A long tradition of both State and religious interest and support characterised provision for education on the island of Ireland from the 1700s. Following the partition of Ireland in the 1920s, the newly created political entities of the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland forged separate and distinct education policy trajectories that largely…

Today's school students are inheriting complex and harmful global challenges that are potentially irreversible and which they will need to address. The ability to think critically and creatively, to work in interdisciplinary teams and to understand the importance of a healthy planet for all life will be needed for success. Education has a major…

Contemporary educational reform discourses in Taiwan call for the modernization of education to meet the needs of society of the 21st century. The principles and rules of 'reason' that historically order educational discourses can't be taken for granted. This article uses Popkewitz's notion of alchemy to think about the principles. The notions of…

This paper examines how superintendents and school principals enact national policy reform expectations and what characterises their local organisational arrangements. Furthermore, the paper investigates how superintendents and school principals deal with tensions as entrepreneurs. The study builds on qualitative interview data from two…

Noting that the first decade of the new millennium is sure to see continuing efforts to reform curriculum and classroom practices by implementing the middle school concept, this booklet answers middle school teachers' most pressing questions about the cornerstone of the middle school concept, integrated curriculum. The 20 questions addressed…

While the fresh debate on education's autonomy continues in this special issue as in other forums and venues, new layers of complexity on this theme continue to emerge, just as further nuances are revealed in the course of discussion. Following this welcomed growth in the discussion, and in the spirit of characterizing autonomy--and therefore also…

National statistics show increasing turnover in the superintendency. Additionally, neither practicing nor former superintendents record experiences within that public role. Given a two-century historical gap in the literature of few accounts from superintendents' perspectives, my study described my journey through three superintendencies from 1993…

The 2007 Bondar Report, "Shaping Our Schools, Shaping Our Future," generated a vision for environmental curricula in Ontario. It has been the basis for the mandated framework introduced in 2009 by the Ministry of Education for environmental education (EE) in all Ontario schools. Based on our research and personal reflections, this paper…

A Physical Education Development Group (PEDG) was responsible for constructing a new school subject curriculum, Leaving Certificate Physical Education (LCPE), in Ireland. This paper provides an insight into this development group and explores the process of curriculum development, and the influence of roles and power-ratios within the group, in…

We are living and learning in a time of multiple crises with profound implications for every aspect of our lives. Hankering for what we have 'lost' is understandable, but we need to take the opportunity to build something better. This means being wide awake to the realities of crisis and combining a sense of urgency with radical optimism and hope.…

Since the late 1980s, school curriculum revisions in Japan have sought to promote capabilities and dispositions that transcend subject boundaries and are often labelled 'competencies' in international curricular discourse. This study examines policy documents over the period, showing how Japanese policymakers have sought to navigate pressures…

Principals' management of curriculum change is critical in successfully implementing transformation in schools. This is particularly crucial in South Africa where the curriculum has been in a constant state of flux since 1994. In this article, we explore principals' experiences on the support they receive in the management of the implementation of…

The author proposes the Curriculum of Liberty, in the spirit of the National Association of Scholars' principles, which will educate American college students toward freedom, the pursuit of truth, and virtuous citizenship, with a double goal in mind. In the short term, Americans must learn the lessons of self-reliance, liberty, and virtue to make…

Education is going through a period of crisis related to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that most probably will follow a continuum organized into distinct phases: emergency, recovery, reconstruction, development, and institutionalization. This article analyzes the response of curriculum to an unpredictable, chaotic, and recursive crisis situation. The…

This article investigates the position of environmental education in the primary school curriculum over the past 150 years in the Republic of Ireland. The extent of how wider social, political, and cultural developments influence the way in which teachers and learners experience environmental education can be seen through the curricular changes.…