"The Importance of Teaching: The Schools White Paper 2010," which grants schools increased autonomy in curriculum development and implementation, heralded a new era of curriculum reform in England. This article critically examines how this process took place in a Catholic secondary school that decided to use the RSA Opening Minds (OM)…

The UK's new Coalition Government looks as if it will make the narrow, traditional school curriculum we have now even narrower and more rooted in the past. The Labour government made timid moves to improve the National Curriculum, not least by equipping it with a few general aims, even though these meshed poorly on to intra-subject aims. Michael…

The launch of New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) brings into question the future of the reforms introduced in the 1999 curriculum, Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand National Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1999). The aim of this paper is to critique recent physical education curriculum policy in New Zealand and…

Broadening the role of teachers in curriculum development was among the fundamental objectives of educational reforms in the formerly communist Eastern Europe in the 1990s. The research done so far, however, calls into question the degree to which teachers perceive the relevant changes in curriculum and their new role. This article first describes…

This study examines the usage and contexts of "wellbeing" in New Zealand's curriculum, a formal statement of education policy enacted by a democratically elected government. The analysis is guided by a current model of student wellbeing rooted in seven, interdependent domains: "Having," "Being," "Relating,"…

The Republic of Korea (hereafter, Korea) has historically affirmed that the country is ethnically homogeneous and this belief is often expressed in the nation's government compiled and issued textbooks. However, this dogmatic view does not correspond to the trends of globalization with mass global migration. International organizations also urged…

This paper will present a brief overview of the recent shifts within English and EAL/D (English as an additional language/dialect) curriculum documents and their focus on critical literacy, using the Queensland context as a case in point. The English syllabus landscape in Queensland has continued to morph in recent years. From 2002 to 2009,…

In educational research, emotion has attracted substantial attention since the mid-1990s. While there are many studies of teacher emotion in educational change in the West, there is a remarkable dearth of such studies in China. This qualitative study attempts to address this issue by examining teachers' emotional experiences in the national…

National curricula are being challenged and transformed by the impact of migration and European integration. This paper examines how cultural diversity and Europe are intertwined in geography, history, and citizenship education curricula in Greece, Germany, and England. This question is explored using quantitative and qualitative methods through a…

Both China and England require state-funded schools to teach a national curriculum. While policy congruence in terms of overall intention is apparent, there are major differences between each country's approach to systemic curriculum reform which highlight contrasting attitudes to how best to effect change in schools and widely differing views on…

This article attempts to map the business and economics curriculum and explain some of the reasons for it being as it is; and to examine the number of students choosing to study the subjects and the "perceived relative value" of studying economics and business studies. In 1988 a National Curriculum was introduced for all 5-16-year-olds…

High stakes testing in Australia was introduced in 2008 by way of the National Assessment Program--Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). Currently, every year all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed on the same days using national tests in Reading, Writing, Language Conventions (Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation) and Numeracy. In 2010 the…

During the last several decades, educational reform in Sweden has been at once contentious, fast paced, and uneven as control of Parliament and educational policy shifted between left- and right-wing political factions. These political power shifts within Parliament created tension between national and local municipal governments and provoked…

The main goal of this study is to examine the politics of the development of intercultural education policy in Cyprus. More specifically, it examines the content of intercultural policies developed by the state and particularly the Ministry of Education and Culture. In addition, the study focuses on the challenges that may impede the development…

Is there validity to the claim that national standardized curriculum and testing will bring about the necessary education reform in the United States? To answer this question, the author has looked at and learned from Singapore, a country that has traditionally excelled and outperformed U.S. students in the international comparative studies. This…