Achieving greater alignment with national curriculum and local school and teacher objectives alongside a deeper understanding of student needs can enhance the impact and reach of health promotion interventions. This study reports on teacher perspectives of a multi-pathway curriculum outline supporting learning (Grades 7-9) about sugary drinks. The…

This article reports on a line of findings that explores how New Zealand secondary teachers teach about inequality as part of the official New Zealand curriculum ("NZC") in their respective teaching subjects. This second phase of the study is part of a wider project about how inequality is positioned within "NZC." In-service…

In this era of pandemics, asylum seekers, and conflict between super powers, social sciences are a critical subject that can help develop young people who can not only recognise racial and social discrimination but also injustices at a regional, national, and global scale. Mainstream subjects, such as sociology, routinely support learning in the…

As part of a multiyear research project investigating the affordances of online citizen science (OCS) projects for enhancing school students' learning in relation to science and digital technology, teacher-researchers have designed and implemented classroom interventions incorporating one or more OCS projects. The project is situated in New…

In this article I interact with the narratives of five Pakeha (European) secondary school teachers, who choose to teach Aotearoa New Zealand histories including about Te Tiriti o Waitangi at senior level (years 11-13). I highlight characteristics of the active stance adopted by participants towards teaching and learning the difficult histories of…

A standards-based assessment system provides opportunities to join curriculum intentions to demonstrations of complex learning. In this article we use New Zealand's senior secondary qualifications system--the National Certificates of Educational Achievement (NCEA)--to illustrate how adaptations of existing structures might help to better reflect…

In this paper we explore the adoption of a neoliberal turn in New Zealand's education system and its consequences, focusing particularly on secondary school music education. In the 1980s, New Zealand was one of the first states in the Western world to implement comprehensive neoliberal economic policies. Some 35 years later, education in New…

This study explores learner engagement with Advanced Computational Thinking (ACT) in the New Zealand digital curriculum. "Advanced" in ACT refers to an expansive, transdisciplinary, and future-looking understanding of computational thinking (CT). ACT promotes CT beyond narrow modes of problem-solving (abstraction, algorithmic thinking,…

"The New Zealand Curriculum" expresses a vision for young people who are contributing and participating members of society. While this social vision is supported by the inclusion of key competencies, the curriculum document says little about content and its role in developing this participatory agency. This article uses interview data…

In this article I explore a challenge identified by teachers involved in a recent research project on curriculum integration. Teachers described this challenge as how to balance the need to "cover" "The New Zealand Curriculum" with the need to support student agency. I describe how teachers saw this challenge, and the different…

Science capabilities were introduced within the New Zealand context following the revised "New Zealand Curriculum" (NZC). These capabilities are a small set of things that NZC intends students to be able to do in science, which weave the nature of science with content strands. Using pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to understand…

The recently revised New Zealand Curriculum in technology education [Ministry of Education (MoE) Digital technologies: Hangarau Matihiki, Wellington, 2017. https://education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Ministry/consultations/DT-consultation/DTCP1701-Digital-Technologies-Hangarau-Matihiko-ENG.pdf] presents opportunities for teachers to provide a…

This article presents a systematic review of the ways in which inequality is featured within New Zealand's secondary curriculum and Ministry of Education-supported Te Kete Ipurangi online teaching resources. Despite an increasing awareness of global inequality, there is minimal research on how inequality is represented within "The New Zealand…

New Zealand has had a technology curriculum since the mid 1990s. The curriculum has recently been revised, with a view to foster students' digital fluency and ability to function in a technologically mediated world. The nature of schools is also changing in New Zealand. Advocated approaches encourage students' engagement in creative and practical…

In national contexts where curriculum policies explicitly advocate for the development of students' higher order thinking capabilities, evidence suggests that achieving this goal can be quite elusive. In this article we explore this challenge by drawing on senior secondary school examples from two national contexts (New Zealand and Israel) that…