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Understanding teachers' pedagogical choice provides a new insight into the influences on student achievement. This paper presents a sociological framework developed from the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens that identify the complex social interactions which surround teacher's work. The framework examines teachers' potential to act knowledgeably and intentionally and how this action also leads to unintended consequences of those actions. This is important, as both the intentional action and the associated unintended consequences affect the teacher's classroom practice and the learning of students. Application of the framework to examine the influences on teachers' pedagogical choice is presented through two school case studies from Victoria, Australia. The environment that encourages teachers to actively review their teaching practice is revealed. It was through reflective collaborative discussions that teachers reviewed their current classroom practices and trial or implement different pedagogies to enhance the learning of young people in their classrooms.

Radical curriculum policy transformations are emerging as a key strategy of universities across different countries as they move to strengthen their competitive position in a global knowledge era. This paper puts forward a "global case study" research agenda in the under-researched area of university curriculum policy. The particular curriculum policies to be investigated point to potentially new forms of liberal education, and they resonate in varying degrees with contemporary patterns in Europe as well as longer standing patterns in the United States. This research agenda stands to make a unique contribution with its "whole curriculum" approach to: the examination of the relationship between curriculum content, pedagogy and assessment; the tracking of curriculum policy borrowing across different jurisdictions extending between global and local levels; and the investigation of historical antecedents of contemporary curriculum policy patterns. In particular, the proposed agenda features a rare combination of spatial and temporal dimensions of university curriculum policy flows. This research agenda will provide a strong empirical evidence base for extending theory building about university curriculum policy development, as well as policy "learning" for policy makers, practitioners and scholars--globally.