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An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including curriculum and teaching, pedagogy, and teacher education.

The article announces winners of Editors' Choice paper prize for Volume 28 of the periodical which include "L. V. Shcherba: a ‘new slant' on modern foreign languages in the school curriculum?" and shortlisted such as "Reconsidering school politics: educational controversies in Sweden."

An editorial is presented on papers on curricular mediation and enactment. Topics include focusing on decolonising science in developing critical thinking and enabling representativeness concerned with developing student engagement and criticality; investment in teacher professional education and further research in exploring pedagogy and outcomes in language education in Northern Ireland.

The General Certificate of Education (GCE) A* grade was first awarded to students in 2010. It was introduced to assist higher education institutions in differentiating between the highest performing students and to promote and reward greater stretch and challenge. This paper, based on a synthesis of key policy documents, an analysis of quantitative data and a review of existing research, provides an analysis of the GCE A* grade. The paper begins by introducing the historical and political context that led to the introduction of the A* grade, drawing together policy documents and research carried out by the awarding bodies. The paper then presents an analysis of 2011 A-level data, considering the characteristics of students who achieve the grade and addressing concerns around equality and fairness. A further line of evidence concerns public confidence in the new grade, especially in relation to whether it is fulfilling its purposes. The paper concludes by identifying a number of policy lessons for the future of the GCE A* grade. Forthcoming reforms to the A-level will necessitate a reappraisal of the way A* is calculated: this paper will be a useful source of evidence with which to consider the issues.

This paper sheds light on an important and under‐researched issue: The sources of information about climate change that teachers use. Utilising a 'scoping review' methodological approach, we analysed over 600 papers to address two main questions: What sources of information about climate change are teachers using? In what ways are teachers using these sources of information? Through our use of inclusive search terms and detailed analysis of papers, we found only 13 studies of relevance, none of which primarily focus on the sources of information teachers use. The 13 studies are all located in the Global North, and within this nearly half are in the USA. Methodologically, all apart from two rely on teachers' reports rather than observation or other methods. Four types of sources of information were frequently mentioned: The Internet; government sources; mass media and professional development courses. The 'superabundance' of information now available to teachers (particularly online), the importance of high‐quality information for students' understandings of climate change, and the limited research on the sources of information about climate change that teachers use makes this is a significant blind spot for research to address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a theoretical contribution to the discussion of interdisciplinary knowledge in curriculum and research. As a challenge to much of the Mode 2 thesis concerned only with the importance of knowledge being socially relevant, this paper demonstrates how a Bernsteinian approach to interdisciplinarity relates to the internal configurations underpinning interdisciplinary knowledge. Inspired by explorations of Bernsteinian communities, this paper sets out to conceptualize the socio‐epistemic constraints under which powerful disciplinary boundary crossing occurs. The major claim is that the boundaries between disciplines and between them and the field of practice, are essential for boundary crossing. The interdisciplinary efforts do not necessarily involve diminishing disciplinary boundaries, but they are vulnerable to external weakening when there is little connection to the disciplinary core that provides stable internal norms. This paper adds to the discussion by suggesting alternatives to interdisciplinary integration, which do not require a background intellectual consilience between disciplines. It presents an appeal for a form of interdisciplinarity that is pursued to a practical end within refining disciplinary conceptual models, without invoking exaggerated claims for 'relevance', and with no need for a more complex edifice for crossing the established borders between disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent Norwegian curriculum reform for schools, called "The subject renewal", is part of an international trend regarding knowledge‐based curricula. The Norwegian curriculum, which places decisive emphasis on subjects and subject concepts, aims to bring in‐depth learning and knowledge back to schools. This paper is based on Rata's theory, referred to as the curriculum design coherence (CDC) model, and examines the curriculum for social studies. The analysis reveals significant differences in the curriculum's goal formulations, with designs that lack connections between subject concepts and content knowledge, which sheds light on how the transition to a knowledge‐based curriculum is accompanied by several unresolved issues. The paper explains why curricula with coherent designs and epistemically structured knowledge are a prerequisite for in‐depth learning and cumulative knowledge building in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces that Andrew Noyes, Geoff Wake, and Pat Drake won the 2013 Editors' Choice paper prize for their article "Time for curriculum reform: the case of mathematics" from Volume 24, Issue 4 of the publication.

This paper focuses on the nature of the legacy that Lawrence Stenhouse bequeathed in the field of curriculum development and research, particularly in relation to his idea of ‘the teacher as researcher’. In the process, it explores the contemporary relevance of this legacy to those who are currently attempting to rethink and re‐enact the relationship between teachers and the school curriculum in a policy context. It also explores the impact of Stenhouse's work on the development of a collaborative action research movement within the United Kingdom and beyond. The author distinguishes a particular strand of collaborative action research which he depicts as the neo‐Stenhouse tradition of applied research in education and distinguishes from the Stenhouse legacy as such. This distinction is based on a recognition that Stenhouse's legacy and idea of ‘the teacher as researcher’ was a work in progress, which he himself acknowledged. Drawing on ambiguities in Stenhouse's thinking about the relationships between educational theory and practice and between teachers and researchers, the author argues that there are strong conceptual links between Stenhouse's idea of ‘the teacher as researcher’ and his account of case study as a method of applied research in education. The paper concludes with an argument for the contemporary relevance of Stenhouse's work, and the tradition of applied research in education he wanted to establish, in policy contexts where curriculum development and research is dominated by a performative model of rationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has its origins in the EU Comenius funded GeoCapabilities project. From its outset, the project developed and researched the notion of powerful disciplinary knowledge (PDK) as an underlying principle of curriculum making in the context of secondary school geography teaching. The work, led from the UCL Institute of Education and involving school teachers, teacher educators and other stakeholders across eight mainly European jurisdictions, was framed by Young and Muller's 'three educational scenarios' (Young & Muller, European Journal of Education, 45, 2010 and 11). The three futures heuristic is discussed as a means to distinguish qualities of curriculum thought. Future 3 scenarios, which posit teachers as curriculum makers with responsibility to engage in essential 'knowledge work', provide a principled platform on which to develop ambitious educational classroom encounters. Knowledge working with PDK and (as we go on to argue) other powerful ways of knowing the world, is seen as a bridge between social realist epistemological principles and practical classroom content selections. This opens the possibility of responding to Deng's (Journal of Curriculum Studies, 54, 2022) call for developing practical theories of content with teachers. Although the authors are geographers in education drawing on different international perspectives and traditions, the paper addresses matters of interest applicable to a variety of specialist subject domains across the secondary school curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In England, pupils aged 16 take the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations for a range of subjects. The current assessment models for GCSE include a two-tier structure for some subjects and a non-tier model for the others. The tiered subjects have a higher tier designed for high achieving pupils and a lower tier for low achieving pupils. The higher tier paper is targeted at grades A*–D (with A* the highest grade available), while the lower tier paper at grades C–G (with G the lowest grade). The UK government has proposed a comprehensive reform of GCSEs. It suggested that, with tiered papers, pupils are forced to choose between higher and lower tier papers, which will place a cap on the ambition of those entering for the lower tier. The government therefore suggests avoiding tiering in the reformed GCSEs when possible. This paper discusses the technical and equity issues with the use of tiered examinations in current GCSEs and reviews potential alternative assessment approaches for effective differentiation between pupils for the reformed GCSEs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper is to explore and provide an alternative theoretical viewpoint, informed by empirical studies, of the curriculum policy enactment process which spans across different curriculum policy spaces by drawing on figurational sociology. This paper constructs this alternative figurational viewpoint of the policy enactment process by drawing on curriculum policy and policy enactment literature. This viewpoint highlights how a curriculum policy can be (re‐)interpreted, (re‐)translated and (re‐)enacted by multiple, interconnected and interdependent (face‐to‐face and non‐face‐to‐face, recognised and unrecognised, past and present) relationships. We argue the need for agonistic dialogue between the stakeholders of the educational community and how his could lead to these stakeholders working together across curriculum policy spaces (e.g., curriculum development, teacher education, professional development) and on different aspects of 'doing' policy work. We encourage ourselves, and colleagues, to advocate for, support and provide evidence on the centrality of construction and enactment of curriculum policy in effective curriculum change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic, this co‐authored paper grew out of a graduate course on mindfulness and an extended inquiry into what it means to cultivate mindful relationships in curriculum as lived experience. Centring three graduate students' experiential projects, including two projects of interactions with nature and one project of interpersonal interactions, this paper demonstrates the process of practicing mindfulness from students' perspectives as individual inquiry, a process that was filled with curves and frustrations as well as revelations and potentiality. The teacher educator created pedagogical conditions but the students enacted their own curriculum in their lived experience of forming mindful relationships. A further layer of inquiry was conducted in the conversations among the three graduate students and the teacher educator, from which shared meanings of time, self‐understanding, gender and making connections across difference emerged. A reconstructed conversation was composed to demonstrate this inquiry process. Curriculum as lived experience, including curriculum as a complicated conversation, is the orientation for this individual and group inquiry. This study shows that curriculum as mindfully lived in relationship is an emergent process of cultivating both deepened self‐understanding and relational attunement, sustained through a lived body, lived time and space, and lived connections across difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The poor success rate of policy for curriculum change has been widely noted in the educational change literature. Part of the problem lies in the complexity of schools, as policy-makers have proven unable to micro-manage the multifarious range of factors that impact upon the implementation of policy. This article draws upon empirical data from a local authority-led initiative to implement Scotland's new National Curriculum. It offers a set of conceptual tools derived from critical realism (particularly the work of Margaret Archer), which offer significant potential in allowing us to develop greater understanding of the complexities of educational change. Archer's social theory developed as a means of explaining change and continuity in social settings. As schools and other educational institutions are complex social organisations, critical realism offers us methodological tools for tracking the ebbs and flows of change cycles over time, presenting the means for mapping the multifarious networks and assemblages that form their basis. (Contains 2 figures and 3 notes.)

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses several articles published within issue on topics including critique of current trajectories in curriculum studies, feedback as a relational rather than technical concept, and micro-level classroom interactions.

The Transition Year (TY) programme is an optional, one-year, stand-alone, full-time programme offered in 75% of second-level schools in the Republic of Ireland. Aimed at those in the 15-16 age group, TY has a strong focus on personal and social development and on education for active citizenship. The implementation of TY in schools is seen as a case study in curriculum innovation. Evidence from the programme's history and development, from studies of attitudes to TY in six schools and among policy shapers, suggests ambiguous views among stakeholders towards the programme. Enthusiasm for aspects of the innovation is accompanied by resistance to its more challenging features. Schools' responses to the programme are examined from a range of perspectives. (Contains 9 notes.)

This paper examines ways in which approaches to English as Additional Language (EAL) can be decolonised in schools. In an attempt to break traditional divides between academic research and pedagogical practice in this area, this article adopts a collaborative perspective, between an EAL advisory and support teacher and an academic member of staff working in university. Drawing on dialogues and co‐analysis with EAL practitioners, this article reflects on limitations of current provision and practice and suggests alternative, decolonial and anti‐racist approaches to the education of EAL students. At both school and university level, 'one size fits all approaches' tend to negate the deep historical, social and political roots and contexts which underpin the experiences of 'EAL students' at different levels of education. Issues related to equitable assessment, inclusion, linguistic support and anti‐racism tend to be side lined in favour of a focus on language proficiency and attainment, which most often overshadows the complex experiences and needs of students labelled 'EAL'. In this respect, the questions of relevant, decentred and decolonised curricula and forms of assessment that can promote inclusion for students who have experienced migration and are placed in monolingual educational environments in the UK are crucial. Through a decolonial perspective on the curriculum, language and pedagogical practice, inspired by postcolonial studies and Critical Race Theory, this paper discusses three main areas that emerged as crucial to a deeper and critical engagement with English as an Additional Language and the experience of students: (1) the need for a critical reflection on ideas of inclusion and mainstreaming; (2) active anti‐racist work in schools and initial teacher training; and (3) decolonising assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces that Professor Gert Biesta has won the Editors' Choice paper prize for the article "Pragmatising the curriculum: bringing knowledge back into the curriculum conversation, but via pragmatism."

Nearly forty years ago, Stenhouse argued that the function of the curriculum was to stimulate teachers' everyday reflection about and learning from practice. This suggestion, alongside his support for teachers as researchers, aligns with the Welsh Government's commitment to build an evidence‐informed profession as part of ongoing major education system‐level reforms, including the implementation of the new Curriculum for Wales from September 2022. University initial teacher education (ITE) partnerships are playing an important role in building collaborative research capacity. This paper describes a case study of one such partnership which aims to promote research‐informed, reflective practice among its postgraduate primary student teachers. We use one of Stenhouse's principles of empirical study to frame our discussion of how student teachers' reflective practice is supported through brief conversations with their teacher educators (mentors) during lessons. Using a mixed methods approach, the findings show that student teachers value in‐the‐moment feedback. The intervention also helps them to question aspects of teaching and learning, although such reflection is at a technical level. Our study is useful for teacher educators who are interested in supporting reflective practice through coaching and mentoring. It also cautions school leaders and policymakers implementing major curriculum reforms not to lose sight of Stenhouse's view that ‘it is teachers who, in the end, will change the world of the school by understanding it’. The paper concludes by discussing the research implications in shaping emerging practice and policy in the context of ongoing system‐level reform and curriculum implementation in Wales, with potential applicability and portability to other contexts and jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which author discusses articles on topics including focuses on education in age of crisis and for the future, tensions when classic curricula are challenged for their elitist stigma and values in curriculum as the relatively unexplored role of textbooks in education.

The article offers information on the journal's annual best paper prize, in which the papers will be evaluated by the editors and forwarded to the British Educational Research Association's (BERA) Academic Publications Committee for consideration.

An introduction to the topics discussed within the issue is presented, including the incorporation of digital learning experience into the curriculum, interaffective learning experiences in higher vocational education curriculum and visual representation in senior high school biology assessment.

Over 60 years of technology development, transformation of educational policy and curriculum innovation in Ireland have resulted in the introduction of the Computer Science (CS) subject in Post‐Primary (PP) Education. CS has always been conceived digitally and the Digital Learning Experiences (DLE) enacted through its curriculum are strongly interconnected to the opportunities and limitations offered by Digital Spaces (DS). However, key challenges have been identified for the successful implementation of CSE, from teachers' digital competencies and educational strategies in the classroom to learners' varying experiences of CSE. Through a systematic literature review of the educational policies and practices in Ireland's Educational System, this paper documents the digital evolution from the 1960s accounting for the CS curriculum. The literature review identifies key themes in how DS have been conceptualised through CSE, responding to learners' needs and teachers' skills and competencies, informed by emerging societal demands by providing evidence on the disparity between educational policy and practice for DS. Building upon the identified themes, this paper emphasises the importance of the design and implementation of DLE in DS such as the CS subject that considers historical lessons learned to respond to the uncertainties of the digital future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to articles published within the issue is presented, including one by Morag Henderson on a study which addresses student choices of subjects, another by Andrew Withell et al, on a study on teachers as researchers coupled with theories of critical realism to explore design and business processes, and one by Lisl Fenwick on two cross-curricular areas in the context of secondary education, literacy and metacognition.

'The knowledge question', addressing what students need to know and learn, becomes particularly relevant during the process of a new school reform. This paper examines the political messages and the role of knowledge in the current curriculum reform initiative for primary and secondary education in Norway (2020). The study is based on a document analysis of four key policy documents and one subject curriculum. Analysis reveals that, although the messages in the policy documents express expectations of strengthening the knowledge dimension in the school subjects, analysis of a new subject curriculum framework indicates that it more clearly prescribes skills, methods and strategies than the specialised knowledge content to teach. We conclude that the continuation of a competency‐oriented curriculum model, wherein the competence aims are the governing category, explicit content is difficult to prescribe because of the contrasting assumptions that underline a content‐oriented versus a competence‐oriented curriculum. The two curriculum models demand different approaches to 'the knowledge question', and raises questions about whether combining these two orientations in one curriculum model is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an exploration into a reform of the A-level qualification in England in 2008; namely, the introduction of the ‘stretch and challenge’ policy. This policy was initiated by the exams regulator and determined that exam papers should be redesigned to encourage the application of higher order thinking skills, both in the classroom and in examinations. The present study comprised two strands that explored the perceptions of students (n = 39) and teachers (n = 27) regarding the degree to which the incorporation of opportunities for stretch and challenge in the new examination papers had been achieved, and the likely effects on teaching, learning and exam preparation. On the whole, students and teachers welcomed the stretch and challenge policy and there were some indications that changes to the design of question papers could have some positive backwash effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the authors discusses articles in the issue on topics including student engagement with curriculum, culturally resonant curriculum, and role of higher education students as curriculum makers in integrated, interdisciplinary undergraduate programs.

This paper uses biographical, historical and comparative perspectives to examine some of the work of Lawrence Stenhouse, widely regarded as one of the leading curriculum theorists of the twentieth century. Although his best‐known work was carried out in England, he had strong Scottish connections and some of the influences on his output can be traced to his higher education in Scotland, his teaching experience in Glasgow and Fife, and his time as Principal Lecturer in Education at Jordanhill College of Education. Particular attention is given to Culture and Education (1967), written during Stenhouse's time in Scotland, and An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development (1975), the product of his experience as Director of the Humanities Curriculum Project and subsequently as Director of the Centre for Applied Research in Education at the University of East Anglia. Stenhouse's personal intellectual journey is related to policy developments in Scotland and England and, in particular, to the different approaches to curriculum development in the two countries. His early death in 1982 meant that he did not live to see the assault on his creative, teacher‐centred approach to curriculum development mounted by the political right in the 1980s and 1990s, but his ideas were kept alive by members of the team he had built up. The paper ends by summarising the reasons for Stenhouse's continuing importance. It is noted, however, that the many tributes to Stenhouse's achievements in England have not been matched by similar recognition in Scotland. Arguably, his ideas could have enabled Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence reform programme, launched in 2004, to have avoided some of the problems it encountered in the transition from conception to implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has its origins in the EU Comenius funded GeoCapabilities project. From its outset, the project developed and researched the notion of powerful disciplinary knowledge (PDK) as an underlying principle of curriculum making in the context of secondary school geography teaching. The work, led from the UCL Institute of Education and involving school teachers, teacher educators and other stakeholders across eight mainly European jurisdictions, was framed by Young and Muller's 'three educational scenarios' (Young & Muller, "European Journal of Education," 45, 2010 and 11). The three futures heuristic is discussed as a means to distinguish qualities of curriculum thought. Future 3 scenarios, which posit teachers as curriculum makers with responsibility to engage in essential 'knowledge work', provide a principled platform on which to develop ambitious educational classroom encounters. Knowledge working with PDK and (as we go on to argue) other powerful ways of knowing the world, is seen as a bridge between social realist epistemological principles and practical classroom content selections. This opens the possibility of responding to Deng's ("Journal of Curriculum Studies," 54, 2022) call for developing practical theories of content with teachers. Although the authors are geographers in education drawing on different international perspectives and traditions, the paper addresses matters of interest applicable to a variety of specialist subject domains across the secondary school curriculum.

In June 2020, the world witnessed an upsurge in Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd, an African American, by a White American police officer. The international response called for the global community to reassess the value of black lives blighted by racist social systems. The mass sentiment acted as a catalyst for educational institutions, including those in the UK, to mount a response. It is in this context that a School Partnership Group representing primary and secondary schools in East London embarked on developing a workshop series for the professional development of school leaders. The sessions were aimed at school transformation through anti‐racist educational approaches. In this article, we present a discussion of the workshop series held in the academic year 2020–2021, which brought school leaders together in a reflective community of practice. Drawing on data from focus group conversations carried out following the end of the series, this paper argues for school leaders' professional development that prioritises 'deep understanding' supported by reflective communities of practice as a pre‐requisite for effective anti‐racist practice and sustained school transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on "The Curriculum Journal" and its services. It cites that the journal's existence promotes and explores all aspects of curricular development and inquiry. The editors of the journal has invited contributions on all aspects in education from all over the world. Moreover, it provides an address for literary work submissions.

The article invites contributors to "The Curriculum Journal.

An introduction to the journal is presented which discusses topics within the issue including curriculum orientations of immigrant parents; key concerns in the teaching of science in schools; and effect of the lens of the teacher on summative assessment decision making.

This paper reports teacher and learner perspectives on how assessment and reform influences pedagogical practices and behaviours. The research was conducted in a context of policy reform, at a time when Wales' revised General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) specifications had been implemented, and learners were preparing for their assessments; but, also during the period of debate on the development of Wales' new curriculum, which has taken a distinct and contrasting position on assessment to the assumptions underlying the reform of Welsh GCSEs implemented from 2015. These data, therefore, offer unique insights into the affordances and limitations of two sharply contrasting systems at a time of considerable change, offering reflections on the current curriculum and its attendant assessment practices, and also a prospective analysis of how the principles embedded in the new curriculum could challenge these existing assumptions and conventions. Findings suggest that teachers and learners currently inhabit an assessment‐driven system, which encourages performative practices in pedagogy and is governed by external accountability; and that these practices are at odds with the principles of assessment articulated in Successful Futures. Consequently, teachers in this study expressed uncertainty about how assessment for certification purposes at GCSE could be compatible with the principles of the Curriculum for Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the twin processes of neoliberalism and neoconservatism work together on, and through, curricula and their associated pedagogies. It bridges the gap between policy and classroom practice, focusing on the particular example of the school subject of mathematics and the notion of mastery, operationalised in the English education system as Teaching for Mastery (TfM). From this context, it develops a theoretical argument using Dean's analytics of government as part of a broader Foucauldian frame, to analyse how TfM is constructed as a particular policy truth. It then shifts the analysis from a wide, social one to the individual classroom level using a psychological argument to critique TfM in its own terms, examining the onto‐epistemological nature of mathematics as a subject. In doing so, it explores ways in which mastery might be problematic in classrooms, even whilst appearing to offer a solution at policy level to long‐standing problems in English schooling. The aim is not to suggest that TfM has nothing to offer, but to point to ways in which it draws on the psychology of teaching and learning in a very particular manner, inscribing pupils with very specific mathematical subjectivities. By providing this insight into how neoliberal policy positions play out at practitioner level via curricula and pedagogies, the paper raises questions which are philosophical, political, and ethical, regarding the potential effect of TfM on teachers' and pupils' experiences of mathematics in schools, including implications for equity of this experience amongst the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language learning can open up new worlds and deepen understanding of our own. It can foster awareness of other people, other places and cultures, and bring social and educational benefits. Northern Ireland (NI) is an increasingly multilingual region that is emerging from conflict into a welcome, but fragile, peace. It faces unique uncertainties caused by Brexit, as well as the need to develop empathy in face of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Concerns have been expressed also about academic underachievement and mental health amongst its young people. Against such a background, this paper explores the current context in NI relating to languages, and curriculum policy and practice in language education. It argues that young people in NI are poorly served, and that curriculum reform with respect to languages is timely. The paper makes five key recommendations: (1) Reform of curriculum, policy and practice relating to language education in NI; (2) Introduction of statutory language learning in primary schools; (3) Investment in teacher development; (4) Valuing of linguistic diversity and plurality in curriculum policy and practice; and (5) Further practice‐based research to explore pedagogy and outcomes in language education in NI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on Bourdieu's theorising (particularly habitus and field) to think about position‐making of teachers in respect of the early enactment of the Australian Curriculum. Position‐making, a concept developed from the analysis proffered, can be contrasted with the more common practice of position‐taking endemic in a relatively stable field. Position‐making is an ongoing phenomenon in a changing field when the habitus is out of place, here the field of the new Australian Curriculum, creating the effect of what Bourdieu sees as hysteresis. This paper explores the positioning and re‐positioning of agents (teachers and school leaders) due to an external change (the Australian curriculum) in the schooling field. Data for this study were collected from a middle‐class state high school in Brisbane Australia, which was an early adopter of the new Australian Curriculum. The initial enactment phase of curriculum change was an unsettling one that (re)positioned agents—hence, the concept of position‐making, which is a contribution to Bourdieu's theoretical resources and which complements the idea of policy enactment as opposed to policy implementation. Both allow some agency in mediation of mandated changes in the specific contexts of schools and teacher/leader habitus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Textbooks are artifacts. They are made, used, interpreted, and understood in a wide range of ways. In this sense, regardless of its theoretical assumptions, textbook analysis is an evolving and pioneering task as textbooks bring about manifold knowledge, relationships, and emotions. When exploring the texts, images, and functions in and beyond the textbooks, researchers would recognize textbooks as interactive subjects in the social world rather than simply as content carriers. Although content analysis has long been employed as a methodology for textbook analysis, there are multiple pathways to investigate textbooks. The paper pays specific attention to interpretivist methodologies that may allow researchers to see the textbooks' interactive performance and impacts on others and researchers themselves. First, the paper reviews and pieces together previously established approaches and orientations of textbook studies. Second, the paper attempts to build a broad framework for analysing textbooks based mainly on Prior's and Cooren's arguments about reconceptualizing documents and texts, respectively. Third, the paper explores the implications of the analysis mentioned earlier and examines two interpretivist research methodologies, including symbolic interactionism and autoethnography, to open up the possibilities of rethinking textbooks as active social agents in human life instead of repositories of information and ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a variety of definitions persist, a common definition of physical literacy is that it encompasses the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities over the lifespan. While this perspective to physical literacy is broad, a great deal of curricular outcomes still focus on the physical competence, knowledge and understanding aspects of the framework leaving a gap in the holistic nature of the construct. This scoping review explores the construct of physical literacy within post‐secondary education, focusing on how social and emotional dimensions are integrated in teaching, delivery and assessment. This scoping review followed PRISMA‐ScR guidelines. Five online databases were used to identify papers published that used physical literacy in combination with post‐secondary as the educational setting with a focus on curriculum. The findings underscore a substantial gap in the literature. It was identified that the physical aspects of physical literacy were predominant with limited attention to the social and emotional domains. The gap implies that the comprehensive construct of physical literacy, which encompasses non‐physical facets, is often omitted in post‐secondary curricula. The review highlights an unexplored opportunity for post‐secondary institutions to intentionally construct more comprehensive physical literacy programmes. By incorporating social and emotional dimensions into these programmes, students gain a more holistic understanding of physical literacy. Subsequent research can delve into effective integration strategies and the potential benefits of such an approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are increasingly frequent calls for school mathematics curricula to be informed by robust research evidence. One approach to achieving this is designing evidence‐informed learning and teaching resources for the classroom. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences of designing a free and fully resourced complete set of secondary mathematics curriculum materials. We explore in detail the challenges we have encountered in our attempts to apply principles from the cognitive theory of multimedia learning. We focus on tensions we have experienced when simultaneously applying multiple principles and balancing these with other educational considerations. Specifically, we consider trade‐offs between redundancy versus clarity, seductive details versus richness, personalisation and emotional design versus abstraction, spatial contiguity and signalling versus parsimony, and pre‐training and worked examples versus exploration. We examine the choices and dilemmas we faced, and illustrate our emerging attempts to resolve these tensions through presenting multiple examples from our design work. We conclude with recommendations about how tensions among these design principles might be navigated in curriculum design and we suggest possible avenues for further research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a model for participatory curriculum development that builds on a 'connected learning communities' (CLC) approach. We describe and analyse the trajectory of six CLC‐cases using a framework informed by Social Practice Theory (SPT). The activities we report on took place during the first pilot year (2020–2021) of a transnational University Alliance involving six European universities. Data were drawn from document analysis, direct observations and ongoing dialogue with students and staff involved in the CLCs. Our findings illustrate the affordances of building on existing practice for curriculum development in international contexts and point out the importance of well‐equipped collaborative environments that encourage critical analysis and active experimentation. We found that the CLC model and SPT framework are helpful contributions in the field of curriculum development and argue that connected curriculum‐making approaches help shape versatile environments that can effectively transform and enhance educational provisions, experiences and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines underlying beliefs and values about nature within the early years education in Turkey, as reflected in the curricula and standards documents guiding instruction. Given that not every child has the opportunity for nature‐based education, it becomes essential to incorporate nature‐based learning into indoor classrooms. Employing a document analysis, we comprehensively analyse the Ministry of Education's Preschool Education Program (2013), Activity Book‐1 (2013a), and Activity Book‐2 (2018), which guides teachers in shaping their classroom practices, therefore providing in‐depth insights into the conceptualisations of nature. Our analysis reveals that 'nature' in these documents is characterised by its connection to and intersections of specific settings, concepts, and resources. Moreover, we found out that the identified patterns of relationships in the examined curriculum and standards documents demonstrate a purposeful initiative to engage preschool children in the realm of nature through various means, including conceptual comprehension, hands‐on interaction with materials, and direct involvement in natural surroundings. The intersections among these elements unveil a complex network of opportunities to promote an enhanced learning journey. By fostering a deeper understanding of the relationship between curriculum guidelines and nature activities, we aim to empower early childhood educators to embrace nature as an integral part of their classroom practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An effective educational response to the climate emergency requires disrupting existing ideas about universities' roles, curriculum design and the relationship between educators, students and communities. This study examines an approach to curriculum development taken by academics at The Open University, UK whilst developing the postgraduate short course ‘Teacher development: Addressing the climate emergency’. We sought to challenge hierarchical models of knowledge transfer by working in collaboration with disciplinary experts, grassroots leaders, and young climate activists and foregrounding online and local grassroots practices, students' civic participation, citizen science and intergenerational dialogues. We report on our collaborative autoethnographic study, which we conducted with respect to the course development. This collaborative ethnographic approach has allowed us to externalise and acknowledge the ways in which approaches of collaboration and care have underpinned our course production process, as well as being essential to the ways in which we enable our students to support their own learners. This paper aims to raise awareness of the significance of embracing uncertainty and adopting pedagogies of care and adds to the literature that employs Noddings' Framework of Moral Education to critically examine pedagogical practice. The insights gained will be useful for educators seeking to develop climate‐related curricula and the collaborative approach taken will be of interest to those developing new curricula in teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the application of Karl Maton's notion of ‘semantic waves’ to the teaching of geography at the post‐16 phase (A‐level) in England. Drawing on evidence generated through a 2‐year close‐to‐practice case study, it illustrates its potential as a scaffold in two ways. Firstly, one that can help teachers face both ways: Towards their subject discipline, to see it in more naïve forms, and towards their novice students, to make that form explicit and thus accessible to them. Such a deliberative or hermeneutic orientation stands in sharp contrast to the atomistic mode of the technicist orientation to knowledge dominant in English education. Secondly, as a scaffold that can provide a visual language for students which makes explicit the implicit relationship between different components of an essay, and in this sense, helps scaffold for a more relational mode of thinking about the geography itself. Interviews with students suggested semantic waves was: (i) a practical but not a prescriptive tool, (ii) a framework that could extend their thinking and (iii) a scaffold that connects knowledge with essay writing. It appeared to be a useful tool to bring the geographical knowledge and its complexity to the fore by aiding metacognitive thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a theoretical contribution to the discussion of powerful knowledge in education. The major claim is that curriculum integration can structure knowledge for a coherent curriculum and thus, support the idea of powerful knowledge. The mainstream understanding of curriculum integration promotes it as a pedagogical arrangement and views school subjects as being guilty of fragmenting students' experience. Leaning on empirical evidence, this paper argues that the question of integration cannot be left to teachers and students alone; rather, it is crucial to design a coherent written curriculum that supports the teaching‐studying‐learning process with an appropriately differentiated and integrated structure for school subjects. Alternatives for subject design and knowledge‐based curriculum integration with the potential for developing powerful knowledge are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which author discusses articles on topics including focuses on teacher education, a field often invisible yet in many ways constantly in dynamic interplay within curriculum reform processes, especially when conceived of and launched.

This paper reports on research that explored the experiences of secondary Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) professionals' simultaneous negotiation and implementation of the new Curriculum for Wales (CfW) Health and Well‐Being (HWB) Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE) and policies focused on the transformation of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in Wales. The study was an exploratory case study of PETE professionals working within one university's ITE programme. Data were generated through documentary analysis of PETE and ITE programme materials and semi‐structured interviews with staff involved in programme management and delivery. Data analysis employed Ball and colleagues' conceptualisation of policy actors and contexts to critically examine the varied policy positions that PETE professionals adopt in navigating and negotiating enactment of the HWB AoLE within their ITE provision. Attention is drawn to the significance of historical and culturally situated dimensions of secondary physical education and PETE in Wales, and significant changes to the professional culture of ITE, in shaping PETE educators' engagement with the HWB AoLE. The paper concludes by contending that ITE institutions in Wales need to further consider how PETE (and other) educators can be actively supported to engage in sophisticated policy work within their institutions and across policy and professional networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an empathetic perspective of the cultural dynamic of migrant students' first experiences of university, told through the student voice. It focuses on the transition of students into higher education (HE); not always considered as part of the formal curriculum, providing a deeper understanding of students' transition via the cultural context of their HE experience. While this research took place prior to the COVID pandemic, it is clear that the pandemic has led to an increased use of virtual learning platforms across the sector, and this is set to continue as institutions emerge from the pandemic, suggesting that transition will not necessarily take place within university buildings. If belonging was a challenge for some students prior to the pandemic, how will institutions support transition for the new pedagogy? The cultural experiences of first‐, second‐ and third‐generation migrant students have been scantily written about in this context. This paper contributes to current understanding by providing insights gleaned through the narrative accounts of students. Development of agency, belonging and community is framed through an approach that empowers and offers a co‐learner frame, achieved through the students' voices, offering narratives of the cultural experience of university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]