In this paper, we connect with Martin Thrupp's calls for class-based analysis in education policy by problematising the absence of social class in the refreshed New Zealand curriculum, "Te Mataiaho" (2023). To contextualise this absence, we locate this curriculum policy in a historical perspective and interpret its 'identity turn' as an…

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…

Despite widespread commitment to inclusive education as government policy, global progress in the last two decades has been slow and uneven. This article explores the relationship between policy and its enactment to examine what conditions make inclusion available as a course of action within education systems. Focusing on learners with additional…

Transgender and nonbinary (collectively referred to here as "trans") students are ill-served by most school environments. They experience challenges trying to navigate institutions that, at best, are poorly designed to support them and that often work against them. Although some districts and states have developed laws and policies to…

Curriculum reform was high on the agenda of South Africa's post-apartheid governments. Yet as time passed, the initial reforms were seen as increasingly problematic, especially when pedagogical realities met policy priorities. There was reluctance on the part of policymakers to give up what was seen as the democratic imperative behind the reforms.…

Previous work has not yet comparatively studied which forms of peace education (PE) have been adopted in national laws. Through content analysis of policy documents, we seek to find out why the Colombian Congress established PE as mandatory content across all educational levels in 2014 in a postwar phase, while the German Standing Conference of…

Scholars have advocated for student voice and participation across curriculum design, assessment planning, and policymaking in higher education to advance and achieve equity (Montenegro and Jankowski 2020; Jankowski and Bheda 2022; Damiano 2018). However, the reality seems far different from the intention or aspiration, primarily because explicit…

The aim of this paper is to examine key change vectors shaping the undergraduate curriculum in the third decade of the twenty-first century. The paper begins by outlining selected definitions, foundational theories and conceptual frameworks underpinning this analysis of the undergraduate curriculum and its influences. Three key external forces…

This article seeks to explain how Aotearoa New Zealand moved from a consensus that the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) should grant a high degree of autonomy to teachers, to an emerging view that it ought to be more prescriptive about content. To do this, it takes an assemblage approach to policy analysis, understanding policies as constantly…

Different and competing conceptions of knowledge have recently been the focus of debate in education, especially art education. The cognitive science conception of knowledge as information processing and storage in long-term memory is especially prominent in educational policy. By contrast, within writing that is directly about art education,…

Competence-based approaches (CBAs) in education have become an internationally important educational policy concept in recent decades. However, a substantial body of research has suggested that in order to understand and explain the evolution of CBAs, there is a need to analyse curriculum-making as a complex and multi-layered practice. To…

This paper contributes to curriculum theory from the perspective of a fundamental critique of education. Its objective is two-fold: to analyze both traditional and critical approaches to the curriculum and the types of education that flow from them and to propose changes that could result in significant improvements to the curricula through the…

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…

This paper critically examines the White Paper, "Opportunity for all," published by the UK Government's Department for Education (DfE) in March 2022. This has a number of recommendations for schools in an attempt to 'level up'. In particular, there is a promise to deliver 'a fully trust-led system with a single regulatory approach [and]…

Policy capacity in music education can be enhanced through understanding the policy-making process and state governmental policy. Three examples of engagement in state-level policy action are used to explore agency, negotiation, and visioning as important dispositions for advancing music education policy goals. First, influencing state-level…