The "System of Competency-Based Curriculum Design" (SCCD) framework was developed to meet the requirement for reform in competency-based education and overcome the limitations of Understanding by Design (UbD). This comprehensive framework, incorporating knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values, aligns with competency ingredients as…

This article focuses on the possibilities through which curriculum on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic might contribute more proactively to future social and political crises that are multifarious yet interconnected in nature. The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis that touches every aspect of social life, including politics, the economy,…

A well-noted scholar in curriculum Joseph Schwab claimed that the field of curriculum in the US was in a state of decline by unexamined and mistaken reliance on theory specially in the 1960s. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the Ethiopian practical experiences of curriculum development and implementation context with respect to…

The aim of this chapter is to explore the relationship between curriculum and leadership research with examples of three recently completed mixed methods studies of assessment cultures and leadership as interlinked activities of governance and school management. We employ curriculum theoretical concepts like e.g. codes and arenas to illustrate…

Discourse approaches in education policy analysis have gained prominence in the last decade. However, though the literature on policy discourses is growing, different conceptions of the "discursive" dimension and its potential for empirical analysis related to the field of curriculum policy have not yet been fully researched. To address…

These are unprecedented times for K-12 schools. With a global pandemic, an economic recession, calls for racial justice, natural disasters, divisive politics, and the already demanding work of educating students on their plates, school system leaders face a set of crises unlike anything most have ever experienced. To help leaders through these…

The articles in this special issue include different perspectives on comparative policy studies with an aim to understand transnational education policies in relation to the logic of national educational systems and to grasp the ongoing reframing of teacher identity and teaching as a result of the policy activities of 'new' and coordinated…

This article is mainly a reaction paper that reflects on the views and positions of Wraga and Hlebowitsh (2003) concerning the crisis and renaissance of the curriculum field. In doing so, a brief critical review on the two authors' views with regard to the ups and downs that the curriculum field has passed through, and most importantly the crisis…

This article examines how three national curricula for basic education in Finland reflect transnational policy perspectives from 1994 to the present. By developing a conceptual apparatus for curriculum analysis, we examine how national curricula in Finland can be interpreted as modifications of transnational policy transfers shaped by…

This article describes the development of the Swedish curriculum-theory tradition with a focus on different curriculum practices, educational message systems, arenas, and curriculum makers. Attention has been paid to different places, spaces, and times in relation to the selection, ordering, and manifestation of knowledge, norms, and values, as…

This reflective essay on the papers in this special issue of EERJ on Northern European curriculum analysis discusses issues of comparison and scale, and the significance of global and local specificities in curriculum research. Drawing on comparative examples from outside Europe, the essay draws attention to some commonalities of the European…

This article analyzes the rhetoric of "death" and "haunting" in curriculum studies by closely reading Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, and Taubman's "Understanding Curriculum" (2002). Drawing on the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, I argue in the first section of the article that the rhetoric of death appears at…

Recent neoliberal policies and societal trends point toward new and perennial tensions for nation-state education, including curriculum/Didaktik and leadership thereof. These challenges affect governance/leadership and curriculum with changes in aims and values together in ways that demand coherence, yet the traditionally disparate fields of…

This study aimed to analyze the recently updated teacher education programmes in two universities in Finland and Thailand. The article reports the characteristics of the elementary and secondary school teacher education studies in the selected universities, and discusses the roles and significance of 21st century skills and their modifications in…

System models are commonly used in tertiary education as a mechanism for describing the interacting components of educational phenomena, but have hitherto been uncritically accepted. This paper provides a critical review of existing systems models, including the 3P model defined Biggs, and outlines their conceptual challenges. A revised model…