We analyse the implementation of a new New Zealand physics curriculum from a socio-cultural perspective. We explore the development of the curriculum document and examine the obstacles to its implementation. Change was compromised by the lack of any intersubjective linkage between teachers and the curriculum designers. The teachers' own community…

While it is widely acknowledged that classroom practice is shaped by its context, the dynamics of that shaping remain elusive. This study conceptualizes the ways in which changing social conditions and national priorities enter into US curriculum practice. Initially, the focus was on the US Census 2000 results showing an increasingly diverse…

Children's interests are frequently cited as a source of early-years curricula. Yet, research has rarely considered the nature of these interests beyond the play-based environment of early-childhood education. This paper reports findings from a qualitative, interpretivist study in two early childhood settings in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Using…

As the education for citizenship agenda continues to impact on schools in the UK and with the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) in conjunction with the Scottish Government introducing its Lessons From Auschwitz (LFA) project for students and teachers in Scotland, this article focuses on the Scottish context and investigates the school processes by…

University-based teacher-education programmes in the USA confront mounting pressure to demonstrate that graduates will have a significant and positive impact on student achievement. Such pressure has forced teacher educators to wrestle with the question of what constitutes compelling evidence that teacher candidates will indeed have such an…

Physical education is one of the more difficult subjects in the curriculum for generalist classroom teachers in primary schools to incorporate confidently into their teaching. In many primary schools, the generalist classroom teacher defers to a physical education specialist. This situation has both positive and negative features. In this context,…

This essay explores the nature of the curriculum content of liberal studies--a core school subject in the new senior secondary curriculum in Hong Kong--with reference to the curriculum-making processes entailed in the formation of that subject. The central thesis is that a school subject is introduced to schools and classrooms as a distinct…

This study examines the mediating role of homework in the daily practice of a middle-school mathematics teacher and her colleagues in Shanghai. It aims to explore how a system of homework activities mediates and engenders a cultural pedagogy characterized by transforming errors into resources for teaching and learning. The transformation itself…

This study examines four case studies of mentors of new teachers who assumed leadership of teacher induction programmes. Using cycles of action research conducted in a teacher induction leadership network, the case-study authors inquired into the features of the mentor curriculum. Cross-case analyses suggest the need for three elements of mentor…

This paper examines the impact of task structure on students' learning processes in the context of several case studies in practical secondary school science. Three levels of differentiated task structure were investigated: open (no structured in-task support), partially structured (some in-task support), or prescriptive (highly structured in-task…

Discusses curriculum literature on mental skills, with emphasis on Bruner's work. The skills model offered in the literature is found to be somewhat simplistic in conception and inadequate when applied to higher-order mental activities. The difficulties inherent in the notion of the transferability of mental skills are examined. (RM)

This paper examines music education's legitimation of values as a means of preparing students for entry into the new "knowledge society" of the People's Republic of China in a global age. It explores the ways in which values education relates to the teaching of both musical and non-musical meanings in the dual context of nationalism and…

Much official environmental education policy in the UK and elsewhere makes scant reference to nature as such, and the issue of our underlying attitude towards it is rarely addressed. For the most part such policy is pre-occupied with the issue of meeting "sustainably" what are taken to be present and future human needs. This paper…

The goal of this paper is to introduce the curriculum strategy framework as a way to characterize teachers' interactions with curriculum materials. The framework focuses on three key interpretive activities: reading, evaluating, and adapting curriculum materials. Describing an individual teacher's curriculum strategy involves identifying the…

This paper demonstrates a methodology for effectively integrating computer-based learning tools in science teaching and learning. This methodology provides a means of systematic analysis to identify the capabilities of particular software tools and to formulate a series of competencies relevant to physical science that could be developed by means…