This paper addresses the question of what role the historical discipline might play in informing the selection of substantive knowledge for school history curricula. In the process, it seeks to clarify the usefulness and limitations of Young's social realist theory of powerful knowledge in the case of school history. The paper proposes that…

Some might fear that the local flavours of education will evaporate when encountering the hegemony of global, cognitive standards of the knowledge economy. This paper, however, shows that the evolution of curriculum can emerge in surprising directions, creating hybrid forms of education. We will investigate forms of meaning that emerge in…

This article explores an underlying tension between two understandings of historical consciousness. On one hand, the concept is often perceived as a specific ability to historicize the world and thus appears as a modern cultural achievement. On the other hand, it is also conceptualized as an anthropological universal as the ability to make sense…

Human rights education (HRE) is an urgent historically and globally recognized challenge for societies. However, it has not been sufficiently addressed by empirical and theoretical research in education. Based on the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (UNDHRET), there is wide agreement that HRE should include education…

This paper analyses the coverage of Indigenous topics in K-12 education in British Columbia (BC) using curriculum documents and course enrolment. It focuses on curriculum documents published between 1995 and 2010 and mandated in public education from 1995 to 2019, and argues that Indigenous topics were marginalized in the curriculum overall.…

This study draws on data collected from Chinese language textbooks to investigate the ways in which ethnic minority cultures and languages are represented in primary school textbooks in China. Drawing on the methods of thematic and comparative analysis, we specifically analyse how the representation of ethnic minorities in Chinese textbooks has…

Recently, the Canadian government has initiated a wide range of actions and gestures aimed at reconciling historical injustices including the state's relationship with Indigenous peoples and nations. Reforming K-12 education to adequately teach Canada's difficult past has been a key priority in this movement, leading to curriculum change across…

As an overview in connection with the 50th anniversary of the "Journal of Curriculum Studies" (JCS), this article begins with John Dewey's notion that all educational actions carry philosophical implications. The tension between different education-research philosophies, between non-social and social education philosophies in Dewey's…

This paper studies the teacher perceived applicability of historical topics for interpretational history teaching and the criteria teachers use to evaluate this applicability. For this study, 15 expert history teachers in the Netherlands striving for interpretational history teaching were purposefully selected. Teachers were asked to mention…

This article considers the role of teacher agency and curricular flexibility as pedagogic features of Shoah education in Israeli state schools. The analysis is based on a recent national study which included a quantitative survey (questionnaires), qualitative methods (focus groups, interviews, observations) and a socio-historical review. As…

This paper critiques the emergence of micro-credentials in higher education. It argues that micro-credentials build on the discourse of employability skills and 21st century skills within human capital theory, and that they increase the potential of human capital theory to 'discipline' the HE curriculum to align it more closely with putative…

Although most teachers adapt curriculum, we know little about teachers' rationales for modifying materials, how these rationales align with actual modifications, nor whether any patterns exist in the modifications that teachers make. This is especially the case in history/social studies, where research on curriculum is scant and research on…

This research explored the extent to which secondary school history teachers in England willingly engaged with a series of concurrent curriculum reforms, and the factors that shaped their level of agency in the process. The curriculum has been the target of sustained reform by many governments, and accountability measures are frequently used to…

Historical representations of the National Society for the Study of Education's Committee on Curriculum-Making typically recount that the purpose of the committee was to assemble representatives from competing curriculum camps to achieve consensus on curriculum principles, depict the committee's work as important, cast doubt on the consensus the…

This article investigates the composition of the Norwegian lower secondary school curriculum with a special emphasis on pre-vocational education from a contemporary perspective. The data consist of four official national curricula enacted from the 1970s until the present. Despite differences between the curricula, the main structure of school…