This article questions what kind of actors become involved and analyzes what forms of knowledge are activated, when discourses such as "research-based" and "profession-oriented" become basic preconditions in national curriculum change processes in Norway. A "mapping" is conducted, comprised of actors and ideas, played…

Education reform has focused on academic standards, but curriculum is still weighed down by outdated subject-area categories that are reinforced through various practices and institutions. T his article examines the possibilities for an integrative curriculum model that can accommodate the broad goals of holistic education and the needs of society…

Australian STEM education seems caught in a whirlpool of problems that are contributing to one another. Student engagement and performance in STEM are declining, but we do not have the supply of qualified teachers we need to improve learning. The STEM curriculum is unbalanced and fragmented, leading to less interest among students. It is not…

Background/Context: Teacher education programs are charged with the daunting task of preparing the next generation of teachers. However, the extant literature has documented that teacher education programs have struggled to effectively arm teacher candidates with effective pedagogies to meet the needs of our increasingly diverse student…

The prominence afforded to literacy in the Irish Primary School Curriculum has received considerable attention in recent years, spurred by Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings, governmental priorities, public commentary and academic debate. At times, this discourse has presented literacy as a separate and distinct entity…

In the broad area of moral philosophy, critiques of well-being values have notably increased since the 1980's. Often underpinning analysis are contrasting theories of well-being, e.g. subjective constructs that value highly reflections on personal experiences and individual fulfillment, and objective theories that emphasise more through specific…

In this qualitative study, we examined eleven Singapore teachers' conceptions of teaching and learning as related to their experiences implementing integrated curriculum. Interviews revealed that the teachers' conceptions of integration spanned the spectrum of ideas found in relevant literature. Further, although participants saw benefits to…

School change is always local and dependent on the kinds of resources that are available. In this paper we explore the notion that knowledge is an important resources for vernacular educational reform. In order to explore this contention, we use the lens of cross-curricular changes undertaken by English schools in receipt of funding from Creative…

In this article I initially borrow a metaphor from an art exhibition, "Ocean to Outback," as a way to express my perspective on the contribution that Leonie Rennie has made to science education in Australia. I then consider Leonie's contributions as overlapping themes. In particular, Leonie's well-known research on gender and issues of…

This article examines education policy on curricular integration and interdisciplinary practices in primary and secondary education (K-11) in Colombia. It presents an overview of institutional and teachers' discourses and practices concerning this subject, based on empirical work that was done in Bogotá. Finally, it presents a cooperative research…

This report explores the extent to which states (and several large cities) are positioned to provide high quality preschool education on a large scale. States and cities that are already doing so or that could do so with modest improvements offer opportunities for advocacy to advance access to high quality early education as well as for rigorous…

The introduction of liberal studies is a new curriculum reform initiative in Hong Kong starting from 2009. It is a kind of formal interdisciplinary curriculum built on decades of experiences garnered from the implementation of various integrated subjects with similar nature. Through the method of documentary analysis that brings all official…

While the application of geoinformation (GI) in German schools is becoming increasingly important, a systematic integration in school curricula, arranged in a cumulative and competence-oriented manner, is still lacking. Here the authors discuss existing approaches to the problem and propose a learning strategy based on the stepwise gain of GI…

This article critically examines the recommendations of two major Indian education reports--NCFSE 2000 and NCF 2005--prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training in India. The NCFSE 2000 has recommended an integrated teaching of geography as one component of the social studies. The NCF 2005 has reverted to the pre-NCFSE…

Over the past three decades, environmental issues have been on the global forefront and continue to affect people's daily lives. Although the need for environmental attention is at an all-time high, outdoor and environmental education (OEE) plays an insufficient role in school systems. As technology continues to contribute to advancements in every…