This paper has its origins in the EU Comenius funded GeoCapabilities project. From its outset, the project developed and researched the notion of powerful disciplinary knowledge (PDK) as an underlying principle of curriculum making in the context of secondary school geography teaching. The work, led from the UCL Institute of Education and…

This paper interrogates the concept of recontextualisation and discusses its relevance for understandings of the knowledge required for teaching subjects. While various distinctive approaches to recontextualisation can be identified, this analysis primarily draws on the work of Bernstein, with recontextualisation discussed in the broader context…

In England, the development of teachers' curriculum design capabilities has been identified as a 'challenge remaining' (Department for Education [DfE]. (2022). "Opportunity for all: Strong schools with great teachers for your child."…

Across the world, countries have engaged in different iterations of curriculum change, and one of the common denominators of reform is the proposal of more agency for teachers around curriculum making. This is not an easy task for teachers. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about the effects that international ERASMUS+…

Teachers draw on an amalgam of knowledge bases in their summative assessment decision making. However, research indicates that teachers' actions do not necessarily reflect their knowledge of good summative assessment practice, as other factors are at play. This article draws on findings from a qualitative study to explore what drives the decision…

This article takes up questions about knowledge and the school curriculum with respect to literary studies within subject English. Its intention is to focus on literary studies in English from the context of current waves of curriculum reform, rather than as part of the conversations primarily within the field of English, to raise questions about…

Despite the increased interest in research impact, there is very little empirical evidence that educational research can inform practice directly, and furthermore, a body of literature which suggests that this is, in principle, impossible. This paper reports on a study in which secondary school teachers were given research findings about teaching…

Assessing student learning is a complex process requiring teachers to have deep knowledge of the curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy. Changing political climates mean that teachers are expected to respond to new approaches or systems and adjust their classroom practice accordingly. Teachers often engage in professional learning (PL) to assist…

The phrase "curriculum making" has recently been used to describe medium-term planning and teachers' enactment of such planning in the classroom. This narrows the term's initial use from that in the first half of the twentieth century when it was employed inclusively from national programmes to lesson planning. While considering related…

This paper reports research on the initial teacher training and continuing professional development of teachers in six African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda). The focus of the research was on the teaching of early reading and mathematics. The curriculum of both these areas was analysed in terms of (i) implementation…

Within the UK, physical education finds itself, as a curriculum subject, in a contested space with felt pressures from competing discourses and policy areas. This paper contests that over time within this nexus, physical education has become disconnected in four specific ways: from the wider movement culture, from other curriculum subjects, within…

I present some key ideas and examples of (mainly French) work in the didactics of mathematics with the aim of identifying the didactics approach to education in relation to more general approaches. In particular I discuss three crucial features of didactics: (1) its epistemological character, i.e. the central focus on specific knowledge in…

This article addresses the themes of this special issue by examining the disciplinary dimensions of learning and teaching within undergraduate courses in the areas of biology and history. Key ways of thinking and practising that biology and history lecturers wished to foster in their students are identified. It presents a relational view of the…

"What happens to domain knowledge on its way into the school curriculum?" The article explores this question from a systems view of the knowledge transformation process. This process is not only bound to "contextual knowledge" about "social forces" but also to the school's own "educational knowledge"…

The specification of various categories of knowledge that teachers should possess has been a historically consistent feature of moves to professionalize school teaching and to argue for individual teachers' professional autonomy. In this article, I suggest that the ways in which subject knowledge has been treated in research-based recipes for…