, and of resonances. In the light of such resonances and the ecologies where educational understandings reside, the second section of our paper examines the possibilities and challenges for curricular tools, as applicable in everyday interactions as they are in the more structured educational ecologies of schooling. We then apply such contextualized understandings to a formal curriculum espoused by an elite U.S. university in order to better articulate both what curriculum studies can do and why curriculum remains such a significant aspect of our understanding. Our work ends with a brief concluding section that suggests what else the curriculum might do and the kinds of things we are concerned are increasingly overlooked, from historical knowledge to contemporary cultural expressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Finland, the vocational education and training (VET) qualifications lead into work. Also, active citizenship is one of its aims, and qualification enables application to tertiary study. In terms of these aims, literacies are central. In the context of competency-based VET, we analyse how a curriculum of literacy is realized during literacy lessons. The theoretical background lies on sociocultural understanding of literacies as social practices, and this article discusses the school subject of literacy representing theoretical knowledge in competency-based education. Methodologically, the paper draws from feminist ethnography, and the analysis focuses on examining language use in recurring classroom events. We analyse ethnographic data from the literacy lessons for the car mechanics and building construction programmes (2018–2020). These are programmes with an overrepresentation of male and working-class-based youth. The analysis highlights that during the lessons, the value of literacy manifested as market-oriented and work-relevant 'usefulness', and the literacy curriculum was realized as delimited to labour contexts and topics. There was an imperative of motivation for conducting literacy schoolwork which draws on stereotyped notions of students who are seen as not interested in literacy but in longing to labour. Based on this analysis, the literacy curriculum was realized as 'literacy for labour'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some might fear that the local flavours of education will evaporate when encountering the hegemony of global, cognitive standards of the knowledge economy. This paper, however, shows that the evolution of curriculum can emerge in surprising directions, creating hybrid forms of education. We will investigate forms of meaning that emerge in Norwegian curriculum in the timespan 1988-2020, and show how systems theory can contribute to studying curriculum changes in a temporal perspective. The empirical case for investigation, is a diverse range of material, documenting curriculum changes in the mentioned period. Concepts from the late Luhmann's 'theory of distinctions' will thus be used to give meaning to the emergence of school reforms in Norway. The paper shows that Norwegian policy makers use increasingly complex deparadoxification strategies to deal with an uncertain future, conceptualized as externalization, oscillation, asymmetrisation, and internalization (re-entry). This is most pertinently demonstrated in the latest Norwegian reform LK20, in which a new, hybrid, 'temporal' construct of education, called "new-old-curriculum" or 'competence-Bildung' emerges. We thus contribute to the field of curriculum studies by observing how changing observations of the past and future fuel and legitimize the evolution of new reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to describe an alternative understanding of Bildung-centred Didaktik through an examination of Wilhelm von Humboldt's conception and practice of educational reform—Bildungsreform, 1809–1810—in which the concept of science (Wissenschaft) was regarded as the fundamental goal and principle for curricular and didactic structure. Willbergh's call to revise Bildung with more emphasis on the pedagogical concepts is congruent with Deng's challenge to overcome the 'moribund' state of the contemporary Anglo-American curriculum studies. Re-examination of the classical figure, Wilhelm von Humboldt, who is quoted and referred to in almost every paper about Didaktik and Bildung theory in the context of curriculum research, but never examined in detail, provides a fruitful reframing of Bildung to the didactical principle. This paper utilizes unpublished archived material in which Humboldt argued for the roles and relationship between Wissenschaft and education for Bildung process as relational development with self and world. Humboldt argued that the purpose of school education is to encourage students to deepen their view on the world, resulting in both intellectual and moral development towards self-determination that consists of five categories: language, mathematics, science, arts and gymnastics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) informed genre theory, this paper investigates the interplay between narrative and analytical representations of the past in texts used for history-educational purposes. In this paper, it is argued that the role of narrative merits further attention in history genre descriptions. Thirteen history texts, selected from a lower-secondary history-instructional unit about European colonization, are examined. The examination of stages, narrative elements, and the way historical significance is expressed in these texts arrives at a re-calibration of the historical recount genre suggesting four distinct historical recount types with different configurations of a narrative-analytical interplay. The findings have implications for our understanding of the role of narrative elements in history texts, and further for genre-based approaches to instruction that concern reading and writing history texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to examine key change vectors shaping the undergraduate curriculum in the third decade of the twenty-first century. The paper begins by outlining selected definitions, foundational theories and conceptual frameworks underpinning this analysis of the undergraduate curriculum and its influences. Three key external forces shaping the undergraduate curriculum are examined: universalization; national policy and legislative frameworks; and the influence of technology as disruptor and enabler. While some of these socio-political, economic and geopolitical forces are longstanding and familiar, a number of influential factors that have gained prominence in the last 10 years, including the disruptive influence of technology, new approaches to curriculum design in the form of micro-credentialing, and changing expectations of the undergraduate curriculum. The paper calls for a conceptually robust, long-term approach to examining the various factors shaping the undergraduate curriculum, with a particular focus on macro-level factors external to an institution. The paper concludes by considering policy and practical implications of these forces for the future shape and purpose of undergraduate curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the relationship between knowledge and society in social studies by analysing how society is presented in four Finnish social studies textbooks currently in use in comprehensive education. Besides its empirical contribution, the paper examines the possibilities of applying Michael Young's understanding of powerful knowledge in social studies by complementing it with two additional theoretical approaches to society. Firstly, by applying Basil Bernstein's concept of recontextualisation, it is possible to elaborate on the way in which social studies textbooks reproduce societal power relations. Secondly, by observing the society of social studies textbooks in the light of Niklas Luhmann´s social systems theory, it is possible to examine how social reproduction in social studies is related to temporal forms of knowledge in a functionally differentiated, multifaceted society. The findings indicate that due to the present-focused and institutional approach to society, the textbooks offer few tools for critical understanding and for changing society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, neuroscience and brain-based approaches to education have started to feature prominently in the rationale for radical educational reform, both in terms of policy and practice. Revelations about what way the brain works, it seems, is a common point of interest for neuroscience and education alike. Out of these common interests there are now entire disciplines in their own right, such as 'mind, brain and education' and 'neuroeducation', which are collaborative disciplines formed at the boundaries of common points of interest between the brain sciences in general and education. This paper seeks to examine the credibility of the science inherent in this collaboration, with a particular example found in the guise of the Revised Northern Ireland Curriculum, devised and implemented from 2003 onwards by the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA). The paper will also invoke a philosophical notion known as the mereological fallacy, to offer a conceptual critique of the curricular changes in Northern Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasing popularity of studies on teachers' national curriculum adaptations, there is no comparative study elucidating teachers' adaptations in centralized and decentralized educational contexts through sense-making theory lenses. This paper presents a comparative case study of Turkish and Swedish senior classroom teachers' curricular adaptations concerning sense-making theory. We get data through non-participatory lesson observations, interviews, and document analysis from two teachers teaching third-grade mathematics in each country (İzmir and Malmö). Findings reveal that both Turkish and Swedish senior teachers frequently extend, replace/revise and omit the mathematics curriculum. Turkish teachers provided extensive evidence about their adaptations and even tried explaining their reasons whereas Swedish teachers perceived the changes they made in the classroom as teaching rather than adaptations, due to different levels of centralization. Additionally, Turkish teachers responded with parallel structures and assimilation to the national curriculum, and Swedish teachers responded only with assimilation. However, a Turkish teacher's assimilation mediated fewer adaptations while both Swedish teachers' assimilation mediated more adaptations (extension and replacing/revising). We conclude by drawing implications for research on teachers' adaptations and sense-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of research to the contrary, public discourse continues to insist on the direct power of curriculum to shape student learning, rather than acknowledge the complex and situated ways that teachers and curricular materials interact to shape enacted instruction. In this paper, we use a model of curriculum enactment to illustrate the complex factors influencing this interaction between teachers and curriculum. We examine how two teachers enact two different lessons on racial history and ask whether and how this interaction led to opening or closing of opportunities for interpretation. Our analysis led us to generate three types of historical interpretations that were potentially available for discussion across these two lessons: (a) textual interpretations centred on how a particular text should be understood; (b) political interpretations centred on how history should be remembered in the present; (c) structural interpretations centred on causal explanations for racism. The results of this study suggest that developing teacher knowledge for facilitating discourse about racial history will need to be steeped in enactment and contextualized in teachers' broader identities and experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers in the US are increasingly required to use scripted curricula. Such instructional materials often reflect the overwhelming whiteness of the publishing industry through a lack of representation of authors and protagonists outside of white, middle-class normative characters. Implementation of such curricula stands in direct contrast to studies finding that culturally relevant pedagogy and curricula benefit students across racial and ethnic groups. This paper describes a qualitative analysis of the scripted Wit and Wisdom English Language Arts curriculum for grades K-8 guided by the research question: How might the curriculum reproduce a white supremacist master script? Following a quantitative analysis of racial representation across all core and supplementary texts in the curriculum, the research team used guiding questions grounded in a critical discourse and anti-racist teaching framework to qualitatively analyse teacher-facing materials at each grade level. The findings of this study indicate that whiteness is centred at every level of the curriculum in text selection and thematic grouping of texts, as well as through discursive moves in teacher-facing materials (e.g. essential questions for learning modules). Based on the findings, the research team suggests mechanisms for individual and collective efforts to resist whiteness-centred curricula at the system, school, and classroom level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]