In response to the global pressure that has led to an increased emphasis on international comparisons of student achievement since the 1980s, multiple federal reforms aimed at producing greater consistency in curricula have been initiated in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of a national curriculum and…

Teacher learning is crucial in terms of good quality education in early years and, respectively teachers' professional communities are crucial for teacher learning. The meaning of engagement in collaborative learning and resources available in professional community are emphasized in educational reforms. In this study, we explored teachers'…

Scandinavian countries have a long tradition of widespread public schooling linked to civic education. In the most recent curriculum reforms, concepts from rhetoric appear in various forms in language arts subject curricula from primary to upper-secondary school. In this article, we examine how current Scandinavian curricula reflect rhetoric and…

The teaching of reading has been a source of contentious debate for many years. Margaret Meek Spencer contributed her passion for the importance of specific texts to help children learn to read. In addition to the kinds of texts to be used, important aspects of the debate include the relationship between national curriculum policies and robust…

Using a theoretical-critical and historical approach, this paper analyses the implications of the Cold War in national curricula and educational reforms of the second half of the 20th century with emphasis on the 21st century. The context of the time after the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War is shown, as well as the social and…

Until recently teacher education in England has always contained a 'philosophical' element -- to do with what education is for in the light of human nature. The paper traces its history since 1839, through inspirational approaches -- based first on religion and later on psychology -- to the critical approach of R S Peters and his colleagues in the…

This book explores changing practice in history classrooms from the autonomy of the 1980s through the introduction of GCSEs and the National Curriculum to the prescription of the National Strategies and the pervasive influence of league tables in the first decade of the twenty-first century. It uses individual narratives from history teachers to…

Since its emergence as a distinct subject area in the nineteenth century, English has been an important, but contested, subject. Competing discourses, resulting in different models of English, have vied for prominence, each with ideologies about the purposes of education and the needs of students and the state. However, while international…

In this paper we examine changes to the national calculus curriculum of South Korea, where mathematics performance often serves as the mark of academic excellence. We describe relevant cultural traditions of mathematics education in South Korea, including the history of curricular changes in calculus at the secondary level. We then investigate how…

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…

National curriculum standards for different countries mean some International Baccalaureate (IB) schools must often balance IB and national standards. Literature on how schools find this balance is limited. Using a qualitative case study design, we examined the perspectives of teachers of English in a Chinese IB school that recently employed a…

The aim of this chapter is to explore the relationship between curriculum and leadership research with examples of three recently completed mixed methods studies of assessment cultures and leadership as interlinked activities of governance and school management. We employ curriculum theoretical concepts like e.g. codes and arenas to illustrate…

Recent 'decolonising the curriculum' movements have called for Higher Education to rethink how it engages with diversity and colonialism in its lectures and syllabi. But what can these ideas mean for science subjects in secondary schools? Grounded on a decolonial perspective around the Science and Technology Studies (STS) field, this paper…

There has been a longstanding interest in the kinds of scientific knowledge that primary science learners must know and be able to do, which comprise the intellectual demands in this subject. These prescriptions chiefly take guidance from national curriculum documents, especially in the form of their learning outcomes (LO) or learning standards.…

In this article the authors overview how the recently revised (version 9) Australian Curriculum (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2022) and student difficulties with fractions relate to five developmental Fraction Schemes developed from multiple research projects in the literature. The article shares research findings from…