This article examines curricular development within compulsory science and mathematics education (grades k-9) in Denmark during a 20-year transition towards competency-oriented curricula. The article contains two main parts. In the first part, we describe the Danish case, emphasizing how international and national trends at the turn of the…

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 article investigates how learning outcomes, a concept inspired by an Anglo-Saxon curriculum approach, are expressed in policy documents, with an emphasis on expectations articulated to teachers. Developments in education policy for the last two decades reflect a widespread expansion of learning outcome orientation in curricula and assessment…

History teaching usually focuses on understanding the past as an aim in itself. Research shows that many students do not see the point of this and perceive history as not very useful. Yet history plays a major role in the orientation on present and future. If students fail to see this, the question arises whether this is due to a lack of explicit…

Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland outlines a policy vision of a more progressive, integrated and holistic form of education; a commitment which contains an obligation for health and well-being (HWB) to be a responsibility of all teachers. A critical policy analysis approach was utilized in order to review school-level progress in different…

Michael Young's article "Overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: a knowledge-based approach" ("JCS, 45", 2) is discussed from the starting point that the claimed crisis is constructed from a decisive solution, that is the solution determines what is a crisis. But curriculum research and curriculum theory are in need of…

This article uses curriculum-making frameworks to analyse and reconstruct the Chinese curriculum-making model and unpack the dynamics, complexity and constraints of China's curriculum reform since the early 1990s. It argues that curriculum reform is China's main human capital development strategy for coping with the challenges of the 21st century,…

Reviews the role of history in the U.S. social studies curriculum. Explains that differing interpretations of history and the purposes of history have had a significant impact on the structure of the K-12 social studies curriculum. Argues that the time is ripe for historians and social studies educators to renew cooperative efforts. (CFR)

One of the missions of a university is the creation and dissemination of knowledge. Because this work is traditionally divided among scores or even hundreds of academic and research units for the convenience of the producing scholars and the orderly retrieval of this knowledge, the problem of introducing university students to the world of…

This paper reports a study on teachers' domain-specific beliefs about the chemistry curriculum for upper-secondary education in The Netherlands. Teachers' beliefs were investigated using a questionnaire focused on the goals of the chemistry curriculum. The design of the questionnaire was based on three curriculum emphases: "fundamental…

Identifies nine dimensions of curriculum for use in evaluating curricular innovations: principles, objectives, student entry behaviors, assessment tools, instructional materials, learning experiences, teaching strategies, content, and time. (KC)

Examines the extent to which the widely publicized changes in mathematics curricula and in methods of teaching mathematics since 1960 have resulted in observable change in classroom behavior of teachers, in content, and/or in student achievement in mathematics. Findings from several studies of mathematics education in British Columbia indicated…

Curriculum developers and scholars in China are facing a set of inter-related issues around the goals and the strategies of curriculum reform. This paper argues that there are, as in every process of curriculum development, seven goals to be addressed within China's curriculum reform: (1) the establishment of a new curriculum philosophy or ideal;…

Maintains that at the basis of any philosophical discussion of the curriculum is the question whether there is any overriding objective toward which schooling should strive. Identifies various qualities which can be inculcated in students to increase wisdom and to contribute to human development. (DB)

Describes a study funded by the Science Council of Canada, to evaluate policies and practices of Canadian science education. Objectives of the study were to establish a documented basis for describing the state of Canadian science education, to conduct an historical analysis of science education in Canada, and to stimulate deliberation concerning…